Submission 1464
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Inquiry: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission type:
Personal submission by a 41-year-old, tertiary educated woman with level 2 Autism, raising Autistic and AuDHD daughters.
Position
I support the objective of protecting the NDIS for future generations. I also support stronger action on fraud, unsafe providers and poor use of public funding. However, I do not support the Bill proceeding without amendments or binding implementation safeguards.
My concern is that the Bill and associated implementation settings could reduce access to individualised support for autistic people before alternative supports are in place. If that happens, costs will not disappear. They will shift into health, mental health, education, child protection, policing, justice, housing, income support, unpaid care and lost workforce participation.
The cost of inadequate disability support does not disappear.
The NDIS should be assessed not only by its direct scheme cost, but by the avoidable costs it helps prevent across government and families.
The NDIS Review frames the scheme as a lifetime investment that improves outcomes and reduces avoidable costs across other systems, including social security, employment, health, housing and justice. That investment logic is central to this Bill. A narrow focus on reducing scheme expenditure risks creating false savings if unmet need shifts into hospitals, schools, mental health services, police, courts, housing, income support and unpaid care.
Recommendations
I ask the Committee to recommend that the Bill proceed only with the following safeguards.
- No reduction, exit or diversion from the NDIS until alternative supports exist
No participant should lose NDIS access or funded support until mainstream and foundational supports are funded, operational, accessible, disability-competent and independently evaluated.
This is particularly important for autistic children, people with ADHD, late-diagnosed people, people with communication differences, people with trauma histories and families already carrying high unpaid care loads.
- Functional capacity assessments must reflect autism and fluctuating capacity
Assessment processes must account for masking, sensory overload, executive dysfunction, communication differences, co-occurring ADHD, trauma, fluctuating capacity and the difference between appearing capable in a short assessment and functioning sustainably over time.
A person may appear competent in a short interaction and still be unable to sustain work, parenting, education, relationships or daily living without support.
- Group, bulk or commissioned models must not replace individualised support where it is required
Submission 1464
Group supports may be appropriate for some people and some goals. They should not become a substitute for individualised support where the person’s functional needs require communication-specific, sensory-aware, trauma-informed or relationship-based support.
For many autistic people, the relationship is part of the intervention. Effective support often depends on trust, continuity and a practitioner’s ability to understand how distress, communication and regulation change across settings.
Fraud controls and provider regulation must be proportionate
Fraud, unsafe practice and exploitation should be addressed directly. However, provider regulation should not create a market where only large providers can survive.
Participants must retain access to trusted specialist providers, including smaller providers that meet quality and safety standards. Administrative burden should not become a proxy for safety.
The Bill should include whole-of-government and gender impact assessment
Any reforms that reduce, delay or standardise disability support should be assessed for impacts on health, mental health, education, justice, housing, income support, employment, unpaid care and women’s workforce participation.
Where formal support is removed or diluted, the care task does not vanish. It is transferred to families, mainly mothers.
Access, planning and functional capacity
The Bill and associated reforms include changes to access, planning, support determinations, functional capacity assessment and how other service systems are considered.
For autistic people, functional impact is often misunderstood.
Many people mask distress, suppress needs or perform well in structured settings, then collapse at home. Many have uneven capacity: they may be articulate but unable to manage daily routines, employment demands, transitions, sensory load or emotional regulation without support.
Assessment must consider the person’s real-world functioning, not only how they present during an appointment.
This is particularly important for women and girls, who are more likely to be diagnosed late or misdiagnosed. A lack of early documentation should not be treated as lack of disability.
Permanence must also be understood properly. Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. Support, therapy, medication and environmental adjustments may improve functioning. That does not make the underlying disability temporary.
The Bill should not allow improvement with support to be used as evidence that a person no longer has a permanent disability or no longer requires disability support.
Provider models and individualised support
My key concern is the potential movement toward bulk, group-based, panel or commissioned provider models for autistic people.
