National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1145
26/05/2026
To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing in my capacity as a Support Coordinator working primarily with LGBTQIA+ people with disability under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). My work predominantly supports participants living with psychosocial disabilities, though I also work extensively with people who experience neurodevelopmental disabilities and physical impairments. Through this role, I have directly witnessed the impacts of disability across all six recognised functional domains and the importance of accessible, person-centred supports.
I wish to express my significant concern regarding the proposed “Securing the NDIS for Future Generations” legislation and the serious impacts these reforms are likely to have on people with disability. I call for this bill to be completely withdrawn until consultation with the disabled community can take place. There are ways for the NDIS to reduce costs, but it should not come at the cost of access to this service for people with disability.
I fully support the changing of processes to ensure providers invoicing through the NDIS are not rorting the system. The fact that you have allowed so many organisations to operate without any oversight is on the government and does not reflect on NDIS participants’ intention when accessing their funding. These are vulnerable people who have trusted providers who approach them with authority and confidence, assuring the participant that what they are doing is correct.
A major concern relates to the increased compliance and engagement requirements proposed for participants who experience executive functioning impairments, communication disabilities, psychosocial disability, or cognitive barriers. In my professional experience, the NDIA’s current communication methods are already frequently inaccessible and distressing for participants. For example, I support a non-verbal participant whose records clearly state that they cannot communicate verbally, yet they continue to receive phone calls from the NDIA. This demonstrates a systemic failure to appropriately consider participant communication needs. This will only be worsened by your proposed changes. Removing a participant’s access to their funding because you have deemed them to be “uncontactable” is incomprehensible and will kill people.
Further, communication from the NDIA is often highly clinical, compliance-focused, and at times aggressive in tone. Many participants already struggle to engage with these processes due to trauma histories, anxiety, autism, psychosocial disability, or communication impairments. The proposed “non-contactable participant” engagement framework is therefore deeply concerning. It fails to account for the many legitimate reasons a participant may not respond to phone calls or emails, including hospital admissions, mental health crises, burnout, executive dysfunction, communication disabilities, or simply the inability to safely engage without support present.
In particular, unscheduled phone calls from private numbers — a practice commonly used by the NDIA — are especially inaccessible for many participants with psychosocial disability. Likewise, repeated probing emails can feel invasive and overwhelming, making disengagement more likely rather than improving participant outcomes. These proposed reforms do not adequately recognise participants’ rights to supported decision-making or their right to have trusted supports present during communication with the NDIA.
I am also deeply concerned by the proposed changes to funding processes, including stricter funding periods and restrictions on accessing allocated funding. These measures do not account for the reality of fluctuating disability, physical health crises, or mental health deterioration. In my own practice, I have already observed situations where participants have been left without adequate support due to inflexible funding structures. Restricting access to supports that have already been
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1145
deemed reasonable and necessary serves no therapeutic or practical purpose and instead leaves vulnerable people at risk of harm, isolation, and crisis.
The proposed planning framework is similarly alarming. While the reforms state that planning will focus on functional capacity rather than diagnosis alone, they simultaneously propose limiting consideration to only those functional domains associated with the participant’s “primary” disability access category. This fundamentally misunderstands the interconnected nature of disability and ignores well-established medical evidence regarding comorbidities and overlapping support needs.
For example, autistic people — who are often categorised narrowly within psychosocial or neurodevelopmental frameworks — have significantly higher rates of co-occurring conditions such as fibromyalgia, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). These conditions frequently require physical supports and interventions to maintain function and quality of life. Siloing disabilities in this manner creates artificial barriers to support, undermines holistic care, and ultimately increases long-term reliance on funded services by preventing early intervention and effective support.
I am additionally alarmed by proposals to reduce or restrict social and community participation funding. Limiting access to community supports effectively confines many people with disability to their homes and sends a message that disabled people are not entitled to meaningful participation in society. Some of the most transformative outcomes I have witnessed through the NDIS have arisen from community access supports under Core Supports. These supports enable participants to attend work, access healthcare, maintain relationships, participate in education, and engage in activities that provide joy, purpose, and connection.
These supports are not luxuries; they are essential components of social inclusion, wellbeing, and human rights.
Economic evidence has consistently demonstrated the value of investment in the NDIS, with studies showing that every dollar invested generates substantial economic and social return. Reducing access to critical supports will not strengthen the sustainability of the scheme in the long term; instead, it risks increasing crisis presentations, hospital admissions, homelessness, unemployment, and social isolation.
Finally, I am deeply troubled by proposals to remove or restrict funding for disabilities or impairments deemed “treatable.” This approach oversimplifies the complexity of disability and ignores the realities of healthcare access, financial disadvantage, informed consent, and individual medical circumstances. Decisions about whether a treatment is appropriate or viable for a person must remain grounded in medical expertise and participant choice, not determined by non-medical bureaucratic processes.
The proposed reforms appear to place extraordinary decision-making power into the hands of individuals who may lack the clinical training, longitudinal understanding, and therapeutic relationship necessary to make informed decisions about a person’s disability-related needs. This undermines both participant autonomy and evidence-based practice.
In my professional opinion, these reforms risk causing significant harm to people with disability, particularly those with psychosocial disability, communication impairments, intersecting disabilities, and complex support needs. Rather than strengthening the NDIS, these measures risk creating additional barriers, increasing distress, and excluding many of the people the scheme was designed to support.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1145
I strongly urge the withdrawal of this bill and call for meaningful consultation with disabled people, disability advocates, frontline workers, medical professionals, and allied health practitioners before any further reforms are pursued.
Yours sincerely,
Support Coordinator