National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1012
Submission – NDIS Eligibility and Audit Provisions
I am a social worker and counsellor in private practice in Victoria. I am making this submission due to concerns regarding proposed NDIS eligibility and compliance provisions and their potential impact on individuals living with complex psychosocial disability, autism, and other significant functional impairments.
This submission particularly addresses provisions relating to stricter eligibility requirements, ongoing reassessment processes, increased auditing and evidentiary requirements for participants accessing supports, and the increasing reliance on mainstream systems to provide support in place of individualised NDIS funding.
While I acknowledge the importance of accountability and the long-term sustainability of the NDIS, I am concerned that the proposed measures may unintentionally disadvantage vulnerable individuals and families who already experience substantial barriers accessing support and maintaining stability.
Psychosocial disability can significantly and persistently impact an individual’s ability to function across multiple areas of daily life, including emotional regulation, executive functioning, communication, decision-making, social connection, and capacity to engage consistently with services and systems.
Ongoing supports are imperative in assisting individuals to maintain stability, access treatment and community services, sustain housing and relationships, and preserve overall functioning and wellbeing. For many individuals living with complex psychosocial disability, continuity of support is not supplementary, but essential to preventing deterioration, crisis presentations, hospitalisation, and further social exclusion.
Individuals experiencing psychosocial disability may already face significant barriers navigating complex administrative systems due to symptoms including anxiety, dissociation, cognitive impairment, reduced executive functioning, distrust of systems, and trauma-related distress. Increased auditing processes, repeated reassessments, and ongoing requirements to repeatedly demonstrate impairment may place additional psychological and practical burden on vulnerable participants.
From a trauma-informed perspective, repeated scrutiny and disruption to support continuity may contribute to distress, disengagement from services, re-traumatisation, and worsening mental health outcomes. Processes that create barriers to continuity of support may unintentionally destabilise vulnerable participants and undermine the very functioning the supports are intended to maintain.
I am also concerned regarding the impact of proposed reforms on children with autism and their families. Many children with autism already experience significant disadvantage within education settings, including school refusal, exclusion, reduced attendance, bullying, sensory overwhelm, and inability to successfully engage within mainstream educational environments despite existing adjustments and supports.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1012
For some children, supports delivered solely within educational settings may not adequately address the complexity of their functional, emotional, behavioural, sensory, and social needs across home and community environments. Reliance on educational settings to provide or coordinate supports may create additional barriers for children and families who are already struggling to maintain consistent school engagement and participation.
Families of children with complex needs frequently experience high levels of stress, financial strain, advocacy burden, and caregiver burnout. Reducing access to individualised supports or increasing barriers to accessing early and ongoing intervention risks worsening long-term outcomes for both children and their families.
These concerns are also relevant to principles outlined within the Australian Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics, including respect for persons, dignity, self-determination, social justice, inclusion, and minimising harm.
I respectfully recommend that the committee:
ensure psychosocial disability assessments appropriately recognise fluctuating capacity and the long-term nature of many psychosocial conditions;
implement trauma-informed review and audit processes;
minimise unnecessary reassessment requirements for participants with well- documented ongoing disability;
ensure continuity of supports during review periods;
recognise that educational settings alone may not meet the needs of children with autism and complex disability;
maintain access to individualised and flexible supports across home, school, and community settings; and
increase access to advocacy and support navigation services for vulnerable participants and families.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this submission.