Submission 1549 — Ms Gabriella Mirabito — NDIS Future Generations Bill | External submission

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Re: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submitted by: Gabriella Mirabito Publication preference: Contact details withheld Date: 27 May 2026

Introduction

Dear Committee Secretary,

My name is Gabriella Mirabito. I am a disabled person, an NDIS applicant, and a person currently relying on the Disability Support Pension. I am writing this submission based on my lived experience of permanent, complex, fluctuating disability involving hypermobility-related connective tissue disorder symptoms, joint instability, chronic pain, dysautonomia, fatigue, reduced mobility, upper limb impairment, and significant functional limitations.

I understand that the Committee cannot resolve my individual NDIS matter, overturn an NDIA decision, or intervene in my Administrative Review Tribunal process. I am not writing this submission for that purpose. I am writing because my experience shows how the proposed changes in this Bill could affect people with complex, lifelong, fluctuating disability, especially where disability cannot be understood by diagnosis labels alone, one-off assessments, or a simple view of what a person can do on one particular day.

I support the long-term sustainability and integrity of the NDIS. Fraud should be addressed. Public money should be used properly. Participants and taxpayers should be able to trust the system. However, sustainability must not be achieved by narrowing access, reducing supports, shifting responsibility onto families, or creating assessment rules that fail to recognise the real functional impact of complex disability.

My concern is that the Bill may make it even harder for people like me to be recognised before they deteriorate further, lose independence, lose access to therapy, become more reliant on family, and reach crisis point.

Summary of my experience with the NDIS

I applied for NDIS access because my disability has substantially reduced my capacity to function in ordinary daily life. My impairments affect mobility, self-care, hand function,

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

stamina, posture, pain, autonomic regulation, community access, and my ability to safely participate in work, family life, and daily routines.

I was refused access to the NDIS. I sought an internal review. After significant delay, the internal review outcome affirmed the refusal. I then proceeded to the Administrative Review Tribunal. Throughout this process I have had to gather extensive evidence, prepare legal and functional material, respond to reasoning that did not properly reflect my lived reality, and keep advocating while already severely unwell.

This process has not been a simple administrative inconvenience. It has been physically, emotionally, and financially exhausting. I have used savings, gone into debt, and been forced to reduce or give up therapies that help me maintain basic mobility and function. I am on the Disability Support Pension, and much of my income goes toward medical debt and health-related costs. The longer support is delayed, the more I deteriorate and the harder it becomes to maintain the function I still have.

Before my health declined further, work was a major part of my identity. I valued being useful, capable, independent, and productive. Losing that capacity has been devastating. My life now revolves around managing symptoms, avoiding crashes, attending appointments, using supports, rationing energy, and trying not to decline further.

Functional capacity must reflect real life, not a single assessment moment

I support the idea that NDIS access and planning should focus on functional capacity. However, functional capacity must be assessed properly. For people with complex and fluctuating disability, one short assessment can be misleading.

My function varies across the day and from day to day. I may be able to perform an action once, but that does not mean I can do it safely, repeatedly, reliably, or without consequence. A small action, such as waving, can trigger joint instability or subluxation. Tasks that appear ordinary, such as cutting food, cutting my nails, standing, showering, moving around the house, preparing to leave the house, or using my hands, can become difficult or unsafe.

My disability is cumulative. Pain, fatigue, autonomic symptoms, joint instability, muscle guarding, and post-exertional crashes build on each other. I often have to use braces, monitors, mobility aids, medication, electrolytes, water, and supportive equipment just to function at a basic level. I need to carry supplies with me because my body can become unstable quickly.

If functional capacity assessments only capture what I can do briefly in a controlled setting, they will underestimate my disability. The assessment must consider whether a

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

person can do an activity safely, repeatedly, sustainably, and in real environments, including at home and in the community.

Recommendation: Functional capacity assessment tools should be required to consider fluctuating capacity, pain, fatigue, post-exertional crashes, autonomic symptoms, joint instability, cumulative functional loss, and the difference between doing a task once and doing it safely and reliably over time.

Permanence and “all appropriate treatments” must not be used to deny lifelong disability

I am very concerned about any approach that requires a person to prove they have tried all appropriate treatments before their disability is accepted as permanent.

For conditions like hypermobility-related connective tissue disorders, dysautonomia, chronic pain, and complex multisystem disability, treatment is often not curative. Treatment is usually about maintenance, stabilisation, symptom management, safety, pacing, mobility, strength, pain reduction, and preventing further decline. Physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pain management, assistive technology, braces, mobility aids, psychology, and medical treatment can help, but they do not make the underlying disability disappear.

