Submission 1391

Who I Am and Why I Am Writing This

For the last eight years, I have worked as a neurodivergent, independent, self-employed support worker (sole trader) providing one-on-one care to [Participant Name Redacted], a 22-year-old young man.

I am writing to urge the Senate Committee to reject this Bill. While the government claims these changes are about “scheme sustainability,” the reality is that they will crush independent workers, destroy customized care, and devastate vulnerable participants like my client.

Understanding My Client’s Needs: The Power of Lived Experience

To understand why this Bill is so dangerous, you have to understand my client’s daily life. The participant lives with:

• Severe Intellectual Disability and Autism (Level 3): He is in the lowest 0.1% for his age cohort for daily living skills, relying entirely on support to wash, dress, eat, and stay safe.
• Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA): The participant’s brain views everyday demands or unexpected changes as an immediate physical threat, triggering severe, volatile anxiety.
• PTSD and Severe Anxiety.

Because of his PDA profile, the participant cannot handle high-turnover agency staff or rigid, un-nuanced rules. Over eight years, we have built a delicate framework of trust. This trust is what allows him to leave the house safely, engage in his passion for slot-car racing, and practice basic independence goals.

How the Bill Destroys My Livelihood and Participant Care

Problem 1: Forcing Out Independent Workers via Mandatory Registration (Sections 77–89)

What the Bill does: The government wants to force all personal care and daily living support workers to undergo a strict, highly expensive corporate registration and auditing process.

How it affects me: As a neurodivergent sole trader, I would struggle with the complicated paperwork, strict rules, and high audit costs. This kind of bureaucracy is especially hard for me to manage. It would likely push me—and many other trusted independent workers—out of the NDIS sector and threaten our ability to earn a living.

How it affects the Participant: The participant’s family purposefully “self-manages” his plan so they can hire independent workers like me who understand autism. If I am forced out, he will be left with large, registered agencies. He will face a revolving door of under-trained, high-turnover staff who do not understand his triggers, leading to immediate distress and behavioral regression.

Submission 1391

Problem 2: Slashing 1:1 Support and Forcing Group Care

What the Bill does:

The government plans to cut social and community participation budgets by an average of 50% and introduce strict caps on worker-to-participant ratios (forcing a shift from 1:1 care to 1:2 or group settings).

How it affects me:

My safety on the job relies entirely on being able to give my client my full, undivided attention. Forcing me to manage him alongside another participant in a 1:2 ratio or a group home is completely dangerous. It ignores basic workplace health and safety.

How it affects the Participant:

Forcing the participant into shared care or group settings completely disregards his severe anxiety and PDA profile. It will cause violent, fear-driven behavioral escalations. This cut will force him to stay trapped indoors, reversing eight years of hard work we have done to get him out into the community.

Problem 3: Replacing Real Medical Evidence with Generic Computer Tests

What the Bill does:

By 2028, the government wants to stop looking at a person’s individual medical diagnosis and instead use broad, automated “standardized functional assessments” (checklists) to decide funding.

Why it fails:

Standardized checklists completely fail to capture fluctuating, neurodivergent conditions. In a quiet, artificial room with a stranger, the participant might appear to have surface-level skills. But the moment a demand is introduced, he experiences a total meltdown. A simple computer-derived benchmark completely erodes the personalized, human-centric approach that disability care requires.

Problem 4: Forcing the Burden Back onto Exhausted Parents

What the Bill does:

The Bill legally redefines “reasonable and necessary” funding to state that intensive personal care, 24/7 supervision, and behavioral regulation should be absorbed for free by “informal networks” like parents.

Why it’s dangerous:

This is a cruel cost-shifting exercise. The participant’s primary carer and mother is already entirely unable to work because caring for him is an exhausting, full-time job. His father works extreme hours just to keep the family afloat. Expecting aging, burnt-out parents to provide around-the-clock behavioral support without professional relief will cause total family collapse.

Problem 5: Trapping People in Stagnant, Underfunded Plans

What the Bill does:

Old plans will be automatically rolled over into rigid 12-month extensions, while a family’s legal right to request an unscheduled plan review during a crisis will be heavily restricted.

Submission 1391

Why it fails: When a plan automatically rolls over, temporary funds meant for building long-term skills are stripped away by law. If the participant’s parents experience a sudden medical crisis, the government can legally reject a request to adjust his funding, leaving the family completely stranded.

Final Recommendations

You cannot balance a federal budget by breaking the lives of disabled young adults and driving away the specialized workforce that keeps them safe. On behalf of the participant, his family, and the neurodivergent workforce, I ask the Committee to tell Parliament to:

• Withdraw the Bill immediately and focus on catching big corporate provider scams, rather than cutting funding for vulnerable participants and independent sole traders.
• Abandon mandatory universal registration for sole traders so that independent, neurodivergent workers can continue providing safe, specialized, relationship-driven care.
• Drop the 50% community cuts and ratio limits, ensuring care ratios remain clinically decided by families and workers, not government accountants.
• Protect self-management so families retain absolute choice and control over who enters their homes and who they trust to care for their children.

Respectfully submitted, Independent Disability Support Worker (Sole Trader) Date: 28 May 2026