National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 141
I support the need for reform, but this bill is not the reform that is required. I wish I had the capacity to respond to each point of the proposed legislative changes, but my impaired cognition prevents me from doing so. As a person with disabilities, the best I can do is briefly summarise my current experience of the NDIS.
I have been an NDIS participant since 2020, having acquired my disabilities as an adult. Before that, I lived a full, satisfying and diverse life. I say this not to seek sympathy, but because it matters: I know what I am capable of, and I know what I am being prevented from reaching. My disabilities have profoundly affected my daily functioning, but they have not changed who I am or what I am working toward. The NDIS, at its best, is supposed to bridge that gap.
I live alone. I have no informal support network to fall back on. The NDIS is not a supplement to other supports in my life — it is the entirety of them.
My new plan has seen significant cuts across both Core and Capacity Building funding. I have reflected carefully on how to describe the effect of these cuts, and the most honest way I can put it is this: the funding is just enough to keep me alive and paying my bills, but not enough to actually live. Under this plan, I am not being supported toward independence and participation — I am being maintained at a bare minimum. I am declining and at risk of serious harm and the need for hospitalisation, at best.
Prior to the reduction in my funding for social, economic, and community participation supports, I was able to use support hours not only for essential appointments and errands, but also to work toward rebuilding vocational capacity, maintain volunteer commitments, safely spend time in regulating outdoor environments, participate meaningfully in the community, and monitor my elderly mother’s wellbeing and safety as her sole carer.
Since the reduction of these supports to approximately eight hours per week, nearly all available support time is consumed by essential survival tasks such as grocery shopping, collecting prescriptions, attending medical appointments, managing errands, and basic administrative tasks. I no longer have sufficient supported time available to safely work toward vocational goals, maintain meaningful community participation, or care for my elderly mother who I have not been able to visit since August 2025.
What troubles me most is that my stated NDIS goals — goals that were agreed upon and are documented in my plan — are being actively prevented by the very funding decisions made to support them.
I have been forced into the position of going before The Administrative Review Tribunal process, which is in practice, inaccessible to me due to the nature of my disabilities. There are currently no disability advocates available to support me through it — a fact that speaks to just how many Australians are being forced to appeal their NDIS plans. Without advocacy
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 141
support, and given that self-adjacancy is directly impaired by my disabilties, my only viable option is to engange a traumainformed lega represenatative at significan persnal cost. This is not an acceptabe outome for somone the NDIS is suposed to be supportng, and it is a systemic probem.
I strongy oppse the propesd chages to the NDIS acr. If they ar adopte certianly a large numbe fo peple wth disbailties wil los acces o teh NDIS, bt i wtll no beeause tere ae otger servces avilable o s, t wi ll be bcase e wer not abel to survve te aramcances f ths prposd changes. Pleas, do nt d this.