National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1030
Inquiry: The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
I am the parent of a 17-year-old autistic Level 3 NDIS participant with high and ongoing support needs. I strongly oppose the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 in its current form.
This Bill concentrates excessive discretionary power in the hands of the Minister and Agency while weakening transparency, review rights, parliamentary oversight, and participant safeguards. Australians with disability should not have their essential supports subject to broad ministerial powers, shifting delegated rules, or temporary legislative mechanisms that bypass proper scrutiny.
The Disability Royal Commission repeatedly identified the dangers of systems that remove autonomy, reduce accountability, and silence disabled people and families. This Bill risks repeating those failures by increasing uncertainty, restricting reassessment pathways, enabling category-wide cuts and cohort caps, and allowing significant operational changes through subordinate instruments rather than full parliamentary debate.
My son’s therapies, community supports, respite, and daily assistance are not optional extras. They are essential supports that uphold his safety, communication, dignity, regulation, and participation in society. Provisions such as the “directly arising” test, loss of unspent funds at renewal, new eligibility thresholds, and expanded suspension powers create fear and instability for families already carrying significant caring responsibilities.
Human rights principles require disability support systems to promote participation, stability, fairness, and equal access — not administrative convenience or unchecked executive power.
No single Minister should hold the authority to substantially alter access to disability supports for vulnerable Australians without robust parliamentary scrutiny, consultation, and enforceable safeguards.
I urge the Committee to reject the Bill in its current form and undertake genuine co-design with disabled people, families, advocates, and the disability sector before progressing reforms of this scale.
Queensland Australia.