National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1372
To the Parliamentary committee regarding National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026,
I am a disabled person. Without the NDIS my quality of life would be significantly worse, including being unable to obtain paid employment, so I’m very concerned by the proposed changes that would prevent others from the same opportunities.
My main concern with this Bill is that it is clearly designed to cut costs, yet my understanding is that as with many public services, any money contributed to the NDIS contributes to the economy by more than the money spent, and saves costs elsewhere. Given that and the fact that significant amounts of money are being spent on the military (killing people rather than supporting people), tax breaks for the rich including companies exploiting our resources for profit with no benefit to the Australian public, it seems at best a poorly thought out, impulsive cost saving measure, and at worst an attempt to demonize disabled people - something I am already seeing as the narrative that disabled people are “bludgers” and a drain on society is leading to increasingly hostile rhetoric and slurs referring disabled people.
The increased administrative and compliance requirements puts an undue burden on disabled people who are already dealing with a lot more than most people have to on a daily basis. The NDIS is supposed to relieve burden, not increase it. It also frames disabled people as though they have already done something wrong just by existing, and have to fight and prove that they are deserving of assistance.
The changes to rules around being uncontactable potentially pausing, reviewing or cancelling a person’s support whilst they may seem like reasonable expectations to the average person completely neglects the fact that disabled people are more prone to the following which all make this contact difficult: being in hospital; experiencing crisis or burnout; unable to communicate because of their disability or unable to communicate without support; be experiencing housing instability. All of these would then lead to them being punished for something that is not their fault - again villainising disabled people.
I understand that changes to reassessments and plan reviews are being pushed as they consistently result in a higher level of funding being approved. This highlights that greater funding is needed, not less. Cutting reviews themselves in order to prevent this is a bandaid solution that isn’t addressing the root cause, and again disabled people are the ones who face the consequences. I also want to note here that it seems common practice for plans to just automatically be rolled over each 12 months, this means that reviews are happening only when they are requested because there is an issue, so that’s artificially inflating the rate of funding increases. I for example had been on the same plan for 5 years, which had just consistently been rolled over, by this point my life was very different - I had moved out of home, received employment, had a good support network of friends (all achievable because of access to social supports through NDIS) - and yet my goals all reflected where I was 5 years ago. I had a similar amount of funding, but I couldn’t put it towards the things that were actually useful because my outdated goals didn’t reflect the need. Once my plan was finally updated, sure funding
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1372
increased a little bit, but more importantly it was allocated to the areas I actually needed it in, and I felt like I was able to continue to progress. The NDIS should be able to be more flexible, not less flexible, to a person’s changing needs.
When decisions on an individuals support needs are being made, including whether a person is applicable for NDIS, these should be made with the care and nuance that only a human can provide. I understand the urge to optimize the NDIS but reliance on standardized administrative or automated decision making processes does not achieve this goal. It’s inherently inflexible to the many complex variables that exist and would leave people without the support they need, just because they couldn’t quite tick all the right boxes.
As I already alluded to, since being on the NDIS, I moved into independent living, I gained paid employment and I created a good social support network around myself. Prior to making these changes, which I was able to do in part because of access to support workers who helped me engage in social activities and community engagement, build confidence and living skills, I was stuck living with my family in an abusive living situation, my mental health was incredibly poor, I had no friends and had no idea how to change this, I had dropped out of study multiple times because I was unable to cope, and I could not find a job. This all led to me regularly attempting suicide, which regularly required support of police, ambulance, and the emergency department. Whilst at the time I required those supports, this meant that I was in a way draining those resources, which are already overburdened. The NDIS helped me escape the cycle that I was stuck in, prevent me continuing to drain those resources, not only saving government spending on those emergency services, but saving my life and perhaps those of others who were then able to be treated because those services were freed up. I am concerned that many of these changes would prevent a person in a similar situation from having that same success.
I also want to highlight how proposals like this influence societal perception. Since the media have been discussing this I have seen the casual use of slurs skyrocket. People are tricked into believing that their declining circumstances as a result of the cost of living crisis we are in, is caused by disabled people, and so they respond with hostility. As a recent and shocking example of this, just days ago while waiting for a bus on my way home from Melbourne (something I was never previously able to do by myself by the way), I overheard a man in his early 20s talking with his friends about “medically diagnosed retards” (not an actual diagnosis) and “spastics”. The worst part, this man was describing his work for the NDIS and the “retards” and “spastics” he referred to were autistic people he worked with, and he continued to describing masking as “them hiding they are autistic to trick people” as if it was a deliberate malicious move, rather than a survival tactic. How must he treat clients when he is alone with them, if that is the attitude he has towards them? This is the kind of issue with the NDIS that actually needs to be addressed, disabled people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, not open hostility.
I unequivocally condemn this Bill. I ask that the committee consider my lived experience and that the government withdraw this Bill.