Submission 1469 — Name Withheld — NDIS Future Generations Bill

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1469

Submission on the NDIS Amendment Bill

1. Introduction / My Connection to This Issue My name is , I am 22 years old and a current NDIS participant under ASD LVL 2 ( Requires Substantial Support). I am submitting to this enquiry because the proposed amendments to the NDIS have a direct impact on my life, and I believe my experience as a participant reflects problems that are broader than my individual case.

I accessed the NDIS approximately eight months ago on my first application. However, My experience since has been one of persistent underfunding, excessive administrative burden, and a system that appears to treat reasonable and necessary supports as something to be minimised rather than provided.

2. My Overall Position on This Bill The NDIS, exists to provide Australians with substantial disability the support they need to participate in life. This Bill, rather than strengthening participant rights or improving access to genuine support, appears to further restrict what the scheme will fund and expand ministerial and administrative powers in ways that concern me deeply.

My experience of the NDIS so far has not been one of meaningful support — it has been one of fighting to justify my existence as a disabled person and receiving a fraction of what was requested, on the basis of vague and inconsistently applied criteria. I do not support changes that risk making this worse for others like me.

3. My Key Concerns

Administrative Burden The administrative burden placed on participants is already significant. From my own experience, I have had to collect multiple letters of support from my treating practitioners and specialist assessments and questionnaires to determine my functional capacity, these take a significant amount of mental energy which can be retraumatising for some. There is never a streamlined process to either access information about the scheme, or access the scheme once you have met access, I have had to go to needless meetings and phone calls which are inaccessible to me just to be told ‘your next meeting is on Tuesday’.

As a result of this,I initially told that all my evidence was insufficient to fund the supports I requested. I completed the additional requirements asked of me. At the end of that process, I received funding, but at a heavily reduced level, on the basis of reasonable and necessity criteria applied in ways that were never clearly explained to me.

This creates a cycle where participants must continually prove and re-prove their needs, often at significant personal cost, only to receive support that falls short of what was requested. For autistic people and others with disabilities affecting

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1469

executive function or capacity for self-advocacy, this process is not just frustrating, it is genuinely harmful.

Loss of Supports / Reasonable and Necessary Criteria The ‘reasonable and necessary’ framework, as currently applied, does not appear to reflect the real-world needs of participants. As a concrete example: I attend physiotherapy fortnightly. My plan funds approximately 6 hours of physiotherapy as a ‘once off’ . Similarly, I also attend a psychologist fortnightly to gain life skills and strategies as an autistic person and navigate the stresses of being autistic. I have since I was 14 years old. I was told that under the reasonable and necessary criteria, psychology is considered a ‘clinical treatment’ and not appropriate for my plan. There is a significant gap between what my treating practitioners and I have identified as necessary, and what the NDIS has determined it will fund.

If the Bill expands the scope of ministerial powers or further restricts what can be considered reasonable and necessary, I am concerned this gap will widen for me and for many others.

Community Participation Due to my disability, I am largely unable to access the community independently. I have a very limited social network, and my daily life is significantly isolated as a result. Community participation support is not a ‘nice to have’ for people like me, it is the difference between a life with meaning and connection, and one without.

The NDIS is supposed to fund this kind of support, In practice, I have not received it in any meaningful way. Its not just for going to parties or concerts, its for going grocery shopping, to doctors appointments, and meeting family in the park. Any changes that further restrict community participation funding, or raise the bar for proving its necessity, will have serious consequences for participants whose isolation is already severe.

4. My Lived Experience I am autistic. My disability affects my ability to move through the world independently, to access the community, to build and maintain social connections, and to manage many tasks of daily life without substantial support.

I applied for the NDIS and was approved on my first attempt, which tells me the scheme recognises that I have a significant disability. What has followed, however, has not matched that recognition. When it came to determining what support I would actually receive, I was told repeatedly that my evidence, despite a privately funded functional capacity assessment and multiple specialist letters, were insufficient and that I needed to provide more documentation. I did so, despite significant burnout I almost didn’t go through with a resubmission. I was met with a planner that was not listening to my needs or the needs of my support person and had the meeting terminated when asked to get my needs met, a new planning meeting followed where I was told to give more evidence and it might be reviewed by someone at the NDIA. The result was a plan that funds a skeleton of what I asked for, enough to tick a box, not enough to make a real difference.

The NDIS could change my life. It could give me the support to leave my house, live independently, to participate in my community, to have the kind of social connection

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1469

that most people take for granted. That potential exists. But right now, my experience of the scheme has mostly been confusion, admin, and disappointment. I am writing this as someone who is still waiting for it to do what it is supposed to do.

5. What I Believe This Bill Gets Wrong The NDIS does not need to be made more restrictive. For many participants, it is already too difficult to access the support they genuinely need. The problem I have experienced is not that the scheme is too generous it is that the gap between what is promised and what is delivered is already large, and the administrative burden of navigating that gap falls entirely on participants, many of whom are among the least resourced people to carry it.

I am concerned that this Bill prioritises cost control and administrative efficiency over participant outcomes. I am concerned that expanding ministerial powers reduces the accountability and transparency that participants depend on. And I am concerned that changes to eligibility and assessment frameworks will push more people out of the scheme, or further reduce the support available to those already in it.

6. What Needs to Change or Be Protected I ask the committee to consider the following: Transparency in decision-making: Participants deserve clear, written explanations for why supports are approved or denied, based on consistent and accessible criteria. Reduction of administrative burden: The process of requesting, justifying, and re- justifying supports should not itself be a barrier to care. For many disabled people, the admin process is exhausting and, in some cases, retraumatising. Genuine community participation funding: Community participation is not a luxury. For isolated disabled people, it is foundational to wellbeing, mental health, and quality of life. It should be protected and properly funded. Accountability over efficiency: Any expansion of ministerial powers should come with corresponding expansions of participant rights, review mechanisms, and independent oversight.

7. Final Statement I did not write this submission because the NDIS has changed my life. I wrote it because it hasn’t yet, and I believe it should. The scheme has enormous potential to provide Australians with substantial disability genuine support, independence, and connection. I want to live a life with meaning. I want to be part of my community. Those things are not unreasonable. They are exactly what the NDIS was designed to help with.

What I have experienced instead is a system that acknowledges my disability while consistently finding reasons not to fund the support that would actually address it. This Bill, as I understand it, risks making that worse.

I ask the committee to consider my lived experience when reviewing this Bill, and to ensure that any amendments strengthen, not diminish, the rights and outcomes of participants like me.