In my experience, the phrase “optimally treated” can be dangerous if it is interpreted as meaning a person is not permanently disabled until every possible therapy, medication, specialist, intervention, surgery, or lifestyle strategy has been attempted. That places an impossible burden on disabled people. It also disadvantages people who cannot afford ongoing therapy, cannot access specialists, are on long waitlists, or become too unwell to keep pursuing treatment at the required intensity.

This concern is not only about permanence in an abstract sense. In my own access process, the refusal reasoning was based, in part, on the view that I had not tried all possible measures. That reasoning did not properly reflect the medical evidence provided. In particular, it is extremely concerning when non-medical decision-makers appear to suggest that a person should pursue a treatment or surgery, while the person’s own medical practitioners have advised against that treatment because of the risks created by their medical condition.

In my matter, the original access refusal was made by a person who told me that their relevant background was working as a receptionist in a clinic and that they did not have medical qualifications. I do not raise this to criticise that individual personally. I raise it because it illustrates a serious system-design concern: a non-clinical decision-maker was able to make or rely on conclusions about complex medical treatment, including whether I had pursued enough treatment, despite the evidence and advice of my treating practitioners.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

That is not a minor disagreement. It goes to clinical safety. A person’s treating doctors and specialists know the person holistically. They understand the person’s diagnoses, comorbidities, symptoms, risks, history, and the reasons why a treatment may be inappropriate or unsafe. If those practitioners advise that a particular intervention is not appropriate, the NDIA should not be able to effectively second-guess that clinical judgment without appropriately qualified medical evidence.

A non-medical decision-maker should not be able to deny permanence or access by implying that a person should pursue treatment that their own treating clinicians have not recommended, have cautioned against, or have identified as unsafe. Administrative experience in a health setting is not the same as clinical expertise. The question should not be whether every possible intervention exists in theory. The question should be whether there are appropriate, safe, available, evidence-based treatments that are reasonably likely to substantially improve the person’s functional impairment. If the answer is no, then permanence should not be denied on the basis of hypothetical treatment.

I have already had to reduce or give up therapies because of cost. It would be deeply unfair for the system to then say my disability is not permanent because I have not accessed enough treatment. A person should not be punished for being unable to afford the very supports that would help them maintain function.

Recommendation: The Bill should include safeguards so that “all appropriate treatments” cannot be interpreted as “all possible treatments”. Permanence should be assessed realistically, especially for lifelong and incurable conditions where treatment manages function but does not cure the impairment.

Reasonable and necessary supports must include maintenance and prevention of decline

For many people with permanent disability, support is not only about improvement. It is about maintaining capacity, preventing deterioration, reducing risk, supporting participation, and avoiding crisis.

In my case, therapies and supports are not luxuries. They are what help me preserve basic function. Without physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pain management, assistive technology, mobility aids, braces, and other supports, my risk of further decline increases. When I cannot access therapy regularly, I lose function. When I push through without support, I crash. When I cannot use the right equipment, my family has to do more, or I simply cannot participate.

The NDIS should not treat maintenance as a lesser outcome. For fluctuating and progressive or lifelong disability, maintaining capacity can be the difference between

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

staying at home and needing more intensive care, between leaving the house and becoming isolated, between managing daily routines and losing independence.

Recommendation: The definition and application of reasonable and necessary supports should explicitly recognise maintenance, prevention of deterioration, safety, dignity, participation, and reduction of future reliance on crisis systems as legitimate disability support outcomes.

Social and community participation is not optional for disabled people

I am concerned about reduced funding or tighter limits for social and community participation supports.

For disabled people, community access is not just recreation. It is part of health, dignity, independence, identity, and social inclusion. When a person cannot safely leave the house without support, community access becomes a disability support need. Without support, the person may become isolated, lose confidence, experience worsening mental health, and become more dependent on family.

In my life, disability has already narrowed my world. I have had to give up work, reduce therapies, rely more on family, and plan carefully around every outing. Mobility limitations, fatigue, pain, dysautonomia, and crashes affect whether I can participate at all. I use mobility aids, but I cannot always self-propel in a wheelchair, and my family cannot always physically push me. Without appropriate support, I am not simply choosing not to participate. I am prevented from participating.

The NDIS should not assume that community participation is an optional extra. For many people, it is the practical difference between being included in society and being trapped at home.

