National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1116
National Disability Insurance Agency
NDIS Enquiries
GPO Box 700
Canberra ACT 2601
26th May 2026
RE: NDIA INQUIRY SUBMISSION
My name is Mandy McCracken. I am a quadruple amputee, having lost both hands and feet to sepsis at the age of 39. Since my discharge from hospital and return to regional Victoria in 2013, I have channelled my lived experience into advocacy, peer support, and ultimately founded Get Started Disability Support Australia, (GSDSA) a registered charity that supports newly disabled people to navigate the disability sector.
I’m widely recognised in the Australian disability community as a leader, storyteller, and advocate. I was recipient of the ABC Regional Storyteller Scholarship, have presented on ABC Radio, and has been featured across national media sharing my experience of living without hands and feet. I co-founded The Quad Squad, an international support group for quadruple amputees, and volunteer extensively with La Trobe University’s Prosthetics Department.
In 2024 Get Started Disability Support received the NDIA’s Peer Support & Capacity Building grant to support our work with Victorian Councils. To date we’ve had 160+ people attend our peer support workshops in seven different council areas. Plus, we have eight councils looking to facilitate our education workshops in 2027.
As Founder and CEO of Get Started, I’m not merely an administrator of the organisation — I am its animating force. The credibility, authenticity, and effectiveness of GSDSA’s workshops derive substantially from my direct leadership and facilitation. My lived experience of disability, navigational knowledge of the NDIS and allied health systems, and public profile are inseparable from the value participants receive when they attend these workshops.
But I write here on a personal level to share the impacts of my already reduced funding.
In February, my core supports were significantly cut, especially Community Participation support, leaving insufficient funding to pay for support workers to assist me when I facilitate our disability peer support workshops.
As I have no hands or feet, I use support workers to carry equipment from my car, set up signage, tables and chairs, plug in my projector and help me serve catering to our disabled participants. Each workshop requires three hours of support worker engagement. Across six workshops per location and twelve locations annually, the total annual support worker requirement for this activity is 216 hours. Currently I have 1 hour per week.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1116
Now I have no one to help me, and I need to use my core funding to pay for personal care, consumables, support to go to the supermarket once a week and to shower me whilst my husband goes overseas for a month.
As there is no other government support to assist me as a person with a disability whilst I’m at work, my ability to do my job has all but disappeared.
And since GSDSA is funded through the NDIA, we do not have additional funding to pay for support workers to help me at our workshops. I am at a loss of what to do next.
Additionally, my Assistive Technology funding has also been reduced. On average repairs and maintenance to my four prosthetic limbs is $30,000 per year. Now I have been funded $2400 per year for the next five years with no funding for replacements for broken componentry.
Without working prosthesis, I cannot drive, go to the bathroom, walk, or type on my computer. How on earth will I maintain my busy working life without these items functioning? In turn I will need almost 24-hour care, which will cost the NDIA a fortune.
Since my amputations, I’ve been independent, a contributing member of society, and a support to those new to living with a disability. Now I have no idea how I’ll continue.
So, I ask you, please be mindful of the impacts these changes will make to our lives, and the impact reduced funding of one person can have across the wider community.
Many thanks.
Mandy (Amanda) McCracken
NDIS Participant since 2013.
Founder & CEO, Get Started Disability Support Australia