National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1266
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Inquiry into the:
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future
Generations) Bill 2026
Submitted by:
Date:
27 May 2026
My name is . I am writing as both an NDIS participant and the mother and
nominee of two children with profound disability and highly complex support needs.
I oppose many aspects of the proposed legislation due to the severe and dangerous impact it
will have on families like mine.
I understand the importance of ensuring the NDIS remains financially sustainable and
protected from misuse. However, reforms must not undermine the safety, dignity and human
rights of participants with genuine and complex support needs.
My family lives with multiple layers of disability, including autism, hypermobile Ehlers-
Danlos syndrome, POTS, cognitive and functional impairments, dysphagia, profound
mobility limitations and complex medical risks. Both of my children require continuous 1:1
24/7 supervision and support across all settings due to significant safeguarding concerns,
inability to safely identify or respond to risks independently, physical disability, cognitive
impairment, and complex behavioural and medical needs.
Both of my children experience extreme functional impairment and are unable to safely self-
manage within the community, requiring ongoing direct supervision for safety and
participation in daily life. Both have autism, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and
POTS, resulting in substantial impacts on mobility, fatigue, autonomic functioning, injury
risk and overall independence. My son is additionally a wheelchair user due to his physical
disability, as I am myself, creating further complexity and need for significant supports. Page1
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1266
I myself live with profound physical disability, autism, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos
syndrome, POTS and complex chronic illness. Despite this, I remain the primary unpaid carer
within our family due to the absence of any informal support network. I am already
experiencing severe burnout from years of providing unsafe and unsustainable levels of
unpaid care while attempting to maintain safety within a family with extraordinarily high
support needs.
We have no informal supports whatsoever. There is no extended family, respite network or
unpaid carers available to absorb further reductions in support.
The proposed legislation appears to rely heavily on assumptions that families will absorb
increasing levels of care when supports are reduced or restricted. For families like mine, this
is neither sustainable nor safe. It transfers risk from government systems directly onto
disabled people, siblings, ageing parents and exhausted carers who are already functioning
beyond capacity. It also risks placing further pressure on the healthcare system and hospitals
when reductions to reasonable and necessary supports result in dangerous outcomes.
Any further reduction in supports places not only myself and my children at risk, but also my
husband’s ability to remain employed and therefore our family’s entire financial stability. We
are already living under enormous strain attempting to maintain safety, housing stability and
access to essential care. If support levels continue to reduce, there is a very real risk of
worsening physical and mental health outcomes, loss of workforce participation and complete
family breakdown.
I am deeply concerned about the expansion of legislative powers while accountability and
review protections appear weakened. My own experience with the current NDIS system has
already involved:
• repeated failures of evidence handling
• lost submissions
• lack of procedural fairness
• safeguarding concerns being minimised
• significant delays in urgent safeguarding matters being addressed, or concerns being
ignored entirely
• inability to access timely review processes Page2
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1266
• complaints systems failing to appropriately investigate concerns
• evidence repeatedly disappearing from NDIA systems despite multiple confirmed
submissions
• review requests not being properly registered within the system
• decisions appearing inconsistent with extensive clinical evidence
• severe distress caused through the complaints and review process itself
This has occurred even under the current legislative framework and existing review
protections.
I am particularly concerned by proposals which appear to reduce practical accountability and
transparency while simultaneously increasing administrative powers and reducing meaningful
oversight. Families like mine are already struggling to safely navigate the existing system
despite extensive evidence, advocacy and formal safeguards theoretically being available.
That is an extremely frightening reality for disabled Australians.
I am also deeply concerned by increasing proposals around automation, accelerated
administrative decision-making and reduction of review pathways. Many disabled people and
families are already struggling to navigate highly complex systems while under immense
physical, cognitive, emotional and financial strain. Expanding automated or poorly
accountable decision-making processes risks repeating harms previously seen in large-scale
automated government decision making systems such as Robodebt, where administrative
systems operated in ways that caused profound harm before meaningful accountability
occurred.
