Submission to the Senate Community Affairs

Legislation Committee

NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Bill 2025

From: Axel (NDIS participant)

Who I am

My name is Axel. I am an NDIS participant.

My disability is complex and fluctuating. It is not the same every day. It is not the same every year.

My disability is now understood to be epigenetically driven, which means:

• my needs change
• my capacity changes
• my risks change
• and my supports must change with me

This submission is about how parts of this Bill will affect people like me.

1. Integrity and Safeguards must protect participants from systems — not just providers

This Bill gives stronger powers to the NDIS Quality and Safegards Commission to control providers.

I support real safeguards.

But I want the Committee to understand this:

Some of the greatest harm I have experienced did not come from “bad” providers.“”’ It came from rigid systems that refused to adapt to my actual needs.

When supports are:

• standardised

• “one-size-fits-all”
• based on labels

people like me fall into crisis.

Safeguards must apply to:

• providers and
• systems that force inappropriate supports onto people with complex needs

2. Cookie-cutter supports are dangerous for fluctuating disability

The Bill focuses heavily on compliance, rules, and standardisation.

For people like me, this is risky.

Autism is not one thing. Disability is not one thing.

My disability:

• fluctuates
• escalates
• de-escalates
• is driven by underlying biological processes, not behaviour or “choices”

When systems insist on:

• fixed rosters
• rigid plans
• identical supports used for other autistic people

I do not get support.

I get harm.

The Bill must not strengthen systems that:

• treat autism as a uniform category
• ignore biological and medical drivers of distress
• punish difference instead of responding to it

Compliance powers must not be used against participants

The Bill expands information-gathering and compliance powers.

I am concerned these powers could be used to:

• question my legitimacy
• challenge my needs when they change
• interpret crisis as “non-compliance”

I have experienced crisis because my supports were wrong, not because I was wrong.

Safeguards must ensure:

• fluctuating need is not treated as fraud
• crisis is not treated as misconduct
• complexity is not treated as suspicion

Registration rules must not remove skilled, intuitive supporters

The Bill strengthens provider registration rules.

I understand the intent.

But I need supporters who:

• understand my non speaking communication
• can respond intuitively when my system shifts
• know when to step back and when to step in

Some of the people who have supported me best:

• do not fit neat provider categories
• may be excluded by over-rigid registration rules

If this Bill reduces my ability to access the right person, it reduces my safety.

Technology and electronic systems must not override human judgment

The Bill expands electronic claiming and plan management.

This worries me.

My disability cannot be captured properly by:

• drop-down boxes
• fixed categories
• automated decisions

When my condition fluctuates:

• I need fast adaptation
• not system delay
• not digital rejection

Safeguards must ensure human judgment stays central.

6. Integrity must include preventing crisis — not just responding after harm

Much of my harm occurred before anyone intervened.

The system often waits until:

• crises escalate
• families collapse
• harm occurs

Then it investigates.

True integrity means:

• flexible supports
• early response
• trust in lived experience

Not just penalties after the fact.

7. My lived experience matters to this Bill

I have lived through:

• severe crises caused by inappropriate supports
• long periods where the system did not believe what my body was doing
• being treated as “too complex” or “too difficult”

This Bill will succeed or fail based on one question:

Does it make space for people who don’t fit the template?

Right now, I am not confident it does.

What I ask the Committee to consider

Please ensure this Bill:

• Protects participants from systemic rigidity
• Recognises fluctuating and biologically driven disability
• Does not equate difference or crisis with non-compliance
• Preserves choice of appropriate, intuitive supports
• Keeps human judgment central to safeguards
• Prevents harm - not just punishes it later

Closing

Integrity should mean:

• the right support
• at the right time
• for the right person

Not just a cleaner system on paper.

Thank you for listening.

– Axel