re National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment | External submission

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Submission re National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Contents Recommendations:………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3

The Objects of the NDIS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3

Definition of permanent impairment ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..4

Suspension of Plans …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7

Functional Assessments……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….8

Reducing funding for groups of supports ……………………………………………………………………………………………..10

Cost Shifting and Financial Sustainability…………………………………………………………………………………………….15

Strengthen link between an impairment and need for support …………………………………………………………………17

Changes are scheduled too quickly………………………………………………………………………………………………………17

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Recommendations:

Recommendation 1:

a) Decisions regarding the permanency of disability must be decided by medical professionals as chosen by their patients. b) Government must respect and accept that decision. c) Government must ensure disabled people in Australia have the maximum possible access to medical treatments that may improve medical conditions but leave the decisions regarding implementation to doctors and their patients.

Recommendation 2:

Government must provide disability support as soon as possible based on a person’s need as recognised by their treating professionals, including access to early intervention.

Recommendation 3:

a) If a participant fails to respond to repeated contact attempts from the agency, the agency should search for them, including by engaging emergency services. b) A participant’s plan must not be suspended because their whereabouts are unknown until all avenues to find them have been exhausted.

Recommendation 4:

In order to facilitate effective communication and consistent with Object (ga) of the Act,

protect and prevent people with disability from experiencing harm arising from poor quality or unsafe supports or services provided under the National Disability Insurance Scheme,

NDIA phone calls must be clearly and easily identifiable via caller ID.

Recommendation 5:

a) Automation must not play a key role in determining what supports disabled people receive. b) If it is used at all, it must be subject to expert human review. c) People with relevant medical and social knowledge must check automated decisions. d) There must be a straightforward path for rejection of, or adjustments to, all decisions regarding what funding and support a person receives, by a human expert.

Recommendation 6:

Re-orient decision making to help participants and our representatives understand and provide what the scheme requires to say “yes” to us. Make it easy to communicate with decision makers to resolve issues.

Recommendation 7:

a) Recognise the plain meaning of the phrase “reasonable and necessary” b) Meet the reasonable and necessary needs of disabled people. c) Raise all social security payments above the poverty line and add an ongoing disability access supplement for anyone recognised as disabled, regardless of which payment they receive.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Recommendation 8:

Provide good quality disability support through the services and funding systems best able to meet the needs of disabled people most quickly, directly and effectively, while upholding their human rights.

At the same time, recognising that the NDIS was never intended to be the only way to access disability supports, build capacity in other parts of the community and services to meet disability support needs.

Recommendation 9:

Prepare and publicly release a budget document that shows the expected cost shifting of this legislation.

Recommendation 10:

Create a “harm tracker” where people can report the impact of changes to the NDIS as they occur and they can be measured in real time. This builds in public accountability, enables the government to see very quickly what is happening, make timely adjustments and provide people with the support they need when they need it.

Recommendation 11:

a) Only with the express consent of NDIS participants (and/or their representatives), remove funding from plans that participants did not request and will not use. b) Develop strategies to ensure that such amounts do not continue to appear on participant plans

Recommendation 12:

a) Reject inserting “arising directly from an impairment or impairments”.

Recommendation: 13

Reject National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

Recommendation 14:

Develop legislation that prioritises participants and provides high quality individualised support to disabled people in line with the original Objects of the NDIS Act, while addressing the many areas for improvement that have been identified with it by the disabled community over the course of its life.

Recommendation 15:

Ensure that that the time taken to develop amend and enact any legislation is commensurate with the size of the changes it will implement and the impact it will have on the people who will be impacted by it, including consideration of the resources those impacted have to cope with the proposed change.

Introduction

I am a 56 year old wheelchair user with cerebral palsy. I have been disabled since birth. I was able to walk on crutches until about 10 years ago. I now need to use a power wheelchair.

NDIS provides me with a good quality power wheelchair which enables me to move around my community independently, including working in Hornsby, 42km away from my home in Marrickville. NDIS enables me to work and cover my own living expenses. Without NDIS support, I would not be able to work in this job.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

The other key support I receive via the NDIS is physiotherapy. It enables me to maintain enough mobility to continue to live in a private rental, with my husband, without a wheelchair accessible bathroom. This is crucial to my well-being. I have rented all of my adult life. I have attended hundreds of rental inspections. I never been to a rental inspection where I have seen a wheelchair accessible bathroom on the private market. My physiotherapy keeps me in my home, with my husband and in the midst of my community.

This bill has been put forward as “Securing the NDIS for Future Generations”. I believe there are many measures within this bill which do the exact opposite. I believe this bill will push disabled people back to the margins of our society and back behind closed doors where, as the Disability Royal Commission made abundantly clear, we are much more likely to be subject to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.