Recommendation: Any reduction to social and community participation supports must include safeguards for people whose disability prevents safe or reliable community access without support. Funding decisions should consider isolation, mental health, mobility, family sustainability, and the person’s ability to participate in ordinary life.

Families and informal supports are not unlimited

I am very concerned about any increased expectation that families and unpaid carers will absorb support needs that the NDIS does not fund.

My family is deeply important to me, and they support me because they love me. But love does not make support physically, emotionally, or financially unlimited. My family members have their own health issues, work responsibilities, and limits. They cannot

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

always physically assist me, push a wheelchair, manage every task, or carry the entire administrative and practical load.

The NDIS process itself already places a huge burden on families. In my case, the amount of evidence gathering, documentation, phone calls, complaints, internal review material, ART preparation, provider coordination, therapy planning, budgeting, and advocacy has been enormous. This is difficult even for someone who is organised and determined. It would be impossible for many disabled people without support.

If the Bill allows decision-makers to rely more heavily on informal supports, the system must also ask whether those supports are actually sustainable. Otherwise, family members become unpaid case managers, support workers, transport providers, administrators, advocates, and crisis responders.

Recommendation: The Bill should require decision-makers to assess the real sustainability of informal supports, including the carer’s health, work, finances, emotional load, physical capacity, and long-term ability to continue providing support.

Other service systems cannot replace the NDIS where they do not actually provide disability support

I am concerned about greater emphasis on considering other government schemes or mainstream services before NDIS support is provided.

In principle, mainstream systems should do their job. Health, housing, transport, education, employment, and community services should be accessible. But in reality, these systems often do not provide the disability supports people need. Medical services may diagnose and treat symptoms, but they do not fund ongoing disability support, support workers, assistive technology, home modifications, or functional participation supports in the way the NDIS is intended to.

For complex disability, people are often passed between systems. Health says the issue is functional and disability-related. Disability systems say more treatment is needed. Mainstream services say they do not provide that kind of support. The person is left in the gap.

I have experienced the harm of being told, directly or indirectly, that my needs are someone else’s responsibility. When systems do not coordinate, the disabled person and their family become responsible for holding everything together.

Recommendation: The Bill should include safeguards so that access to another service system is only considered where that system actually provides the support in practice, within a reasonable timeframe, and in a way that meets the person’s disability-related needs.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

Cost-shifting to states and territories is not a real solution

I am also concerned that reforms may move people out of the NDIS without a clear, nationally consistent alternative being ready to support them.

Before the NDIS, disability support depended much more heavily on state and territory systems. One of the reasons the NDIS mattered was that it was meant to create a national scheme, with clearer rights and more consistent access to reasonable and necessary disability supports. If people are now pushed back toward state and territory systems, then the underlying support need does not disappear. The cost is simply shifted from one part of government to another.

That is not true sustainability. It is a short-term budget transfer. The person still needs support. The family still carries the impact. The health system may still absorb the crisis. The state or territory may be left trying to fund services from its own limited budget. If the supports are not available, the disabled person is the one who pays the price.

There is also a basic funding contradiction. If the purpose of moving people out of the NDIS is to reduce pressure on the NDIS budget, but those people still need disability supports, then those supports must be funded somewhere else. State, territory, or foundational support programs cannot be a genuine alternative unless they have real money behind them. If they are properly funded, the cost has not disappeared; it has simply moved to another budget. If they are not properly funded, then people with disability are not being supported, they are being excluded.

This is also consistent with the NDIS Review’s own recommendations. The Review did not suggest that people should simply be moved into unsupported gaps. It recommended that National Cabinet jointly design, fund, and commission an expanded and coherent set of foundational supports outside individual NDIS budgets. [3] That matters because it confirms that alternatives to the NDIS still require real funding, commissioning, governance, and accountability.

This also creates a postcode problem. Disability support should not depend on which state or territory a person lives in, which government is in power, or what that state’s budget position is at the time. If a person can access a support in one state but not another, then the system is not equitable. A disabled person should not have to consider moving interstate to access basic supports, therapy, equipment, or community participation.

I am concerned that returning people to fragmented state or territory systems may recreate the very problems the NDIS was meant to solve. It may also allow governments to shift responsibility between each other, while people with disability are left in the gap.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

If governments want more people supported outside the NDIS, those supports must be real, funded, available, enforceable, and nationally consistent. They cannot simply be an idea on paper. A person should not be told they are not eligible for the NDIS because another system could theoretically assist them, only to find that the other system has no funding, no service, no authority, or no practical pathway.

