National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 133
I strongly feel that the NDIS has been immensely helpful for supporting me through my day to day life. I was diagnosed in 2015 when I was 16. I am a female and ASD is harder to detect in girls/women, hence my late diagnosis. Since my diagnosis, I have been receiving assistance from the NDIS. The main ways the NDIS has helped me, has been through both a) funded paychology sessions (which has now been ceased from my plan, and I believe to many other participants, as well, which is extremely unfortunate) and through social support workers and support coordinators to assist me in my daily life, running errands, attending appointments, or doing shopping/groceries. I get 10 hours of support work every day, and it has helped me significantly to function and be productive. I do not yet have my license, so my support workers also assist with driving me to appointments, work and so on. Late last year, my funding for psychology sessions was cut. So now I am on a medicare mental health plan through my GP, which i believe gives me 12 psychology sessions a year, and I still have to pay $50 out of pocket to do this. I worry, because personally, I know that I definitely need therapy more than once a month. I cannot begin to even imagine how drastically different my life would be without assistance from my support workers at home and out in the community. I am not very safe by myself in public without my workers with me. I find it hard to filter or censor myself, and I have a strong sense of justice and what is right and wrong. I hate seeing things happen that arent supposed to happen. I frequently get involved in arguments in public, such as when I tell people in shopping centres to move out of the walkway, where they are in everybody’s way. Sometimes people get majorly offended by this and get agitated/aggressive. I don’t think I am in the wrong for telling people to use common sense and to be considerate of others.I have an intense awareness of my surroundings - sight, smell, sounds, touch, etc. I hate feeling people shoving past me or getting too close in my personal space. i hate hearing people yelling and screaming, even children. I am highly sensitive and overly aware of everything going on around me. I cannot understand when people walk in directions without watching the people that are around or in front of them. I hate it. It makes me even more scared to get my license, because I don’t know how, or if, I can even trust anyone or feel safe on the road, when this is what I constantly encounter in public on a frequent basis. If I had no support workers to take me out in to the community, I would be very vulnerable and extremely uncomfortable and my anxiety wouldbe even worse than it already is. i really hope that the proposed changes to the NDIS do not go ahead, as this would be really disempowering and limiting, and that’s just phrasing it lightly. The impact would be devastating.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 133
I don’t know why teh government chooses the NDIS, of all things, to cut corners on. We are the most vulnerable and we need to be remembered and regarded as such. Disability, autism specifically, is lifelong and permanent, it’s a different wiring of the brain we are born with. Treatment can help. It DOES help. But nothing will ’‘reverse’’ or take our autism away, and I really hope that the government truly understands and acknowledges this.