National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1347
29th May 2026
Submission to Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
I am an Occupational Therapist providing services to people with disabilities across the Central Coast NSW. I provide services to a range of people with varying age groups and disability types as well as supporting care givers through primarily the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). My services are delivered in a range of environments relevant to each person and daily life which includes in their home, clinic, educational setting and community environments.
I am writing to raise the following concerns regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. Theses include the following:
- Redefining Functional Capacity
The Bill proposes a new definition of “functional capacity” requiring assessment of what a person can do: • without assistance from others, • without assistive technology or modifications, and • excluding environmental and personal circumstances as far as possible.
This represents a significant shift in how disability and functional capacity are conceptualised. As Occupational Therapists, our practice is founded on the understanding that function cannot be separated from context and is very dependent on a person’s home environment, supports and relationships, assistive technology and demands placed upon them. The World Health Organisation (WHO) itself uses the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) which includes people’s activity, ability to participate and environmental factors within its definition. This Bill appears to be considering changing this definition and scope of a person’s functional capacity by removing these factors creating an artificial and incomplete picture of the impacts of a person’s disability that does not reflect the realities of everyday life. This change does not recognise that no two people with the same diagnosis will have differing support needs if the definition of functional capacity is altered.
In practice, many of the participants we support may appear highly capable within a structured or familiar assessment environment, particularly for a short period of time. However, this observed performance often does not reflect the substantial support, prompting, preparation, supervision, co-regulation and environmental modification occurring behind the scenes to make that level of functioning possible.
Occupational therapists are highly skilled in determining people’s functional capacity needs within their individualised context with supports, compensatory strategies, modifications and a whole of person approach. This is a complex process requiring significant clinical experience and training and should not be undertaken as an administrative or screening process. Assessments must consider not only what a person can do in a brief or supported moment, but whether that level of functioning is safe, sustainable and realistically maintainable within everyday life.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1347
- Tightening the Definition of “Permanent” Disability
The Bill proposes that impairments may not be considered permanent unless: • all “appropriate treatment” has been undertaken, and • further treatment is unlikely to materially improve the impairment. The legislation further suggests that treatment may still be considered “appropriate” even where a participant cannot realistically access it due to financial circumstances or geographic location. This raises significant concerns.
The term “appropriate treatment” remains insufficiently defined and there appears to be no clear limit regarding what interventions participants may be expected to pursue before their disability is recognised as permanent. In practice, many people with lifelong disability continue to engage in therapy, rehabilitation, behavioural intervention, psychology, medication management and allied health supports throughout their lives to maintain their function, reduce decline and support participation and safety needs.
Not all families will have the finances to access all treatment considered ‘appropriate’ or it may not be available within their region due to lack of availability or geographical isolation. For these people to be excluded from accessing the NDIS leaves them at high risk of not being able to access services elsewhere and being unable to have their support needs met by other community-based systems or informal supports.
- Supports Must Arise “Directly” From Impairment and Change to Whole of Person Assessment
The Bill proposes that supports must arise “directly” from impairment, with the explanatory memorandum describing this as the “direct and immediate source, cause or origin” of the support need.
We are concerned this wording significantly narrows the understanding of disability and disability-related support needs. In clinical practice, support needs rarely arise from impairment alone but an interaction of impairments, behaviours, environmental factors, sensory and social environments. A person’s specific needs should be at the centre of their supports.
Occupational therapists assess people holistically, recognising that support needs often arise from the interaction between impairments, environments and daily life demands. Functional capacity cannot always be separated into isolated diagnostic categories.