This is why I am concerned that foundational supports could become a political phrase rather than a practical safety net. If the supports are not funded at a level that matches real need, then the reform will not solve the cost problem. It will hide the cost by pushing people into families, hospitals, crisis services, poverty, isolation, or state and territory waiting lists.

It should not be lawful or acceptable to refuse, remove, or redirect a person from the NDIS based on a theoretical alternative service system. If foundational, state, or territory supports are intended to replace some NDIS supports, those supports should be operational, funded, nationally consistent, accessible, and enforceable before people are moved. Reform should not create a gap and then ask disabled people to survive inside it.

Recommendation: Any movement of supports from the NDIS to state, territory, or foundational support systems must be backed by clear funding, national minimum standards, enforceable rights, transparent responsibilities, and practical availability. No person should be removed from, refused by, or redirected away from the NDIS unless the alternative support actually exists and can meet their needs in practice.

Plan reassessments, end dates, and suspension powers must not create instability

I am concerned about limiting participant-requested plan reassessments and expanding circumstances in which plans may be suspended.

Disability does not always follow neat funding periods. Needs can change suddenly because of injury, deterioration, equipment failure, hospitalisation, family breakdown, loss of informal support, or worsening symptoms. If reassessment is only available in narrow circumstances, people may be forced to wait while risk increases.

For people with fluctuating and complex conditions, it may be difficult to prove that a change is both significant and ongoing at the exact moment the system requires. Yet waiting can cause harm. A person may need urgent equipment, increased support, therapy, or home changes to prevent deterioration or crisis.

Suspension powers also need strong safeguards. Disabled people may fail to respond to requests because they are unwell, cognitively overloaded, hospitalised, in pain, overwhelmed, or unsupported. Non-response should not automatically be treated as non-compliance.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

Recommendation: Plan reassessment and suspension powers should include safeguards for fluctuating disability, health crises, cognitive overload, lack of advocacy support, hospitalisation, and periods where a person is unable to respond due to disability.

Provider regulation and compliance should protect participants without reducing choice

I support strong action against fraud, exploitation, unsafe providers, and misuse of NDIS funds. Disabled people deserve safe, ethical, high-quality support. Fraud also harms participants because it undermines public trust in the Scheme.

However, provider regulation must be risk-proportionate and should not unintentionally reduce access to trusted supports. Many disabled people rely on smaller providers, sole traders, local support workers, allied health professionals, direct supports, and flexible services that meet their needs better than large organisations. If compliance obligations become too difficult or expensive, some good providers may leave the sector or stop working with self-managed and plan-managed participants.

For people with complex disability, relationship-based support matters. It can take significant effort to find providers who understand fluctuating symptoms, pacing, mobility aids, joint instability, fatigue, pain, autonomic symptoms, and the need for flexible support. Losing providers because of administrative burden would harm participants.

Recommendation: Provider regulation should be risk-proportionate and should protect participants from unsafe providers without removing choice, flexibility, direct support arrangements, or access to smaller providers who deliver safe and effective services.

Record-keeping, claims timeframes, and civil penalties must not punish disabled people for complexity

I understand the need for proper records, clear claims, and fraud prevention. However, record-keeping and compliance rules must recognise that disabled people and families are already carrying heavy administrative burdens.

In my own NDIS and ART experience, the administrative burden has been enormous. Keeping timelines, evidence, correspondence, invoices, reports, provider documents, and functional examples organised has taken significant time and energy. This work is not neutral. It consumes capacity that could otherwise go toward health, therapy, rest, family life, or basic daily functioning.

If compliance rules are too strict, confusing, or punitive, participants and families may become afraid to use supports, afraid to self-manage, or unable to keep up. The people

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

most likely to be harmed are often those with the least energy, least support, and most complex needs.

Recommendation: Compliance reforms should distinguish between fraud and genuine administrative difficulty. Participants and nominees should have accessible guidance, reasonable correction opportunities, and protection from penalties where mistakes arise from disability, complexity, or lack of clear information.

Plan management and digital payment changes must preserve accessibility and participant control

I am concerned that plan management and digital payment changes may reduce flexibility or create barriers for people who already struggle with administration.

Plan management, self-management, and flexible provider arrangements can be essential for people who need choice, continuity, local supports, and providers who understand complex disability. If new payment systems are difficult to use, poorly designed, or too rigid, they may create additional barriers.

