Submission 1282 — Name Withheld — NDIS Future Generations Bill

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1282

I am deeply concerned about the increasing reduction and automatic restriction of social and community participation funding under the NDIS.

These supports are too often mischaracterised in public and policy discourse as discretionary funding for social outings, such as coffee catch-ups, recreational activities, or leisure pursuits. This framing is fundamentally misleading. It obscures the fact that social and community participation supports are essential enablers of human rights, dignity, and equal citizenship for people with disability.

Australia is a signatory to key international human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). These instruments establish clear obligations in relation to inclusion, participation, and equality.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms that all people are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Article 27 recognises the right of every person to freely participate in the cultural life of the community. The CRPD further requires States Parties to ensure that people with disability enjoy full and effective participation and inclusion in society on an equal basis with others, including access to social, recreational, cultural, and community life.

Despite these obligations, current policy trends risk narrowing the interpretation of “reasonable and necessary” supports in ways that systematically undervalue social participation. This represents a concerning departure from both the original intent of the NDIS and decades of disability rights advocacy aimed at dismantling segregation and promoting inclusion.

The disability rights movement has long challenged institutionalisation, exclusion, and the denial of ordinary community life. Frameworks such as Social Role Valorisation emerged from this work and emphasise the importance of enabling people with disability to hold valued social roles and participate meaningfully in everyday community life alongside their peers.

For the people I support, social and community participation funding is not supplementary. It is the practical mechanism through which fundamental rights are realised. Without it, many individuals are unable to access community activities, maintain friendships, develop social networks, participate in cultural life, or experience genuine belonging.

Reductions in this funding do not simply result in fewer activities. They lead to predictable and well- documented harms, including increased social isolation, reduced community presence, loss of valued social roles, and declines in mental health, wellbeing, and quality of life.

Policy approaches that prioritise cost containment over rights-based outcomes risk undermining the foundational purpose of the NDIS. Meaningful participation, inclusion, belonging, and citizenship are not optional or secondary outcomes; they are core objectives of the scheme.

I am also deeply concerned about the reduction in Support Coordination funding and the increasing expectation that participants independently navigate an increasingly complex system.

This must be understood within the same human rights framework. The right to full and effective participation in society under the CRPD includes the practical ability to understand, navigate, and engage with systems designed to enable inclusion. Where systems become too complex to navigate without assistance, the right to participation is effectively diminished.

I currently support approximately 30 clients. The majority experience significant difficulty understanding funding categories, plan structures, and service interfaces. For many, the administrative and cognitive burden of managing an NDIS plan is not realistically manageable without structured support.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1282

Clients consistently express that they value Support Coordination because they are already managing significant life demands, including disability-related needs, health conditions, and the everyday pressures of living. Expecting participants to independently navigate complex funding systems is inconsistent with the principles of accessibility, equity, and reasonable adjustment that underpin the NDIS.

This issue is particularly acute for clients experiencing early onset dementia. For these individuals, system navigation is often not possible without sustained support. The burden also extends to informal supports, who are frequently under significant emotional, physical, and financial strain. Without adequate Support Coordination, families experience increased stress, fragmentation of care, and reduced continuity of supports.

Reductions in Support Coordination funding are therefore not neutral administrative changes. They represent a reduction in the practical supports required for people with disability to exercise their rights to access services, maintain community participation, and engage meaningfully with the NDIS. In effect, diminished Support Coordination undermines the inclusion outcomes the scheme was designed to deliver.

A system that assumes participants can independently navigate complex administrative structures risks excluding those with the highest support needs. This is inconsistent with Australia’s obligations under the CRPD and undermines the intent of a rights-based disability support system.

In addition to these human rights concerns, there are broader structural issues within the design and reporting of the NDIS that materially influence perceptions of cost, sustainability, and system performance. Without addressing these issues, policy responses risk being based on incomplete or distorted information.

Recommendations

In light of the above, I strongly recommend that the Committee:

1. Explicitly recognise social and community participation as a core, rights-based support within the NDIS, rather than discretionary or ancillary spending, consistent with Australia’s obligations under the CRPD.

2. Reject policy and administrative approaches that result in automatic or blanket reductions to social and community participation funding, particularly where such reductions are driven by category- based assumptions rather than individual need.

3. Ensure that NDIS decision-making frameworks explicitly incorporate human rights principles, including full and effective participation in community life, social inclusion, and equality of opportunity.

4. Require that all funding decisions affecting participation supports include explicit consideration of social and relational impacts, including risks of isolation, loss of community access, and reduced ability to maintain friendships and social roles.

5. Strengthen safeguards to ensure that “reasonable and necessary” determinations do not systematically undervalue social participation supports, with clear guidance that these supports are essential enablers of inclusion and citizenship.

6. Affirm that quality of life, social connection, and community inclusion are legitimate and essential outcomes of the NDIS, equal in importance to economic participation and independence.

7. Ensure that policy reform processes do not regress towards institutional or exclusionary models of disability support, and instead remain consistent with deinstitutionalisation, social inclusion, and Social Role Valorisation.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1282

8. Undertake a comprehensive review of NDIS pricing structures, including the extent to which regulated pricing levels contribute to overall scheme expenditure, and consider policy options to improve efficiency, transparency, and sustainability without reducing essential participant supports.

9. Ensure that public reporting and fiscal analysis of the NDIS includes transparent recognition of its role as a major generator of employment across the disability, health, and community services sectors, so that economic analysis reflects the full system-wide value of the scheme.