National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 1401
Submission to the Inquiry into Proposed NDIS Reforms
I am the parent and primary carer of neurodivergent teenagers and I am concerned that the proposed NDIS reforms risk failing people with significant but less visible disabilities.
One of my biggest concerns is the increasing focus on functional assessments, informal supports and whether families can simply manage without funded assistance.
In reality, many children and teenagers appear more “functional†precisely because their families are holding everything together behind the scenes.
My children are teenagers. At this age, most parents are gradually stepping back and supporting increasing independence. Instead, supporting my children remains effectively a full-time role involving emotional regulation support, executive functioning support, education support, advocacy, therapy coordination, sensory accommodations, community participation support, and constant day-to-day scaffolding just to keep life functioning.
This is not ordinary parenting.
The more support families provide, the less disabled a child may appear on paper. I believe this is a serious flaw in the direction of the proposed reforms.
Invisible disabilities, masking, fluctuating capacity, and the adaptive systems families build around disabled children are not being adequately recognised.
I am particularly concerned about the increasing reliance on “informal supports†without acknowledging the enormous burden already being carried by families and carers.
The needs do not disappear just because funding disappears. The burden simply gets pushed back onto families already operating at capacity.
In my own situation, the level of support my children require has significantly impacted my ability to participate in paid employment. I believe these reforms risk pushing even more parents, particularly mothers, out of the workforce and into financial stress, burnout and increased reliance on other systems of support.
I am also concerned that children and young people who are intelligent, verbal, or outwardly coping may increasingly be viewed as “not disabled enough,†despite substantial impairment in daily functioning, emotional regulation, independence and participation.
My child has made meaningful improvements with psychology and occupational therapy support. Those improvements are evidence that the supports are working. They are not evidence that support is no longer needed.
The NDIS has the potential to reduce long-term social and economic costs by helping disabled children and families remain stable, engaged and functioning within the community before they reach crisis point.
I ask the committee to carefully consider:
- the impact of invisible disability and masking,
- the hidden labour performed by families,
- the long-term consequences of shifting more responsibility onto unpaid carers, and the risk of narrowing access for people whose disabilities may not be immediately visible to assessors.