Accessibility must be built in from the beginning. This includes accessible technology, clear communication, support for nominees and representatives, protections for people with cognitive fatigue or fluctuating capacity, and alternatives where digital systems fail.

Recommendation: Any digital payment or plan management reforms should be co-designed with disabled people and should preserve participant choice, nominee support, accessibility, correction pathways, and continuity of safe supports.

Pricing mechanisms must not create funding gaps

I am concerned about Ministerial pricing mechanisms and the risk that funding may not match the real cost of supports.

For participants, a plan that is technically funded but does not cover the actual cost of support is not a real plan. If hourly rates, therapy costs, travel costs, equipment prices, or provider availability are not reflected in budgets, participants may be left unable to use supports even when those supports are approved.

This is especially concerning for people with complex disabilities who need experienced providers. Not every provider understands hypermobility-related disability, dysautonomia, chronic pain, fatigue, pacing, joint instability, or mobility aid use. A cheaper support is not necessarily an appropriate or safe support.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

Recommendation: Pricing decisions should be transparent, evidence-based, clinically informed, and reviewable. Budgets must reflect the real market cost of safe, appropriate supports for people with complex disability.

Automated decision-making must not replace human judgment

I am concerned about automated administrative decision-making in the NDIS.

The NDIS deals with people whose lives are complex, variable, and deeply affected by context. Algorithms and automated systems may be useful for simple administrative tasks, but they should not determine access, funding, support needs, risk, or plan reductions without meaningful human oversight.

My disability is not easily captured by a simple checkbox. A tool may miss the difference between being able to stand briefly and being able to safely function throughout a day. It may miss the cost of pushing through. It may miss the impact on family, mental health, dignity, work identity, community access, and long-term decline.

Recommendation: Automated decision-making should never replace individualised human assessment for access, planning, funding, reductions, suspensions, or reviewable decisions. Participants should have clear rights to explanation, correction, human review, and appeal.

Transitional arrangements must not leave people stranded

I am concerned about how reforms will be implemented over time.

When major NDIS changes occur, participants and applicants can be left uncertain about which rules apply, what evidence is required, whether existing evidence still counts, whether supports will continue, and whether decisions will change before people have time to respond.

For someone already in the access, internal review, or ART process, shifting rules can create further stress. People who have already spent months or years gathering evidence should not be disadvantaged by sudden changes in criteria or assessment tools.

Recommendation: Transitional arrangements should protect current applicants, participants, review applicants, and ART applicants from unfair disruption. Existing evidence should remain relevant, people should receive clear notice, and no person should lose access or supports without proper review rights.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

The NDIS should be managed like a true insurance scheme

The NDIS is an insurance scheme. As someone who has worked in insurance for approximately 15 years, I find it difficult to understand how the current system could continue economically if its internal processes are not examined properly.

In insurance, sustainability is not achieved only by reducing what is paid to claimants. It also requires accurate assessment, early resolution, consistent decision-making, clear evidence handling, proper risk management, and avoiding unnecessary escalation. If a claim is poorly handled at the beginning, it can become more expensive later. The same principle applies here.

The Scheme has grown significantly, and I understand why governments are concerned about cost. However, I do not accept the public implication that the main explanation is that participants are simply misusing funds or asking for luxuries. Fraud and misuse should be addressed, but the public conversation is too narrow if it ignores system design, poor decision-making, double-handling, delays, tribunal escalation, legal costs, and the failure to fund supports early enough to prevent deterioration.

The way disability supports are sometimes portrayed publicly is also deeply concerning. I do not think the wider community necessarily misunderstands the NDIS on its own. Public understanding is shaped by the way political leaders, media commentary, and public statements frame the Scheme. When politicians focus mainly on fraud, cost blowouts, unusual examples, or supports being described in a sensational way, the public receives a narrow and negative picture of what NDIS participants actually receive.

Public communication about the NDIS should be balanced. If Parliament speaks publicly about fraud, misuse, and cost, it should also speak publicly about the purpose of supports, the lives they protect, the independence they create, the family burnout they prevent, and the ordinary participation they make possible. Otherwise, public debate becomes distorted and disabled people are made to carry the stigma of a system they did not design.

The National Disability Insurance Agency’s own Annual Report 2024–25 gives examples of positive participant outcomes, including increased choice and control and increased social and community engagement for many participants over time. [4] Those outcomes are part of the public interest story too. They should be communicated alongside discussions about cost, fraud, and sustainability.

