Submission 1406

Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Enquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Prepared by

Brian Cooper

May 2026

Submission Focus

This submission examines the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 through:

• human rights frameworks
• disability policy analysis
• institutional ethnocentrism
• intersectionality
• actuarial governance
• administrative exclusion
• gendered care impacts
• accessibility and procedural justice

The submission evaluates the proposed legislation against:

• the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
• Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)
• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Submitted to

Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Parliament of Australia Canberra ACT

Date Submitted

May 2026

1

Submission 1406

Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Enquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Introduction

This submission raises serious concerns about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

While safeguarding the long-term viability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is critical, the proposed law goes much beyond administrative reform. The Bill profoundly changes the conceptual, legal, and practical basis of disability support in Australia.

The proposed reforms recast disability in terms of actuarial containment, expense suppression, administrative uniformity, and executive discretion, rather than participation, accessibility, inclusion, equity, and human rights.

The NDIS was founded as one of Australia’s most important social reforms. It acknowledged that disability support is not discretionary welfare. Disability support is the infrastructure that allows for participation, dignity, autonomy, safety, and equal citizenship (Georganas 2026).

This Bill has the potential to transform the Scheme away from its participatory, rights-based core and towards a tightly managed administrative framework in which support becomes more conditional, procedural, and fiscally governed.

Functional Capacity and the Reconstruction of Disability

The proposed definition of functional ability may be the Bill’s most impactful provision.

The legislation defines functional capacity as a person’s ability to perform the following activities:

   "Without assistance from other people, assistive technology, or modifications" and "as far as
    possible" omitting environmental and personal circumstances (Commonwealth of Australia 2026, p.
     4).

This clause marks a significant philosophical shift in Australian disability policy.

Contemporary disability frameworks, such as the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF), the social model of disability, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006), acknowledge that disability results from the interaction of impairment and environment.

Participation is shaped by:

• housing
• transport
• trauma
• social exclusion
• poverty
• regionality
• family supports
• inaccessible systems

Submission 1406

• cultural and linguistic barriers

Instead, the suggested approach seeks to isolate an abstract “intrinsic” handicap from real-world conditions.

The Explanatory Memorandum specifically indicates that the assessment aims to avoid relying on the following:

• financial means
• living arrangements
• environmental variation (Commonwealth of Australia 2026b).

Yet these realities often determine whether a person can function safely and sustainably within the community.

The proposed approach risks:

• underestimating psychosocial disability
• excluding fluctuating conditions
• disadvantaging culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• intensifying rural and remote inequity
• privileging visible impairments over complex lived disabilities
• rewarding administrative presentation over actual need

Expansion of Ministerial Powers

Section 34A allows the Minister to cut assistance payment categories by a legislative instrument for “financial sustainability” (Commonwealth of Australia 2026, pp. 12-13).

The legislation also indicates that financing may not cover the real cost of supports (Commonwealth of Australia 2026, pp. 12-13).

This provision has enormous breadth.

It converts disability support from a fixed legislative entitlement to an administratively flexible allocation based on executive discretion.

The concentration of power within ministerial instruments dwindles.

• parliamentary scrutiny
• transparency
• participant certainty
• procedural fairness
• democratic accountability

Disability rights should not depend on fluctuating fiscal conditions administered through executive instruments.

Submission 1406

Restricting Reassessment Pathways

The Bill significantly narrows participant access to reassessment.

The proposed reforms:

• extend CEO response periods from 21 to 90 days
• increase evidentiary thresholds
• narrow qualifying circumstances
• restrict who may initiate reassessment requests (Commonwealth of Australia 2026, pp. 7–10)

The Explanatory Memorandum frames unscheduled reassessments as a driver of Scheme inflation (Commonwealth of Australia 2026b).

This framing is deeply concerning because reassessments often reflect the following:

• deteriorating health
• acquired impairments
• carer exhaustion
• family violence
• housing instability
• fluctuating disability
• loss of informal supports

The reforms risk trapping participants inside administratively convenient plans that no longer reflect actual support needs.

Treatment Exhaustion and Permanence

The Bill strengthens the relationship between impairment permanence and “all appropriate treatment” (Commonwealth of Australia 2026).

This creates significant risks for:

• people unable to tolerate treatment
• rural participants with limited service access
• culturally diverse communities facing barriers to care
• individuals with chronic or treatment-resistant conditions
• participants experiencing poverty or long waiting lists

The framework risks constructing support access around continual attempts to “fix” impairment rather than enabling participation and inclusion.

Submission 1406

Structural Eugenics and Administrative Exclusion

The term “eugenics” carries enormous historical weight and should not be used lightly.