The Objects of the NDIS

I believe there is much in this bill which is contrary to the stated objects of the original legislation, as below.

Please note that time limits make it impossible to comprehensively deal with the multitude of ways in which this legislation contradicts the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) I would be our conventions. I commend the Convention to the committee for comparison with the legislation in accordance with Object (a), along with the other Conventions listed in (h).

(1) The objects of this Act are to:

(a) in conjunction with other laws, give effect to Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities done at New York on 13 December 2006 ([2008] ATS 12); and

(b) provide for the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia; and

(d) provide reasonable and necessary supports, including early intervention supports, for participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme; and

(e) enable people with disability to exercise choice and control in the pursuit of their goals and the planning and delivery of their supports; and

(f) facilitate the development of a nationally consistent approach to the access to, and the planning and funding of, supports for people with disability; and

(g) promote the provision of high quality and innovative supports that enable people with disability to maximise independent lifestyles and full inclusion in the community; and

(ga) protect and prevent people with disability from experiencing harm arising from poor quality or unsafe supports or services provided under the National Disability Insurance Scheme; and

(h) raise community awareness of the issues that affect the social and economic participation of people with disability, and facilitate greater community inclusion of people with disability; and

(i) in conjunction with other laws, give effect to certain obligations that Australia has as a party to:

(i) the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights done at New York on 16 December 1966 ([1980] ATS 23); and

(ii) the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights done at New York on 16 December 1966 ([1976] ATS 5); and

(iii) the Convention on the Rights of the Child done at New York on 20 November 1989 ([1991] ATS 4); and

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

(iv) the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women done at New York on 18 December 1979 ([1983] ATS 9); and

(v) the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination done at New York on 21 December 1965 ([1975] ATS 40).

Definition of permanent impairment

This legislation only considers a disability permanent if a person has undertaken all appropriate treatment for their condition, without regard to whether the person has the resources or reasonable opportunity to undertake any given treatment.

Paragraph 25 A is explicit about this;

25A Meaning of appropriate treatment etc.

Meaning of appropriate treatment

(1) For the purposes of paragraphs 24(5)(a) and 25(1B)(a), appropriate treatment for a person’s impairment or impairments is treatment that is: (a) evidence-based; and (b) can reliably be expected to materially improve, reverse, or alleviate the impact of, the impairment or impairments; and (c) is regularly undertaken or performed in Australia.

(2) Treatment may be appropriate treatment for a person’s impairment or impairments regardless of whether the person’s individual circumstances restrict the person from accessing the treatment.

Note: A person’s individual circumstances include the person’s financial circumstances and geographical location.

The legislation under consideration does not allow for considering the personal circumstances that affect whether a treatment is to realistically available to a specific person.

This legislation makes NDIS available only to the people who have conditions for which no treatment is available and to those who are well resourced enough and physically able to travel anywhere in the country to exhaust all options for treatment.

That is completely unreasonable.

The decision as to whether a medical procedure is appropriate should be made between an individual, or their representative, and their chosen medical professional. It is not a decision for government. Such a decision necessarily takes into account a person’s life circumstances and resources.

Significantly, the current National Disability Insurance Scheme (Becoming a Participant) Rules 2016 about the disability requirements state:

5.4 An impairment is, or is likely to be, permanent (see paragraph 5.1(b)) only if there are no known, available and appropriate evidence-based clinical, medical or other treatments that would be likely to remedy the impairment.i (Emphasis mine.)

The legislation under consideration disregards availability as a factor.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

The responsibility of government is to make medical treatment available to the maximum number of Australian residents.

It is the responsibility of government to meet the disability support needs of Australian residents, including by providing medical services and ongoing supports.

It is the responsibility of the medical profession to provide advice regarding the permanency of disability and the suitability of treatment.

Any medical treatment comes with risks as well as benefits. The balance can be influenced by a myriad of different factors that come together in a person’s life. These decisions should only be made by patients or their designated representatives, in consultation with their treating professionals. Government needs to swim in their own lane.

This part of the proposed legislation defines the phrase “permanent and significant disability” well beyond the ordinary meaning of the term. There is no way it meets the “pub test”. It will leave disabled people with permanent and significant disability (in the ordinary sense of that phrase) who have difficulty accessing treatment or who have fair reasons not to access it, without access to the support they need.

Is that the kind of country we want to be?

The disabled community lives on low incomes, disproportionately to the rest of the Australian community. Government is very much aware of that. Statistics on income levels In the disabled community alone make it obvious that this part of the legislation is a strategy that will leave many disabled people in need.

