National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1053
Hi there, my name is Lavender, I’m a disabilites advocate and have many friends in my personal life who use and rely on the NDIS daily. I am also familiar with close friends in the United States who face similar problems in a very different system and am familiar with how they open themselves up for abuse. Not in individuals abusing the system, but the system abusing those who need help the most. As an advocate in my community, and a friend, I believe this bill only opens up the NDIS and those on it to harm from above.
The power given to the minister to define reduced support across all plans is extreme and ill- thought. It is taken a sledgehammer to a situation where a scalpel is needed. It takes control away from individuals that rely on these plans, and allows for the system to implode in on itself at any time, simply for the sake of costs. One can imagine a less sympathetic government abusing this power to turn the NDIS into a shell of what it is today.
Another loss of agency comes in the form of unscheduled plan reassessments. Support is a loose term that can change at any time, it is easy to imagine a case of someone’s situation quickly deteriorating and finding themselves unable to find anything that can help for months on end. Combined with expectations that health insurance take up more of the burden in certain cases. And it creates a perfect storm for people with genuine deteriorations being forced to work with support designed for someone far healthier. As an aside, it is also frankly naive to think that the goals of an insurance company and the goals of the NDIA are in any way aligned. The NDIS was built to give support, insurance companies are built to give you as little money as possible. They have never and will never work together as complementary systems.
There is also changes to what is considered ‘available’ for permanent disabilities is at odds with reality. You do not say that a first class flight is ‘available’ to everyone since the option to buy a ticket is up on their website. You acknowledge that not everyone can afford such a thing. Many treatments, especially in more complex causes become exorbitantly expensive, or even experimental, only available to select few. These cases get smoothed over by theoretical availability, but do nothing for those who need support. It is the same for functional capacity, environmental factors and personal circumstance being replaced with intrinsic qualities. If I put a car in the middle of the ocean, I do not expect it to drive along the bottom because of its current abilities. I assess situations dependent on what context they are put in.
Finally, automation is another major concern of mine. As a software engineer in the tech industy, we have seen the impacts of AI and technologies like it on automation, and the current results have been disastrous. Longer wait times, more frustration, less humans, less ability to even know why decisions have been made. We all understand that efficiency is important, but that is not the same as automation, and the more control we give over to computers, the less control anyone has, and more ‘tricky’ cases will be lost in the sea of strict rules.
I believe this bill in its current form is harmful to disabled communities and the individuals left most vulnerable without the support of the NDIS. I do not believe it should be passed by parliament, and should be heavily revised with input from the disabled community. Even if you believe the measures reasonable, it opens the system to allow subsequent governments and bad actors to gut the system and create harms well beyond its immediate impacts. Please reconsider.
I appreciate whoever may take the time to read this. Lavender.