When examples are given about people using support for ordinary activities such as haircuts, movies, shopping, or social outings, the public often hears that disabled people are receiving luxuries. What is missing is the reality that the NDIS is often not funding

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

the haircut, the movie, or the outing itself. It is funding the support worker or disability-related assistance that allows the person to access ordinary life safely.

If a person cannot drive, cannot safely travel alone, cannot manage personal care tasks independently, cannot safely access the community, or needs assistance because of mobility, pain, fatigue, cognition, sensory issues, or other disability-related barriers, then the support is not a luxury. It is the bridge between isolation and participation.

Unless the broader community is willing to provide that support themselves, it is unfair to frame disabled people as unreasonable for needing paid assistance. This narrow public framing increases segregation between disabled and non-disabled people. It makes people with disability feel like villains for trying to access the same ordinary life that others take for granted.

I look to Parliament for advocacy, access, fairness, and protection of rights. Parliamentarians represent disabled constituents as much as they represent non-disabled constituents. In my view, elected representatives should be helping the wider community understand what the NDIS actually does, why disability supports exist, and how those supports allow people to live with safety, dignity, participation, and independence.

I am disappointed by the way people with disability are too often portrayed in public debate as the cause of the Scheme’s problems, rather than as people trying to survive within a system that is already difficult, exhausting, and often inaccessible. A parliamentarian should advocate for all constituents, including those whose lives are affected by disability, rather than contributing to a public narrative that makes disabled people feel like a burden.

A true insurance approach should ask: what support prevents further deterioration, crisis, hospitalisation, family burnout, unemployment, isolation, or higher future costs? If the Scheme only looks at short-term reductions, it may save money on one line item while increasing costs elsewhere.

Disability support is not only expenditure. It can be what allows a person to work, study, attend appointments, reduce hospitalisation risk, participate in the community, reduce reliance on family, and avoid further deterioration. Cutting support may look like a saving on paper, but it can reduce economic and social participation and increase costs elsewhere.

There is also a return on investment that is often missing from public discussion. When a person receives appropriate NDIS support, the benefit does not stop with that individual participant. Support can allow family members and informal carers to remain in paid work, increase their hours, maintain their own health, and avoid burnout. It also creates paid employment for support workers, allied health professionals, plan managers, coordinators, sole traders, small businesses, and community providers.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

Those workers and businesses pay tax, spend money in the economy, and support other jobs.

In my own case, the right supports may also allow me to rebuild some capacity, participate more in the community, attend appointments more safely, reduce crisis-driven deterioration, and potentially return to some limited paid work over time. That would not only benefit me personally. It would also increase my contribution to society and reduce reliance on family and crisis systems.

This is why it is too narrow to speak about the NDIS only as a cost. Public reporting and commentary have referred to independent economic analysis estimating that every $1 spent on the NDIS generates approximately $2.25 in economic activity. [10] Even if exact figures vary depending on the analysis used, the principle is important: disability support circulates through the economy. It is not money that simply disappears.

Recommendation: The NDIS should be reviewed as a whole insurance system, including administrative costs, decision quality, escalation costs, legal spending, delayed support, and the long-term cost of under-supporting people. Public communication about the Scheme should accurately explain that many supports fund access, assistance, safety, and participation, not luxuries.

Accountability should not sit only with participants

I also believe there needs to be greater accountability for how the Scheme reached this point. Public discussion often focuses on participants, providers, fraud, and the cost of individual plans. Those issues may need attention, but they are not the whole picture.

The NDIS is a national scheme overseen by government. Ministers, departments, the NDIA, senior executives, and policy decision-makers have had responsibility for the Scheme over many years. If the Scheme has reached a point where government now says urgent restriction or reform is needed, then it is reasonable to ask how this was allowed to occur.

Ministers responsible for the NDIS portfolio should have had access to budgets, forecasts, expenditure data, actuarial information, risk reporting, operational reporting, complaints data, review outcomes, tribunal trends, provider trends, audit findings, and advice about sustainability. It is difficult to understand how cost pressures and operational problems could reach this scale without earlier intervention. If cost pressures were building over time, why were effective safeguards not put in place earlier, before the issue became so significant? If known problems existed in

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

decision-making, planning, fraud control, provider oversight, appeals, or administration, why were they not addressed sooner?

The Agency’s Annual Report 2024–25 refers to Australian National Audit Office audits involving the National Disability Insurance Agency, including recommendations about board oversight, risk management, compliance frameworks, payment assurance testing, and performance reporting. [8] That is important because it shows that governance, compliance, and administration are not only participant-level issues. They are system-level issues.