In 2018, 38% of households with a person with disability had low level of household income, compared with 18% of households without disabilityii.

If you can’t afford a treatment or you can’t afford to get to where it’s available, it is not available to you but this legislation ignores that. In doing so it ignores the daily realities of disabled people.

Requiring people to have exhausted all treatment options before providing them with support could easily result in denying them access to early intervention. Early intervention is often effective in minimising the impact of impairment. That can significantly improve quality of life. It will sometimes minimise the cost of support in the long term. Delaying treatment can create preventable suffering pain and hardship as well as increasing the long term cost of support.

This legislation could ensure that the Albanese government is remembered as the government that legislated suffering.

Forcing people to pursue medical treatments whether they want to or not, will also put further pressure on the health system. It will cause delays and prolong suffering for people because they can’t access treatments that have been assessed by them and their doctors as the most suitable option In a timely manner.

Providing support when it is needed also maximises the opportunity for the person to have the best quality of life they can. Lifelong investment that the NDIS was originally intended to achieve. Providing support when it is needed supports mental health by demonstrating to people that they are valued, not disposable, not just a line item in a balance sheet. Providing help when it is needed helps to avoid the snow-balling of problems which can then cost more and be more difficult to address.

It’s incredibly frustrating to need to spell all this out to government. I’m sure it would be immediately obvious to every MP in the room that if you collapsed during parliament you should receive support

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

as you needed it, regardless of how long it took your doctor to diagnose the problem and explore all treatment options.

Should any of the MPs on this committee acquire disability, you are likely to be well able to provide for yourselves via your parliamentary pension. Most of the Australian community doesn’t have that privilege. Disability could change the life of your parents, your kids, or your neighbours, just like it has recently changed the life of Rabbitohs star Jai Arrow, who has been diagnosed with Motor- Neurone Disease. At 30, I expect he’ll need the NDIS along with his football earnings.

This part of the legislation also ignores the fact that what works well for one person might not work well for another for a range of different reasons – including the impact of other forms of disability. Again, decisions about what medical treatment people receive should be made between doctors and their patients.

Recommendation 1:

d) Decisions regarding the permanency of disability must be decided by medical professionals as chosen by their patients. e) Government must respect and accept that decision. f) Government must ensure disabled people in Australia have the maximum possible access to medical treatments that may improve medical conditions but leave the decisions regarding implementation to doctors and their patients.

Recommendation 2:

Government must provide disability support as soon as possible based on a person’s need as recognised by their treating professionals, including access to early intervention.

Suspension of Plans

I am extremely concerned at the intention to suspend the plan of a participant who has not responded to contact attempts within 90 days.

No definition of “reasonable attempts at contact” is provided. A participant could be in hospital. They may be unable to communicate. They may have been made homeless. They may be subject to domestic violence. They may be without the supports they rely on to facilitate their communication with and connection to the agency.

By definition, an NDIS participant Is already a person with “permanent and significant disability”. That’s our baseline. If something goes significantly wrong on top of that such as a participant being involved in a car crash, or a natural disaster, becoming homeless, experiencing an unexpected intensification of the impact of disability or a failure by a provider who they rely on to send needed support staff, for example, it seems very possible that a participant who genuinely needs the support the NDIS provides, might be unable to respond to phone calls and emails within 90 days.

It is particularly unhelpful that when the agency calls, they call from a private number. Most people who are trying to protect their security do not answer calls from private numbers, but the NDIS expects participants answer private number calls. They further expect us to reveal a huge amount of personal information to confirm our identities before they will tell us what the call is about.

That puts us at risk of fraud. Someone could easily call us impersonating the NDIS.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

We are expected to have checked our email in the half hour before they call for an alert. Realistically, I’m often at work and not constantly checking my personal email. NDIS appears to assume that I do nothing all day and am waiting around for them to call. In fact, I am likely to be exercising the “independence and social and economic participation” as p I er Object (c) of the NDIS.

Recommendation 3:

If a participant fails to respond to repeated contact attempts from the agency, the agency should search for them, including by engaging emergency services. A participant’s plan must not be suspended because their whereabouts are unknown until all avenues to find them have been exhausted.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Recommendation 4:

In order to facilitate effective communication and consistent with Object (ga) of the Act,

protect and prevent people with disability from experiencing harm arising from poor quality or unsafe supports or services provided under the National Disability Insurance Scheme,

NDIA phone calls must be clearly and easily identifiable via caller ID.

Functional Assessments and Automation

A Functional Assessment should not be the sole means of determining a person’s funding. Functional assessments measure a person’s function at a point in time. Disability commonly varies from day to day, sometimes significantly. It can also vary according to the situation the person finds themselves in. Some people do well in a quiet situation but struggle when there is a lot of noise, for example.