The issue is not that group support is always inappropriate. The issue is that group support must not replace individualised support where individualised support is required.
Submission 1464
Communication, regulation, sensory needs, behaviour support, family capacity building and trauma-informed support are not simple volume services. They often depend on fit, trust and continuity.
A practitioner supporting an autistic person may need to understand:
- communication under stress
- sensory triggers and regulation needs
- family and school or work context
- how to adapt support in real time.
This cannot be reliably delivered through a generic model.
Large-provider models may look efficient on paper. They may also reduce choice, continuity and access to specialist providers. For autistic people, poor provider fit can lead to disengagement, distress, regression or crisis.
The Bill should include safeguards so future pricing, registration or commissioning arrangements do not make individualised specialist support harder to access.
Whole-of-government cost and unpaid care
The strongest case for NDIS sustainability is not only cost control. It is preventing avoidable harm and avoidable downstream expenditure.
When disability support is inadequate, costs shift into:
- health and mental health services
- education systems
- child protection
- family violence response
- policing and justice
- housing and homelessness services
- income support
- unpaid family care
- lost workforce participation.
For co-occurring ADHD diagnoses, early support with impulse control, executive functioning and emotional regulation can reduce later risk-taking, exclusion, family stress and justice-system contact. For autism, early and sustained support can improve communication, regulation, education, employment, independence and health.
The Disability Royal Commission identified early disability assessment, early intervention, intensive family-centred support, mental health services, disability expertise and service coordination as protective factors for children with disability in child protection systems.
These findings support a simple policy point: reducing disability support can create costs elsewhere.
The Bill should require a whole-of-government view of sustainability, not only a scheme budget view.
When formal disability support is unavailable, inadequate or hard to access, families absorb the work. In practice, that work is carried mainly by women, particularly mothers.
Submission 1464
Parents become case managers, advocates, behaviour support workers, therapy coordinators, crisis responders and school negotiators. That labour is often unpaid and invisible.
The workforce impact is direct. Women reduce hours, take lower-paid flexible roles, miss career progression, step out of the workforce and accumulate less superannuation.
This is part of the cost of under-support. It should be measured before reforms are implemented.
Personal experience
My own life shows the cost of late identification and inadequate support.
I was undiagnosed level 2 Autistic woman while pregnant and during the postnatal period. Because my autism and related needs were not recognised, I did not receive the right support at the right time. The result was significant and lasting PTSD and severe postnatal depression.
The impact did not stop there. It contributed to longer-term health, relationship and mental health consequences, including obesity, trauma and years of trying to function in systems that did not understand the underlying cause.
Earlier identification and appropriate support would likely have changed my health, parenting, relationships and participation. It would also likely have reduced my reliance on other systems over time.
My concern is that reforms which narrow access, understate functional impact or push people into unsuitable generic supports will reproduce this pattern at scale: recognising crisis after the opportunity for early support has passed.
Conclusion
The NDIS should be protected for future generations. That requires integrity, value for money and action against fraud.
It also requires effective support to remain available to the people who need it.
For autistic people, timely and individualised support can improve communication, regulation, education, employment, health, family stability and independence.
Poorly designed reform can delay support, dilute support, reduce choice, shift care back onto families and push costs into other systems.
The Committee should not recommend passage of the Bill without amendments or binding implementation safeguards that prevent cost shifting, protect individualised support and preserve procedural fairness.
Key sources:
- NDIS Review, Working together to deliver the NDIS, Final Report
- Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 materials
- Parliamentary Library, Bills Digest: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
- Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, Autism: Addressing the mental health needs of Autistic people
Submission 1464
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- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Autism in Australia
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- Australian Bureau of Statistics, Autism in Australia 2022
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- Disability Royal Commission, Care Criminalisation of Children with Disability in Child Protection Systems
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- Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Informal carers
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- Australian Government, Status of Women Report Card 2025