Disabled people should not have to fear that essential supports required for safety and
survival can be reduced, delayed or removed through non-transparent administrative systems
that are difficult or, in some cases, impossible to challenge.
I am also extremely concerned by the increasing emphasis on restricting supports such as
community access and supervision ratios under the language of “sustainability.”
For people with significant physical disability, cognitive impairment and complex medical
needs, community access supports are not optional lifestyle supports or recreational extras. They are the only reason many disabled people can safely leave their homes at all. Page3
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1266
Without appropriate community support:
• many disabled people will become effectively trapped inside their homes
• access to medical care, therapy, education and social participation will significantly reduce
• isolation and mental health deterioration will increase
• carers will be forced to absorb unsafe levels of physical care and supervision
• people with physical disabilities will lose access to basic participation in society
For my own family, reductions to community support funding would not simply reduce social
outings. It would fundamentally reduce our ability to safely access the outside world,
participate in the community, attend appointments, maintain wellbeing and preserve even
minimal quality of life.
Similarly, reductions to supervision ratios place people like my children at direct risk of
harm. For my family, 1:1 supports are not preferences. They are safety-critical supports
required to prevent injury, choking risk, wandering risk, medical deterioration and complete
family burnout.
Without appropriate support:
• participants become unsafe
• carers burn out
• hospitalisation risk increases
• family breakdown increases
• long-term system costs increase
I believe these reforms risk violating the human rights of disabled Australians by reducing
autonomy, safety, access to community participation and procedural fairness while increasing
state control over essential supports.
The NDIS absolutely requires integrity, sustainability and appropriate safeguards. However,
sustainability cannot come at the expense of the safety, dignity and human rights of disabled
people and their families.
I strongly urge the Committee to: Page4
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1266
• preserve robust review and appeal rights
• ensure strong independent oversight and accountability
• protect access to individualised supports based on functional need and safeguarding risk
• prevent overreliance on unpaid family care
• protect community access supports for people with physical and cognitive disability
• ensure disabled people and carers are meaningfully consulted before major structural
changes occur
• reject reforms that reduce transparency and procedural fairness
• ensure automation and administrative processes cannot override procedural fairness and
human rights protections
I have also found it deeply upsetting that reforms of this magnitude appear to have been
developed with very limited genuine consultation with the disability community, despite
disabled people and carers being those who will carry the direct consequences of these
changes every day of their lives.
It has been particularly distressing to see such significant proposed legislative changes
affecting fundamental supports, rights, safeguards and review processes progress with what
appears to be an extremely limited consultation timeframe. The Senate submission period
itself has been only approximately two weeks, despite the complexity and seriousness of the
proposed reforms. This is especially concerning given that consultation periods for major
legislative reform are often substantially longer.
For many disabled people and carers, preparing a submission is not a simple task. Our
community is disproportionately impacted by fatigue, cognitive overload, communication
disability, illness, medical appointments, caring responsibilities and limited capacity.
Families like mine are already functioning in survival mode while managing profound
disability, safeguarding concerns and complex support systems. Extremely short consultation
periods create additional barriers that risk excluding the very voices most affected by these
reforms.
Meaningful consultation cannot occur if disabled people and carers are not given realistic
time, accessibility and capacity to properly understand, process and respond to proposed
changes that may fundamentally alter their safety, autonomy and future wellbeing. Page5
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1266
Families like mine are already surviving at the edge of collapse under the current system.
These proposed changes risk pushing many beyond that point.
The true human cost of these reforms will not appear in budget papers. It will appear in
exhausted carers, isolated disabled people, worsening health, family breakdown, loss of
employment, increased hospitalisation and vulnerable people becoming trapped inside unsafe
situations with nowhere else to turn.
I ask the Committee to genuinely consider what these reforms mean for families already
carrying extraordinary levels of disability, risk and exhaustion with little to no remaining
capacity left to absorb further cuts, delays or failures.
Thank you for considering my submission.
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