I support several carers who are at high risk of breakdown and parents who are unwell and ageing but are required to sustain an unrealistic workload of support and care for their person with a disability. One participant attends a special purpose high school and is completing Year 12 in 2026. He is non-verbal, incontinent, requires full supports of all his activities of daily living and displays many behaviours of concern including physical aggression towards his mother. This mother also cares for an older sibling who has a disability and is experiencing severe carer burnout and she is desperate to plan for the future when she is no longer able to provide supports. All of this while her husband working to provide housing and basic essential needs such as food and rent.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1347
- Increased Reliance on Informal Supports and Parents
The proposed strengthening of the presumption that parents are responsible for supervision, personal care, behavioural support, emotional support, transport and daily assistance is deeply concerning. While these supports may be described as tasks “ordinarily expected” of parents of children of a similar age, the legislation appears to focus on the type of support provided without adequately recognising the intensity, frequency, complexity, duration and specialised nature of disability-related care. Parents of children with disability are often undertaking the same categories of parenting tasks as other families, but at vastly greater levels of demand, vigilance and risk that can be reasonably expected.
I support a family with four young children with the eldest two having significant disabilities. These two children are able to attend the local primary school but one of them requires 1:1 support within the classroom due to her significant behaviours of concern. Maintaining a daily morning and afternoon/evening routine with frequent refusals, verbal and physical aggression for this family is significantly more demanding to manage and get them ready for school as well as mealtimes, selfcare and bedtime routines as compared to other families. For both parents to work to provide living expenses for the whole family and despite some extended family support it becomes exhausting for parents without additional face to face supports in place. Without these additional supports this family and others in a similar situation are at high risk of breakdown resulting in broken relationships and a severely detrimental impact on the family unit as well as our society in general.
- Maximum funding and staffing ratios
The legislation allows for the Minister to set maximum funding amounts for individual supports or classes of supports. This is of great concern as it removes the individual needs for a specific person and allows a blanket rule to be made by the Minister of the day.
I assist several people living in Supported Independent Living situations and all of them have individual needs ranging from 1:1 support in the home or 2:1 supports when in the community to up to 3:1 supports for home and community. Some require 24/7 supports and some require active overnight support and others do not. To make a blanket rule based on a person’s diagnosis rather than a thorough functional capacity assessment of their needs will result in placing people and their support workers at high risk of being in unsafe living conditions due to support needs not being met.
To provide a blanket rule for therapy frequency or behavioural supports that are capped or within a benchmark funding model will remove the flexibility to meet individual needs. As a therapist we can not always predict a person’s future needs and due to the nature of some disabilities they are of an episodic nature requiring high intensity supports at different times.
Blanket percentage reductions in funding across all people’s plans also will have the same impact. This assumes all participants are receiving excess to their needs. For example, a 50% cut across all participants for social and community participation assumes everyone is in excess of this and not required. I assist an elderly man living in SIL who receives 6 hours a week for community access. If this was to be reduced, he would need extra funding to provide for his support needs at his SIL home rather than in the community. This would not reduce costs but
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1347
just transfer them or place him at high risk for not being able to access the community to get to the bank, GP or shops and limiting his activities of daily living.
Summary
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 represents a significant shift in the legal and philosophical foundations of the NDIS. While presented as a sustainability reform, the cumulative effect of the proposed amendments risks fundamentally altering the principles of participant choice and control, weakening individualised planning, narrowing access pathways and embedding increasingly standardised and fiscally driven approaches to disability support.
As an occupational therapist, I are deeply concerned that these reforms may disproportionately impact people with invisible, fluctuating and complex disabilities, while simultaneously increasing reliance on unpaid carers and crisis-based systems. This is likely to occur in the context of reduced access to occupational therapy and other capacity-building supports that are essential for maintaining function, participation, safety and long-term wellbeing.
Sustainability cannot be measured solely through reductions in Scheme expenditure. A genuinely sustainable NDIS must also protect dignity, participation, safety, family stability, human rights and equitable access to support. It is essential that the Bill preserves a whole-of- person approach to disability and recognises that support needs arise through the interaction of impairments, environmental barriers, psychosocial factors and participation demands. People with disability must not be reduced to diagnostic categories, standardised funding models or narrowly interpreted impairments.
I therefore strongly urge the Committee to substantially amend the Bill, retain core participant protections, strengthen safeguards and delay implementation until meaningful consultation, impact assessment and foundational support systems are properly established.
Yours sincerely
Occupational Therapist
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