As a wheelchair user, I am strongly impacted by my environment. I can do the family shopping easily when transport is accessible, footpaths are wide and have entry ramps and supermarket aisles are wide and uncluttered. I also need to be in my power chair, which has a seat that can rise, so that I can reach products on higher shelves and access high service counters. If all of these things are in place, I can do the shopping easily. If any of these elements are missing, I need more support to complete the same task.

It makes little sense to assess someone’s functional capacity “in a context that excludes, as far as possible, the impact of the person’s environmental and personal circumstances” when environmental and personal circumstances are always present and can make a huge difference to a person’s capacity at any given moment.

In accordance with Object (c) of the Act,

“support the independence and social and economic participation of people with disability”

the NDIS needs to provide the supports people need to function in the world we live in, not an idealised environment that is rare or non-existent.

Disability, and human health in general, remains an area full of unknowns. There is still much that even specialists don’t know about many conditions and how they play out in life. New conditions continue to be identified.

Standardised capacity assessments that then determine support budgets must not be used in isolation. If they are used at all, it must be done in conjunction with expert medical knowledge experience and judgement.

Disability is not a standardised reality. If you use standardised means to measure it there will be people who fall through the cracks. There is no such thing as a capacity assessment tool that works reliably across all types of disability, all ages and all cultural backgrounds. That, like disability itself, is an inconvenient truth. If government insists on ignoring that truth, the NDIS will be responsible for harm due to not providing appropriate and needed supports to disabled people. Government will then fail to meet Objective (d)

provide reasonable and necessary supports, including early intervention supports, for participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Likewise automation must not play a key role in determining what supports people receive because disability is not a standardised and fully predictable reality. Meeting support needs requires expert human judgement, including lived experience, not just a formula.

At minimum, human beings must check and be able to override automated decisions. Experience has already demonstrated very clearly to the Australian government (via Robodebt) that automation of decisions carries a huge practical and reputational risk. The government can make its own decisions about how much it values its reputation but it has a clear responsibility to disabled people who are in need of support.

At present, participants often find that our plans don’t work for us. It can be extremely difficult to resolve problems quickly because we are prevented from speaking directly to decision makers. A huge amount of money and time is wasted when requests are rejected without clear reasons as to why.

At present the scheme commonly works by asking “how can we say no?”. We need a scheme that works by asking “what do we need so that we can say yes?” and allows communication between participants (and our representatives) and funding decision makers. If we had that, needs would be met more quickly and much less money would be wasted on denying disabled people our reasonable and necessary supports.

Recommendation 5:

e) Automation must not play a key role in determining what supports disabled people receive. f) If it is used at all, it must be subject to expert human review. g) People with relevant medical and social knowledge must check automated decisions. h) There must be a straightforward path for rejection of, or adjustments to, all decisions regarding what funding and support a person receives, by a human expert.

Recommendation 6:

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Reducing funding for groups of supports

The proposed legislation states (in Part 4, 34A):

For the purposes of ensuring the financial sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the Minister may, by legislative instrument, determine: a percentage (lower than 100%) that is the percentage by which a funding component amount for a specified group of supports is reduced while the determination is in force;

specifying that: To avoid doubt, the determination has effect even if the result is either or both of the following: (a) the funding provided under a participant’s plan for a reasonable and necessary support is less than the total cost of the support; (b) the funding provided under a participant’s plan for all reasonable and necessary supports funded under the plan taken as a whole is less than the total costs of the supports.

These provisions create insecurity both for disabled people and their informal support networks and for every business in Australia who provides disability supports that are funded by the NDIS.

These provisions mean the Minister can change the rules at any time. The amount of funding available for a particular support could change very quickly.

These provisions will discourage businesses from providing supports that they would expect to be NDIS funded. It will have a chilling effect and reduce the availability of supports because determinations are possible, regardless of whether they actually occur.

These provisions will discourage people from moving into work where they would expect to provide support funded by the NDIS. It will undermine the disability workforce.

These provisions make it clear that the core intention of the legislation is to cut funds disabled people rely on to live ordinary lives.

Significantly, these provisions allow the Minister to ignore the fact that a support has been accepted as reasonable and necessary in favour of reducing the NDIS component of the nation’s budget.

Where are there other similar provisions in other legislation? What other government schemes see the minister wield such extreme power with so little oversight?

These provisions make disabled people the prisoners of the government’s budget.

There is a token nod to the impact on participants -

(3) In making the determination, the Minister must have regard to the safety of participants.

That statement, realistically, is a joke. The NDIS is a support system used by hundreds of thousands of people with different disabilities in different circumstances. There is no way for the Minister to assess the impact of a decision to cut funding across “an entire funding component amount for a specified group of supports” on each participant.