The proposed legislation does not replicate historical eugenics in a direct or classical sense. However, aspects of the Bill raise serious ethical concerns regarding what disability scholars increasingly describe as the following:

• structural eugenics
• administrative eugenics
• actuarial exclusion (Goodley 2014; Oliver & Barnes 2012)

These concepts describe systems where exclusion occurs not through overt elimination but through the following:

• narrowing eligibility
• inaccessible systems
• delayed supports
• treatment conditionality
• procedural exhaustion
• reduced participation
• family burnout
• economic abandonment

The Bill repeatedly frames disability through the following:

• expenditure growth
• sustainability pressures
• participant containment
• actuarial thresholds
• fiscal management (Butler 2026; McIntosh 2026)

At the same time, the legislation permits reductions in support even when funding falls below actual support costs (Commonwealth of Australia 2026, pp. 12–13).

The danger is not overt elimination.

The danger is institutional abandonment disguised as neutral administration.

A society does not require explicit exclusion laws to produce eugenic outcomes. It only requires systems in which some populations become progressively less supported, less visible, less participatory, and less economically viable.

Submission 1406

Gendered Care Burden

The legislation demonstrates very limited engagement with Australia’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (United Nations 1979).

Disability support reductions do not occur within gender-neutral social systems.

Historically and statistically, unpaid care labour overwhelmingly falls upon:

• women
• mothers
• daughters
• sisters
• grandmothers

Parliamentary debate repeatedly acknowledged the enormous role of unpaid carers within Australia (Aldred 2026).

Yet the legislation itself contains minimal recognition of the following:

• unpaid labour transfer
• carer exhaustion
• economic exclusion associated with care
• cumulative impacts on women carers

The result is hidden cost-shifting from the State to invisible household labour.

Institutional Ethnocentrism

The Bill demonstrates strong features of institutional ethnocentrism.

The framework assumes participants possess:

• literacy
• procedural confidence
• digital competence
• advocacy capacity
• stable housing
• familiarity with bureaucratic systems

These assumptions disproportionately disadvantage:

• culturally and linguistically diverse communities
• Aboriginal communities
• rural participants
• people with intellectual disability
• individuals experiencing trauma
• people without strong advocacy networks

The increasingly legalised and procedural nature of the NDIS risks rewarding bureaucratic navigation capacity rather than genuine support needs (Le 2026).

Submission 1406

Human Rights and International Obligations

The Bill demonstrates insufficient integration of Australia’s broader international human rights obligations, including:

• Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The legislation also demonstrates weak alignment with several Sustainable Development Goals, especially:

• SDG 1 — No Poverty
• SDG 3 — Good Health and Wellbeing
• SDG 5 — Gender Equality
• SDG 10 — Reduced Inequalities
• SDG 11 — Inclusive Communities
• SDG 16 — Strong Institutions

The Bill increasingly privileges the following:

• fiscal governance
• expenditure containment
• administrative standardisation
• executive discretion

while broader human rights obligations remain fragmented or operationally invisible.

Recommendations

1.  Remove or substantially amend the proposed definition of functional capacity.

2.  Ensure environmental, social, cultural, and geographic realities remain central to disability
   assessment.

3.  Remove ministerial powers to make funding reductions through legislative instruments.

4.  Preserve accessible reassessment rights and independent review pathways.

5.  Ensure foundational supports are fully operational before reducing participant supports.

6.  Undertake an independent human rights impact assessment prior to enactment.

7.  Establish safeguards against indirect discrimination affecting culturally diverse communities,
  women, rural participants, and people with psychosocial disabilities.

8.  Ensure sustainability measures remain subordinate to human rights obligations and participatory
    inclusion principles.

9.  Embed stronger recognition of unpaid carers and gendered care burdens within legislative and
    policy design.

10. Ensure future reforms are co-designed with people with disabilities, representative organisations,
    carers, and diverse communities.

Conclusion

The NDS was established as one of Australia’s most important democratic and social reforms.

This Bil risks transforming the Scheme into a system increasingly governed through the following:

• actuarial containment
• administrative gatekeeping
• executive discretion
• procedural endurance
• expenditure suppression

A disability support system cannot be considered sustainable simply because expenditure growth slows.

A genuinely sustainable system continues to uphold the following:

• dignity
• participation
• accessibility
• inclusion
• equity
• and human rights for future generations.

The true measure of sustainability is not whether the budget survives.

The true measure of success is whether disabled Australians are able to participate.

Submission 1406

References

Aldred, M. 2026, House of Representatives Hansard, Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, Canberra, 26 May.

Butler, M. 2026, House of Representatives Hansard, Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, Canberra, 14 May.

Commonwealth of Australia 2026, National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.

Commonwealth of Australia 2026b, Explanatory Memorandum: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra.

Georganas, S. 2026, House of Representatives Hansard, Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, Canberra, 26 May.

Goodley, D. 2014, Dis/ability Studies: Theorising Disablism and Ableism, Routledge, London.

Le, D. 2026, House of Representatives Hansard, Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, Canberra, 26 May.

McIntosh, M. 2026, House of Representatives Hansard, Commonwealth Parliament of Australia, Canberra, 26 May.

Oliver, M. & Barnes, C. 2012, The New Politics of Disablement, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

United Nations 1979, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, United Nations, New York.

United Nations 2006, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, United Nations, New York.