This is not about blaming one individual. It is about governance. If disabled people are now being asked to accept tighter rules, narrower supports, greater scrutiny, and a more restrictive Scheme because of sustainability concerns, then the people and institutions responsible for overseeing the Scheme should also be subject to scrutiny.

Participants and applicants should not be the only people held accountable. It is not fair for the public narrative to suggest that disabled people are the reason the Scheme is under pressure, while past policy decisions, ministerial oversight, administrative design, delayed reforms, and internal inefficiencies receive less attention.

Parliamentarians are placed in positions of authority to govern systems in the public interest. That should include identifying problems early, acting before they become crises, listening to constituents, and ensuring that essential public schemes remain sustainable without harming the people they exist to support.

In my own experience, it took escalation to my local Member of Parliament before the matter received a different level of attention. Only after the issue was raised through a parliamentary channel was it referred into a special pathway or team that appears to exist to respond when complaints are made to politicians because the ordinary NDIS process has not resolved the matter. That raises another serious process question. Why should a disabled person need a politician to intervene before an unresolved issue is meaningfully reviewed? Why is another team required to respond to political complaints, when the original call centre, complaints, access, and internal review pathways should already be capable of providing timely and accountable responses?

This again suggests unnecessary duplication. A system should not need a separate political-escalation response pathway simply because ordinary pathways do not respond properly. If such a pathway exists, it indicates that the NDIS already knows some matters are not being resolved through normal channels. The answer should not be to create more layers. The answer should be to fix the original process so participants and applicants receive accurate, timely, accountable decisions without needing parliamentary intervention.

I also question how complaints are being used at a systemic level. I have raised multiple complaints directly with the NDIS. I do not understand how large volumes of complaints from participants, applicants, families, advocates, providers, and the disability

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

community could exist for years without those complaints being treated as serious evidence of system failure. Complaints should not simply be recorded, closed, or passed between teams. They should be analysed, reported, escalated, and used to identify patterns in what is going wrong.

The disability community has been saying for years that parts of the system do not work. People have raised concerns about delays, inconsistency, poor communication, inaccessible processes, lack of transparency, unsafe gaps in support, and decision-making that does not reflect lived reality. Public reporting on earlier Commonwealth Ombudsman findings about NDIS review delays shows that issues with delays, review backlogs, and complaints were being raised years before the current reform debate. [9] If those concerns were known, then why were they not acted on earlier in a way that prevented the current situation from becoming so severe?

It feels inequitable for complaints and lived experience to be pushed aside for years, only for major reform to occur when the cost pressure becomes politically urgent. Disabled people should not have to wait until a system becomes financially inconvenient before their experiences are taken seriously. Reform should be driven by evidence, complaints data, lived experience, and fairness, not only by budget pressure.

Recommendation: The Committee should consider recommending independent review or public reporting on NDIS governance accountability, including how sustainability risks were identified, how complaints data and lived experience evidence were used, what advice was provided to ministers and senior decision-makers, what actions were or were not taken, whether earlier intervention could have reduced the need for more restrictive reforms now, and why ordinary participant pathways have required political escalation teams or special response channels to obtain action.

Administrative waste and avoidable escalation are also sustainability issues

I also want the Committee to understand that, in my view, the places where the NDIS is looking to save money are not always the places where money is being wasted.

I support sustainability. I do not want public money wasted. But my experience has made me question how much money is spent because matters are pushed unnecessarily through every stage of the system rather than being resolved properly at the beginning.

The current process does not make logical sense to me. The NDIS has rules and access criteria. Applicants are told to provide evidence about their functional capacity. In my case, I was specifically told that functional capacity evidence was important, so I obtained and provided a functional capacity assessment. Yet the decision-making process still appeared to fall back on diagnosis-based reasoning, assumptions about

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

treatment, and rigid interpretations that did not properly reflect what my evidence said about my day-to-day function.

This creates a contradiction. Participants and applicants are told that the NDIS does not make decisions based on diagnosis alone, and that functional impact is what matters. But in practice, people with complex, fluctuating, or less commonly understood disabilities can still be treated as though their diagnosis does not fit a narrow expectation of disability, even when their functional capacity evidence shows substantial impairment.

This concern is consistent with the National Disability Insurance Agency’s own public guidance. The Agency says supporting evidence should explain the person’s disability, treatments, how the disability impacts daily life, and any recommendations. [1] It also describes a functional capacity assessment as an official assessment by a qualified professional that looks at how a person performs daily tasks at home, at work, and in the community. [2] Where applicants provide this kind of evidence, decisions should engage with it directly and transparently.