This element of the legislation is Australia’s version of Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw. The theatre may be absent, but the impact is significant.

These provisions give dictatorial powers to the minister to cut when he wants as much as he wants with minimal parliamentary accountability. That also feels very Trumpian.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

I ask the MPs around the table to consider whether they would accept across the board cuts to their parliamentary budgets, decided by a single MP. I am quite sure the answer is “no”. You would be quick to point out the detrimental impact of such a move on parliamentarians and their constituents. You would object to the lack of representation, negotiation and consultation.

These provisions will have a detrimental impact on disabled people their families and their wider communities. Disabled people have fewer resources and less power to object than MPs. This legislation takes advantage of the lack of power that disabled people and their families have to insist on representation, negotiation and consultation. When government takes advantage of a lack of power, it results in oppression.

These provisions bring co-contribution into the NDIS, without calling it that.

If this element of the legislation is passed, participants who have the means will use some of their own income to cover the shortfall.

According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare,

38% (or 670,000) with disability, and 51% (or 219,000) with severe or profound disability, have a low level of personal income, compared with 27% (or 3.0 million) without disabilityiii

The definition used for low income is $383 or less a week.

Disabled people and their families don’t have a lot of resources for covering government shortfall. Those figures come from a period before the current cost of living crisis so the current figure, as this legislation is considered, is even worse

People who have friends or family who are in a position to cover the shortfall may draw on them. That pushes disabled people back into the role of “charity recipient”. It is a retrograde step which also fails to fulfill Object (d) of the Act;

provide reasonable and necessary supports, including early intervention supports, for participants in the National Disability Insurance Scheme;

The fact is that Disabled people are more likely than average to live on low incomes. Our financial capacity to fill the gaps left by government is limited. Many Disabled people rely on the disability support pension or job seeker for their income. Both of these payments sit below the poverty line. Many people will be unable to access the supports they need if NDIS chooses to fund only part of the cost.

If someone needs assistive technology that they can’t afford and the government funds part of it, there will be people who miss out on it altogether. You can’t buy half a wheelchair. That could mean no wheelchair – so you can’t move around your home or your community. You become isolated very quickly. If you need an ipad for communication, you can’t buy half of one of those either. Now you can’t communicate – because of the government’s decision. Let that sink in. It is not acceptable.

The point of recognising needs as reasonable and necessary is to recognise that without those needs being met a person with disability cannot have an ordinary life. When reasonable and necessary needs are not met, Disabled people are treated as less than our non-disabled peers.

That is discrimination.

This legislation is government withdrawing supports. It has the potential to exacerbate the impact of disability. Personally, I know that it if I stop doing my physiotherapy, it doesn’t take long to notice the impact. I start to see a practical increase in my level of disability. Withdrawing supports causes harm. Government’s responsibility is to provide supports that minimise the impact of disability. This legislation fails to enact Objects of the Act:

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

(g) promote the provision of high quality and innovative supports that enable people with disability to maximise independent lifestyles and full inclusion in the community; and

(ga) protect and prevent people with disability from experiencing harm arising from poor quality or unsafe supports or services provided under the National Disability Insurance Scheme;

When the minister referred to these measures in his press club speech, he justified them by referring to stories of support workers scrolling their phones rather than providing support. A support worker scrolling their phone when they should be providing support, is an employee not doing their job. The minister said nothing about providing better training or supervision to the worker - which would be the usual responses. Instead, the Minister said he would further restrict the availability of support. That’s a very strange response. It does nothing to address the behaviour of the support worker. It punishes the person who needs support.

I also note that this is to be done by legislative instrument, which means minimal parliamentary scrutiny. It’s an astounding amount of power to give someone without close supervision.

The government is constantly referring to disabled people as “the most vulnerable”. Surely people who are considered the most vulnerable deserve those who exert power over them to be under close supervision in order to avoid abuse and neglect. The Disability Royal Commission demonstrated just how readily people in power abuse their power over disabled people, especially when no one is watching. This legislation gives the current and all future Ministers too much power and too little oversight.

The first category of supports slated for such cuts are social and community participation supports. This category of support is a funding category used by Auslan users to hire interpreters and therefore be able to interact with people who do not use Auslan. Up to 30,000 people in Australia use Auslan. That’s a tiny percentage of the national population of 28.5 million. Without funding to hire interpreters, those who use Auslan for their primary communication are extremely limited in their social and community connection. This cut sets them up for isolation.

