National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1086
Please accept this submission AGAINST the NDIS proposed changes.
I am a mother of a 10yr old child living with disability who will be profoundly effected by these changes. It will change her life outcomes and opportunities including her ability to access and participate in education and later the workforce as well as living independently in the future.
My daughter has benefited significantly from the NDIS and being able to access qualified and highly skilled clinicians including speech pathologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and also group programs. All of these have made incredible difference to her life outcomes and her ability to function effectively. Removing these supports from her will be devastating for her both now and in the future. We have not experienced any ‘rorting’ rather we have experienced highly skilled professionals doing their jobs well for the benefit of my daughters life. Please do not remove these important and necessary funding from her or others like her. Funding issues need to be addressed in other ways and NOT by removing people from the NDIS.
In addition the concept of a functional capacity assessment will not be suitably nuanced to capture the complexities of living with disability. Assessments / Diagnoses by doctors and the treating team and in consultation with the person themselves and their family are the most accurate assessments of disability and need.
Please do NOT proceed with these changes and instead find funding (eg: big corporations / gas etc) to support the scheme and Australian people on it, through other less horrific means than removing life changing funding supports from the Australian people who are most vulnerable.
Note: I also work directly supporting many children, young people and families who also benefit from the NDIS funding to support their child or young person with a disability. Removing these supports from them or preventing access in the future will significantly affect their functioning, engagement in school and workforce and impact detrimentally on already stretched families who are at their limit. Please do not deny access to autistic children, young people and adults whose capacity and needs can fluctuate significantly and whose lives depend on these important life saving supports.
I have not had time to be able to respond to each individual point however below are some responses to some main points. Overall I completely object to the amendments and the detrimental effects it will have on Australian people living with disability.
Schedule 1 point 1 – Functional Capacity Assessments:
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1086
The NDIS is not a medical practitioner or an allied health practitioner.
The NDIS presuming to create a ‘functional capacity assessment’ based on it’s own requirements is not a true or accurate diagnosis of disability or functioning.
The idea of a functional capacity assessment instead of listening to the professional highly trained skills of doctors, psychologists and allied health professionals is abhorrent.
Doctors, psychologists and allied health professionals are qualified to make these diagnoses and assess needs. The NDIS is not. Doctors, psychologists and allied health professionals, use medical standards and psychologists use DSM V, testing tools that are standard across the world. It is not up to the NDIS to determine it’s own standards of disability or functioning and disregard hundreds of years of medical and clinical expertise.
Even if allied health professionals were to administer the functional assessment capacity tests it is still based on a very small aspect of functioning determined by what the NDIS wants to assess not based on real peoples lives and real people’s needs.
In addition if the NDIS determine that the functional capacity still lets too many people into the system then it will just change the functional capacity assessment to be more stringent. Again this is not a true form of diagnosis of disability or functioning or of need.
Functional Capacity Assessments also do not take into account the needs of the actual person with disability and what they identify as their highest needs and goals.
Assessment of disability and eligibility onto the NDIS should be based solely on the diagnosis of disability by a doctor and determination of their needs by the doctor, allied health treating team and the person living with the disability and their families.
It can take many sessions to determine disability, functionality and need for people. This occurs in consultation with the person themselves, professional treating team, doctors, psychologists, allied health etc and is not able to be fully captured by one functional capacity assessment.
In addition a functional capacity assessment does not adequately address people with disability such as autistic people whose needs and abilities fluctuate.
Schedule 1 point 4.
Overemphasis on cost containment: While sustainability matters, the bill prioritizes short-term budget restraint over long-term value. Early and adequate supports (as well as across the life span) reduce hospitalizations, crisis accommodation, and lost education and workforce participation by participants and carers. Underfunding now can drive higher downstream costs to health, housing, and justice systems.
In point 4 ‘…reducing the funding for specified groups or supports..’ has a detrimental impact for specific disability groups creating inequity and discrimination against some disabilities such as autistic children, young people and adults, compared to others. This goes
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1086
against Human Rights Charters and is in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act. Whether the reductions are based on specific diagnoses such as autism or based inherently on the capacities and functioning of specific targeted groups (ie direct or indirect discrimination) it is still discrimination against a disability group.
This is completely unacceptable and should not be allowed to proceed.
There are many other ways the NDIS could be funded to adequately support the needs of all those people who require it, to enable them to live with their disability. Removing people off the scheme or removing a group of people such as autistic people off the scheme based on your interpretation of their disability being not needy enough is uneducated, disrespectful and lacks insight and knowledge about your understanding of the disability. It is not reflective of the diverse needs of different disability groups.
Schedule 3 point 3.
Automated systems are completely unacceptable in regard to people’s welfare and particularly those peoples who are the most vulnerable in our community. Automated systems have already been proven to be extremely detrimental and in fact harmful and damaging to the people they are meant to support - Robodebt being a clear example of the extreme damage it caused to very vulnerable people. People with disability and their carers and family should not be subjected to automated systems who do not understand the nuances of human life and human disability to determine the outcome of their funding and thereby service access.
People with disability have various different styles of communication and self expression and in many ways find it very hard to be able to advocate for themselves and express themselves and so need human understanding and compassion and support to be able to access the funding and services they need NOT be judged as requiring the service or not by an automated system. An automated system would aim to pick up on keywords and terminology rather than understand the complexity of human expression and people with disability who have a variety of communication styles.
In addition any automated system will have inherent biases and neurotypical norms which is not accepting of the huge variety of disability and the significant needs and variety of experiences that people with disability experience. A one size fits all model that would be necessitated by an automated system is not adequate to meet the needs of such vulnerable children, adolescent and adults.
An automated system for the NDIS would be extremely damaging to our most vulnerable people – children, adolescents and adults living with disability