National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 138
Let’s make one thing very clear. The changes proposed by the Labor Government in the “Securing the NDIS for future generations” bill are going to kill people. Nobody on the NDIS is there because they want to be. We are here because we need to be.
The fact that the government announced these changes without first taking the time to work out exactly how they would be implemented is appalling. The lack of answers to our questions of whether or not we will lose the supports we require to live our lives is causing immense fear and at this point I can only assume that fear is the point. The government wants disabled people scared and isolated. They want the general public to believe that we are a waste of space and resources.
I am not a waste of space. I am not a waste of resources. And neither is anyone else. I am a 23 year old disabled woman who wants to go to TAFE and then university. I want to work and participate in my community. I want to help others but without the support I get from NDIS I won’t be able do any of these things. Last week I left the house alone for the first time in 2 years. Something as simple as a 30 minute walk to the local post office and back felt like a huge achievement. An achievement that was only possible thanks to the hours upon hours of occupational therapy, psychology and support workers who have been working with me to help me manage my disabilities and build my confidence.
This bill proposes cuts of 50% to community access funding and 10% to capacity building funding. With funding for these supports disabled people will be forced out of the community, out of school and work, and back into social isolation. Disabled people are up to three times more likely to die by suicide than the general population and social isolation is a major factor in this. We have already seen an uptick in suicides of NDIS participants since the announcements of these cuts. Is our government really willing to sit back and watch as disabled people are left so isolated from their family, friends and the world that suicide feels like the only way out? Australia’s mental health system is already overwhelmed as it is. Do you really think it will cope with the 160,000 people the government plans to cut from the NDIS? Do you really think it can cope with the complex needs of disabled people? Having experienced the system myself I can tell you that no, it cannot.
The bill also proposes a number of changes to how supports are assessed. Including “strengthening the link between and impairment and support” and sure that sounds fine until you actually take the time to think about it properly. How do you separate out the disabilities that a person receives NDIS funding for from the disabilities they don’t receive funding for? You can’t. Disabilities don’t exist in a vacuum. For example I, like many others, am both Autistic and ADHD. These two disabilities are constantly combining to make everyday tasks such as eating, sleeping and just existing difficult. Autism is funded by the NDIS but ADHD is trickier. Some people have funding for it but others don’t. Things like noise sensitivity are huge issues for both Autism and ADHD so if a person has funding for only Autism but not ADHD how will a support be funded? Will it be funded under Autism or will the NDIS only fund half the support because the “other half” is due to ADHD? You cannot separate a persons disabilities from one another because they are constantly interacting and making each other harder to manage.
Changes have also been proposed to how “reasonable and necessary supports” will be decided. It is already a battle for many of us to get the supports we need funded and these changes will make it even harder. What is reasonable and necessary for one person may be harmful to another with the same disability. The NDIS must take into account the entirety of a person and their experiences when making decisions about their life and access to support.
Plan Suspensions are another issue. If the NDIS is going to suspend someone’s plan because they have been unable to contact them then they must make sure the contact attempts are accessible to participants. This means making sure they know what method of communication is best for a participant. For some this will be a phone call but for others it may be text messages, emails, video relay or something else. In the case of phone calls the NDIS must leave a voice message with contact information if the call is not picked up as many people are reluctant to answer unknown numbers due to the amount of scam callers.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 138
If they are still unable to contact the participant they need to contact the emergency contacts for that participant. If a participant is in hospital or in some kind of crisis or burnout they will likely be unable to respond to contact attempts from the NDIS.
The powers this bill proposes to give to the Minister are also a cause for concern. Giving the Minister the power to enact sweeping cuts to entire groups of support is very dangerous. Let’s pretend for a moment that the disability community trusts the current Labor government to do what is best for the NDIS and the disability community. What happens when the next government comes into power? What happens in the LNP or One Nation take over and decided to cut everything? This bill is supposed to protect the NDIS for the future but this seems like a very serious oversight that could allow for the entire scheme to be destroyed.
Another proposed change it that registration will be required for many types of providers. Now, if this is thought out and implemented properly it may be a good thing as as it stands right now this will cut off many people from the supports they need. Many small businesses cannot afford the administrative costs of registering as an NDIS provider. You also need to remember the thousands of people living in rural areas who are receiving support from non-disability specific services because that’s all they can access. We should not be punishing people for where they live and cutting their limited access to support. And before anyone says it, no. They can’t and shouldn’t have to move into an urban area just to get the support they need. The NDIS should be providing support to rural participants and their providers by making sure the providers have access to the information and education necessary to properly support their participants.
It is important to remember that the NDIS was created to provide participants with choice and control over their lives. The proposed changes to how plan management and support co- ordination will work will remove much of this choice and control. I understand that there are companies taking advantage of participants and the system but why are participants the ones being punished for it? The government says they will choose plan managers and support co- ordinators based on merit but we know what that really means, don’t we? Money. They will choose based on which companies lobby the hardest. They will choose based on which companies will pay them the most. That’s what every government always does.
The bill talks about foundational supports in the community but these foundational supports don’t exist yet and will take years to be full operational. These community supports will also likely become a postcode lottery with people in poorer areas have much less access than people in wealthy areas. We have seen this time and again with so many state programs and yet nothing changes. Public schools, hospitals, libraries, parks and more. The access to and quality of these services are dictated by where you live and how much money you have.
The bill also talks about what supports are reasonable to expect families to provide but not all families are the same. My family consists of me, my mother and grandmother. My mother is also Autistic and ADHD and would be unable to provide the day to day supports that my support workers and therapists provide if I lost my funding. My grandmother is in her 80s and is also unable to provide the day to day support I require. Many disabilities have a genetic element and many are also under-diagnosed. I know my family is not the only family where both parent(s) and child(ren) are disabled and until recently we were also one of the many families where not everyone is diagnosed and therefore is unable to access the support they require. And, of course, when people don’t have the support they require their capacity to provide support for others decreases.
The NDIS was created to provide support for disabled people and their families in Australia and, when done properly, it is something we should be very proud of. It puts disabled people in control of our lives and supports. It gives us back the agency that has been taken from us again and again throughout history. But the “Securing the NDIS for future generations” bill is a huge step backwards.
This bill is the result of years of work by the government to reduce trust in the NDIS. In the 2023 Redbridge report commissioned by the government you can see that Australians were proud of the NDIS and felt that it was as integral to Australia as Medicare and Centrelink. People across the political spectrum pushed back on the suggestion of cutting funding to the NDIS.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 138
The only consistent concern the report identified was about providers rorting the system. So what did they do? They flooded the media with stories of dodgy providers and fraud within the system. When was the last time you saw a report in the media about the good being done by the NDIS? I can’t remember the last time I saw any positive coverage of the NDIS at all and that is the whole point. Spend years throwing stories at us about fraud and abuse, whilst always seeming to forget that the fraud rate within the NDIS is on par with other services such as Medicare and Centrelink.
And what comes next? They’ve spent year working towards these cuts but do you really believe they will stop there? Can you genuinely tell the disabled community that the government’s end game is not to return us to institutions? Do you genuinely believe that there are not members of this parliament who would rather my community die than receive the support we need? When will it end? When will disabled people be able to live our lives freely without having to constantly justify our existence to others?
This bill is dangerous and will kill disabled people in one way or another. Please let us access the support we need. We just want to participate in our communities like anyone else. We want to be able to leave the house and socialise. We want to got to school and get jobs. We want to live.