Cuts to social and community participation are also of massive significance for anyone who is unable to safely leave their home and engage in their community without support. This funding enables people to spend time with family and friends – a very ordinary human experience. It also gets used for people to attend medical appointments, which help keep them out of hospital and minimise the medical support they need. It enables people to participate in and contribute to their local community and be included in cultural events. This supports their mental health as well as supporting others in their community.

Just this week, the NDIS Quality and Safety Commission put a social media post on Linkedin that says,

Supporting healthier lifestyles is key to reducing preventable health complications for people with disability.

Nutrition, exercise, smoking, stress and isolation can significantly impact both physical and mental health.

Watch this video to see how providers and workers can support participants to make lifestyle changes aligned with their health and wellbeing goals.

🔗Download the full practice alert for further guidance here: https://bit.ly/3RP5AbZ

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Note the inclusion of “isolation” as a factor that impacts both mental and physical health.

Perhaps the NDIS Quality and Safety Commission missed the memo about the planned cuts. Perhaps the Quality and Safety Commission was not consulted about the legislation. Or perhaps it’s good optics for them to pretend it’s just business as usual, until the guillotine comes down.

Whatever the reason, implementation of the NDIS Quality and Safety Commission’s advice, shared by them as I write this submission, is undermined by the legislation I am responding to.

One of the key things that social and community participation supports does is to enable Disabled people to expand our world beyond the four walls of our homes to pursue interests in the community and engage with the world around us.

The federal government has recently re-vamped (yet again), their offerings in disability employment support. The Disability Employment Service has become Inclusive Employment Australia. The goal is to finally shift the dial on disability un- and underemployment, which has barely moved in the last 30 years. That had been something that was giving me hope.

Employment requires knowledge of the world, interests and skills. One of the approaches in the revamped disability employment mix is Customised Employment – a strategy which has had good results in the US, supporting disabled people who would have previously being judged unemployable into custom positions in mainstream workplaces, paid at minimum wage or above.

Customised Employment starts with the person. It looks at their interests and skills, considers how those interests and skills can be translated to workplace contributions and then approaches employers whose businesses might benefit from those contributions. Whether a person works a few hours a week or enough hours to provide a living wage, employment that draws on their skills and interests is good for them and the community around them. The worker gains pay, social connection, belonging and a means to contribute, develop skills and grow. The workplace gets a worker as well as an increase in diversity, which is often a valuable contribution to the workers and the business in itself, in addition to the specific contributions of the worker.

Creating space for more disabled people in the workplace meets Object (h) of the Act;

raise community awareness of the issues that affect the social and economic participation of people with disability, and facilitate greater community inclusion of people with disability;

When people work alongside disabled colleagues day by day, real relationships form and genuine understanding has a chance to develop.

Cutting funds for Social and Community participation reduces the opportunities many disabled people have to explore and develop their interests and engage with the world. Remember, some are unable to safely leave the house without support. If no one is available to support them, they stay at home. Not only are people more likely to suffer the ill-effects of isolation, the raw material required for employment to succeed is reduced. If you can’t leave your house very often, your life is very restricted.

It’s like COVID lockdown, forever.

These cuts will make it much harder for the government to achieve their goal of finally improving the employment rate of Disabled people by assisting us to “prepare for, find and maintain work and grow [our careers]”iv. I am left to wonder whether the Minister for Social Services was at the table when this Bill was formulated. It does nothing to support the stated goals of her department and will in fact undermine their achievement significantly. Not only will it undermine efforts to see more Disabled people in employment, it will result in fewer disabled people gaining enough employment to avoid relying on social security as their main form of income. The NDIS budget may be reduced but the social security costs will increase and stay high.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

The UNCRPD, to which Australia is a signatory includes in Article 30,

States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to take part on an equal basis with others in cultural life, and shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities: …

c) Enjoy access to places for cultural performances or services, such as theatres, museums, cinemas, libraries and tourism services, and, as far as possible, enjoy access to monuments and sites of national cultural importance.

States Parties shall take appropriate measures to enable persons with disabilities to have the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential, not only for their own benefit, but also for the enrichment of society.

Article 19, says, States Parties to the present Convention recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community, including by ensuring that: …

b) Persons with disabilities have access to a range of in-home, residential and other community support services, including personal assistance necessary to support living and inclusion in the community, and to prevent isolation or segregation from the community;

Those rights cannot be fulfilled if people are significantly limited in their ability to leave the house as a result of government legislation.

Recommendation 7:

d) Recognise the plain meaning of the phrase “reasonable and necessary” e) Meet the reasonable and necessary needs of disabled people. f) Raise all social security payments above the poverty line and add an ongoing disability access supplement for anyone recognised as disabled, regardless of which payment they receive.

Cost Shifting and Financial Sustainability

A government decision to no longer meet the needs of disabled people through the NDIS won’t make those needs go away.

