National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1075
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
To Whom it May Concern,
I am writing to you in opposition to aspects of the proposed NDIS legislative amendments due to serious concerns regarding the fundamental cost to real human life, ability for people with disabilities to live amongst society and have the same rights to live as everyone else, procedural fairness and rights of disabled individuals under human rights laws.
I am writing to you not only as a multiply disabled individual who is a NDIS participant but also as someone from a complex disabled family with many others who I love being disabled and as an allied health provider supporting those who have similar disabilities to myself.
There are many fundamental concerns with the NDIS proposed bill changes which will cost human life in the 100’s if not 1000’s due to the inability to access the supports needed to survived – these changes will mean many of us will have our human rights stripped and be at further risk of abuse, exploitation and even death because there will be no governance or safeguard on the ministers ability to unilaterally take away the essential things we need to live.
NDIS has provided me and many others I know the capacity to obtain skills, engage within the community, obtain and maintain employment I would not otherwise have and have the dignity to even shower and meet my basic life needs which I otherwise wouldn’t have without the NDIS. Without the support of NDIS, I and many others I know; would not be able to live within their families, make skills to contribute financially to society and meet others who enable us to contribute to society. Without NDIS, I and many others would not be able to meet basic self-care, survival needs, would be isolated and likely dead many years ago because of the limitations of my/their disability – without the NDIS, my family would not be together in the barely sustainable way it has been able to with the NDIS and getting out into the community would never be a reality as most days I wasn’t able to get out my front door due to my disabilities.
There are so many risks within these bill changes not only for me but for all disabled Australian’s which will result in life-threatening consequences:
- Change how the NDIS decides who qualifies for support: o This means the minister can make overall changes at the push of a button essentially to remove a whole disability group or category from the NDIS
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1075
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 20
and you may not be able to get back onto the scheme unless this is changed which is unlikely to be changed. 2. Make it harder to ask for your plan or your child’s plan to be changed when circumstances change: o The criteria for changes to plan’s will be much narrower and you may not be able to utilise reports or evidence from your therapeutic team to make changes to your NDIS plan. You may also be restricted from getting support from your team including support coordinators to lodge change of circumstance or other things you need on your behalf. o The Agency can refuse to reassess, There is no reviewable decision if they just don’t reassess, They now have 90 days, but there is no deemed refusal (this means they can just ignore it and you will never find out why or if you can appeal it like you can now after the 21 day period i.e. internal review then tribunal). 3. Expect parents, carers, and families to provide more support for their child themselves: o Removal or complete change of definition to ‘parental responsibility’ which will mean many families will be unsupported across all domains. This will include everyone and will likely include those who provide care to their adult children into the future. 4. Allow some NDIA decisions to be made using automated computer systems or AI: o This one is extremely concerning and will mean a computer system without human input will decide what your future looks like essentially. o But what information is the automation relying on when deciding how to apply the determination, and why can’t the participant see it and review the information the AI is relying on especially as the agency already can’t maintain the paperwork it has now. 5. Leave some important rules about how the scheme works to be decided later, instead of being written into the law now: o This means the NDIS/minister can introduce changes which can and will have life-threatening consequences as they please without any need for consultation or ramification of the impact these changes will have. 6. Change how early support for children is assessed: o This will be the likely start of removal of many children off on NDIS onto things which don’t exist or will be so in-undated, inaccessible and promoting very dangerous outdated practices such as ABA-adjacent therapies as the gold standard. This will also place extreme pressure on already strained systems such as healthcare, education etc. Many of which are largely inaccessible anyway for our community. 7. Narrow what supports the NDIS will pay for: o NDIS will be able to make decisions based on an uneducated premiss over what is more beneficial even if the comparison isn’t even evident.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1075
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 20
This could mean they fund a ‘social skills program’ over allied health and cut funding for these across all plans moving forward and not have to justify why. You will not be able to make any changes to this either because what they say is funded will be funded, end of story. This could mean equipment such as wheelchairs and other equipment will only be able to be loaned/on a lease basis not specified to the person’s needs because leasing would cost less in the government’s eyes (this also means if the lease isn’t deemed as suitable to the decision makers or AI system at any stage - goodbye wheelchair). o This applies regardless of the person’s circumstances – eg they can’t afford it or get to a clinic offering it, basically too bad, so sad. o The Minister can reduce the funding of a certain category by a percentage
- this has already been stated to target social and community participation, but it isn’t limited to that, it will likely be all categories without anything that can be done to prevent them from doing so. Some categories of participants will have this applied when their next plan starts
- Allow plans to be suspended in some situations if a participant cannot be contacted for 90 days: o This means contacting you directly, not your support coordinator or other team. How often has the NDIS lost paperwork or stated they have contacted you but had your details wrong? This happens all the time and after a certain period of time, your NDIS plan will be cancelled even if it is a computer-generated mistake. o Would suspensions be automated? What if the participant has actually called or emailed the contact centre but nobody got back to them?
- Give the Minister the power to cut off or reduce people’s NDIS funding even if the NDIA say they need it. o Essentially the minister could cut anyone off the NDIS or reduce their funding by one click of a button without any ramifications or justification at the real-world impact this will have. This will be done by whole disability groups and is down-right dangerous! o Other Powers available to the minister: § Make a determination for a support or a class of supports, in relation to participants generally or a class of participants: ( § a) a maximum amount of funding for the support or supports in the class of supports; or § (b) a maximum intensity for provision of the support or supports in the class of supports; or § (c) a maximum ratio of worker to participant for provision of the support or supports in the class of supports. § The Minister can also set prices, including having different prices for different types of providers and registered/unregistered.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1075
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 20
- Changes to early intervention requirements: o Early intervention criteria changed from “benefit the person by mitigating or alleviating the impact of the person’s impairment” to “benefit the person by reducing the impact of the person’s impairment. This has the potential to delay access for people with degenerative conditions until the point they meet the disability requirements, potentially reducing quality of life.
- Removes ‘Reasonable and Necessary Criteria’ o Under the new bill, this is changed to “provide NDIS supports for participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme that are reasonable and necessary, so far as is consistent with the financial sustainability of the scheme;”
- Decision making will be changed from 21 days after an application or change has been requested to 90 days (and this could mean 90 business days).
- Plan management will fundamentally change: o A far smaller pool of plan managers, who must have a signed agreement with the NDIA - This means a far fewer pool of providers, and this will likely occur across the entire scheme and be harder to change providers in the future as you may be limited to the few.
These amendments risk moving backwards toward a system where participants must constantly justify their existence, defend essential supports, and navigate increasingly restrictive bureaucratic processes.
I urge the government to reconsider provisions that expand discretionary powers, reduce flexibility, weaken participant safeguards, and allow critical operational details to be determined through subordinate legislation rather than full parliamentary scrutiny.
Any reform to the NDIS must remain grounded in human rights, co design with people with disability, procedural fairness, and the original intent of the scheme: genuine choice, control, inclusion, and dignity. The Bill in its current form is harmful and should not be passed by Parliament.
Sincerely,