The costs will shift from the NDIS budget to the hospital system, homelessness supports, prisons and where there are family and friends around, to them. Many of these systems are ill equipped, at present, to support disabled people. Cost shifting might make the NDIS bottom line look nicer but overall, Australia will pay more for less and there will be consequences. The majority of the cost will be shifted on to disabled people, their families and others who support them.

The numbers in the section of the budget labelled NDIS will go down but the numbers in many other areas of government spending will go up. The fact that they’re not labelled as NDIS expenses won’t help the bottom line at all. In fact, it will probably make it worse because you will have systems that are not set up to meet disability support needs trying to meet them and once disability support costs get absorbed into other systems, it can be hard to identify them and so hard to know how to reduce them effectively.

Many family members of disabled people, (mostly women) are likely to withdraw in whole or in part from the workforce to take on unpaid care work when the NDIS withdraws support, because while the government may be happy to watch disabled people suffer, family members generally are not. Families will be under stress and

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

needing more support themselves. Family breakdown and domestic violence are likely to increase. That means more need and expenses in physical health, mental health, policing and courts.

Family members, support workers, allied health workers community workers and anyone who cares about the suffering of others will be more susceptible to burnout because they will be making do as they can rather than receiving the support they need. Absences from work will increase, when carers attend paid work they will be tired, creating a cost to productivity.

Some disabled people don’t have family and friends to step into the breach. They are likely to become isolated in segregated settings and lose much of the quality of life the NDIS may have afforded them since its inception.

Judging by what we learned from the Disability Royal Commission, rates of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation are likely to rise. Death and suicide rates are also likely to rise as people struggle to cope with their circumstances and to find hope for the future. We have already seen a murder suicide in Perth In the family of two boys with high disability support needs.v

We also know that others, like Noah Johnston, have died as a result of not receiving the supports from NDIS that they required to remain safevi.

Right now, many NDIS participants have allocated funding in our plans which we did not ask for and will never use. The funds are allocated and appear in our plans therefore they also presumably appear in the figure offered to the public about the cost of the Scheme. Removing those amounts from the ledger would immediately improve the NDIS bottom line without removing any supports we currently rely on.

When it was originally brought in, the NDIS was supposed to have three tiers. The first was mainstream support. If mainstream supports are built then, over time, fewer people will need to rely so heavily on the NDIS. Applying for, qualifying for and making use of government support is quite a task. As the capacity of the community to meet needs rises, the amount of support people call on the NDIS for will reduce. Disabled people who can less frequently deal with such a system to have their needs met will breathe a sigh of relief.

Regard to the financial sustainability of the scheme is repeatedly referred to in this legislation.

How many other government schemes are expected to be financially sustainable within themselves?

I don’t hear government routinely talking about the financial sustainability of other government schemes. Singling out the NDIS this way looks like discrimination.

Government schemes don’t usually need to be financially sustainable within themselves – they need to contribute to the success of the country In a way that government judges to be of suitable value. Government has many, many options they can consider for where to find the money to do the things they want to do. Withdrawing support from Disabled people who need it is only one of the many choices available.

Reading between the lines, it seems that government has decided that supporting disabled people is no longer of value. Therefore, government is happy to implement legislation that causes disabled people to suffer and leaves their needs unmet. Government has spent a lot of time and money in the last few years pushing a negative narrative about the disability community through mainstream media. Many Australians only pay slight attention to things they don’t believe affect them, so some have swallowed the Redbridge Kool Aid.

Once the impacts of this legislation start to become evident, affecting people’s neighbours and workmates and putting pressure on the hospital system I expect to find that the Australian community, as a whole, is not quite so callous as the government. The NDIS has historically enjoyed a high level of public support. I think most people in Australia still believe in a fair go and believe that disabled people deserve one just as much as anyone else. I think the Australian public will recognise that we are a long way from the “no one left behind” promises that Albo made in his last election night speech

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Recommendation 8:

Recommendation 9:

Prepare and publicly release a budget document that shows the expected cost shifting of this legislation.

Recommendation 10:

Recommendation 11:

b) Only with the express consent of NDIS participants (and/or their representatives), remove funding from plans that participants did not request and will not use. c) Develop strategies to ensure that such amounts do not continue to appear on participant plans

Strengthen link between an impairment and need for support

The current legislation says (in 32 K)

… amounts specified in the reasonable and necessary budget must be worked out by applying the information in the needs assessment report for the plan, in so far as the report relates to the participant’s need for NDIS supports arising from impairments in relation to which the participant meets the disability requirements or the early intervention requirements,…

The proposed change is,

Omit “arising from an impairment”, insert “arising directly from an impairment or impairments”.

This change treats human beings like component furniture.

The Minister is demanding a lot more from modern medicine than it is able to deliver.

Human beings are not made up of a selection of discreet and replaceable components. We are organic beings. An impairment in any part of the body can impact the whole body and the whole person.

Medical professionals are not always able to answer questions about direct cause and effect. It becomes especially difficult when a person has several different interacting health conditions and impairments.

This part of the legislation requires medical professionals to “unscramble the egg” and when they are unable to do so, it could leave disabled people, who clearly need support, without the support they need.

This part of the legislation will also increase pressure on the health system as people spend time with health professionals trying to satisfy its requirements. Time spent trying to identify direct cause Is time spent on an administrative requirement. It is not time spent actually addressing the medical needs of a patient

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

It will cause delay for people who need support, whether they are NDIS participants or not. Delay can cause harm.

Recommendation 12:

Reject inserting “arising directly from an impairment or impairments”.

Changes are scheduled too quickly.

Every change proposed in this Bill is scheduled for implementation before the next election. Some participants and people applying for the scheme, will notice huge changes within 7 days after it passes.

By way of comparison, the Capital Gains Tax and Negative Gearing changes, presented in the same budget will not kick in until July 1, 2027.

People who are impacted by changes to Capital Gains tax and Negative Gearing, by definition, enjoy financial privilege. Many of them are property investors. They have a year to meet with their accountants and reorganise their affairs before changes impact them at all.

NDIS participants and professionals who are impacted by the first round of changes, have significantly less time to adjust. The governments plan is that within a week of the passing of this Bill, the definition of functional capacity will change, impacting eligibility for the scheme, unscheduled plan reassessments will be subject to new rules, and only support “arising directly from an impairment or impairments” will be provided.

A very short time is being allowed for all of these changes to understood and dealt with by the disabled community who, by definition, have a lower level of capacity to deal with anything than other members of the general community have. That’s what impairment means. The government has made its decisions in full knowledge of this reality.

The NDIS changes are happening at a pace that, under the circumstances, is relentless.

In contrast, Negative Gearing changes, announced in the same budget, and purported to address the housing crisis, will effectively change at the pace set by property owners themselves.

Existing arrangements will remain unchanged for all properties held before Budget night…vii

Practically speaking, nothing changes for property owners, in regard to Negative Gearing, until they sell the properties they bought before budget night. That could be decades.

Government is prepared to take their time and move slowly to address the housing crisis (a crisis being defined as “an extremely difficult or dangerous point in a situation”viii), but cuts to disability support are planned to occur extremely quickly.

The NDIS changes will be implemented before participants and professionals alike have time to adjust. It will cause chaos.

The changes will certainly be implemented well before alternative Foundational support services are established. People will be pushed off the scheme, with nowhere to go.

This will have a detrimental effect on disabled people, their families and informal support networks, the health system and the disability workforce, at minimum. It will cause extreme difficulty and danger. It will precipitate a disability crisis.

I am old enough to have heard many a politician defend slow the implementation of various schemes because “it’s important we get this right”. This would be a good time to apply that logic. The lives of disabled people and our families depend on it.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

I also remember the Pink Batts Scheme, as an example of rushed implementation costing lives and going wrong in other ways. The Pink Batts scheme went so wrong that it was followed by a Royal Commission.

We’ve just had a Disability Royal Commission. Many of the Recommendations from it are yet to be acted on. It seems sensible to avoid the need for another one.

Rushing this this legislation through will not end well for Disabled people or the wider Australian community.

Recommendation: 13

Reject National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1100

Recommendation 14:

Recommendation 15:

i The provision of Services under the NDIS for people with Psychosocial disabilities related to a Mental Health Condition Report Chapter 2 https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/National_Disability_Insurance_Scheme/MentalHealt h/Report/c02 ii Australian Institute of Health and welfare https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/contents/income-and- finance/income#personal iii Australian Institute of Health and welfare https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/disability/people-with-disability-in-australia/contents/income-and- finance/income#personal iv Inclusive Employment Australia https://www.dss.gov.au/inclusive-employment-australia v Mosman Park suspected double murder-suicide prompts calls for greater support for families with high-needs children https://daru.org.au/resource/mosman-park-suspected-double-murder-suicide-prompts-calls-for-greater-support-for- families-with-high-needs-children/ vi Disability Advocacy post https://www.facebook.com/DisabilityAdvocacyNSW/posts/twenty-two-year-old-noah- johnston-one-of-the-most-significantly-disabled-ndis-pa/1860482664698008/ vii Budget 2026-27 https://budget.gov.au/content/04-tax-reform.htm viii Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/crisis

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