I also experienced what I consider to be contradictory reasoning about disability and permanence. In my case, the NDIA accepted that I am disabled, yet stated that it could not be satisfied about permanence. For a lifelong connective tissue disorder with permanent functional consequences, that distinction is difficult to understand. If the impairment is accepted as disabling, and the underlying condition is lifelong or genetic in nature, then the decision-maker should clearly explain why permanence is still not accepted. Otherwise, the reasoning appears circular: the person is disabled enough to be acknowledged as disabled, but not disabled in the correct way to access support.

The result is red tape and bureaucracy that can become more disabling than it needs to be. A person can provide evidence, respond to requests, obtain reports, explain functional impact, and still be moved through complaint, internal review, and tribunal pathways because the earlier decision-making did not properly resolve the real issue.

The call centre process is another example of inefficiency. When applicants or participants call the NDIS, the call centre staff are often unable to meaningfully assist because they cannot see enough information, cannot make decisions, and cannot resolve the issue. They can usually only write notes and pass the matter to another team. If that other team does not respond, the participant is left calling again, repeating the same information, and generating more notes. This does not feel like an efficient use of public money. It creates the appearance of a service pathway, but in practice it can become a message-taking system with no timely accountability or resolution.

I have also seen documentation indicating that there are internal teams that review decisions or provide advice about how matters meet, or do not meet, NDIS criteria. This raises a further process concern. If one team is needed to guide another team on how to interpret NDIS policy, apply the access criteria, or decide whether a person should be

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

accepted or declined, then it is reasonable to ask whether the people making the decisions are properly equipped to make them in the first place.

This kind of double-handling does not appear logical. If the system already has people who understand the policy and criteria well enough to advise on how decisions should be made, why are those people not directly involved in making, checking, or quality-assuring the decision before it is sent to an applicant or participant? Why should a person with disability have to go through refusal, complaint, internal review, and tribunal escalation before the decision is looked at by people with deeper policy or technical knowledge?

This is not a minor administrative issue. Every extra handover, internal note, call centre contact, complaint, review, technical advice step, tribunal process, and legal review costs time and public money. It also costs disabled people their health, energy, financial stability, and trust in the system.

This is why I believe the current sustainability conversation is incomplete. Public discussion often focuses on participants, applicants, fraud, plan restrictions, and whether people are asking for too much. Fraud should absolutely be addressed, but it is harmful and unfair if the public narrative repeatedly portrays participants and applicants as the problem while the system’s own inefficiencies, double-handling, inconsistent decisions, and avoidable escalations receive far less attention.

I do not want to be on the NDIS. I do not want to be on the Disability Support Pension. I want to be a contributing member of society. I want to work, participate, be independent, and live with dignity. But I cannot do that without support. The current public narrative can make disabled people feel like a burden simply for needing help to survive and function.

It is deeply distressing to see repeated public statements about fraud and cost blowouts while very little attention is given to the cost of the system’s own bureaucracy. In my experience, there are obvious areas that should be examined: poor first-instance decision-making, contradictory reasoning, non-specialist review of specialist evidence, call centre limitations, internal double-handling, complaint escalation, internal review delay, tribunal escalation, and legal costs. These are not participant supports. They are system costs.

People with disability are constituents. We are the people Parliament is meant to represent. Yet it often feels as though major decisions are being made about our lives without genuinely listening to what it is like to navigate the system. Unless decision-makers understand the daily reality of fighting for support while also living with disability, they may not understand the harm caused by delay, disbelief, bureaucracy, and public stigma.

Disabled people should not be consulted after decisions have effectively already been made. Co-design must mean genuine power to shape reform, not being asked to

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

respond to a system that has already decided what it wants to cut. Nothing about us should be decided without us in a meaningful, practical, and accountable way.

In my own case, I applied for access, was refused, sought internal review, waited through delays, received correspondence and reasoning that I believe was internally inconsistent and did not properly engage with the evidence, and then had to proceed to the Administrative Review Tribunal. Once a matter reaches that stage, the NDIA may appoint lawyers to review the same evidence and defend or resolve the decision.

The National Disability Insurance Agency’s Annual Report 2024–25 records $75.414 million in legal expenses in 2024–25, compared with $51.899 million in 2023–24. [5] Guardian Australia has also reported, based on Freedom of Information material, that $60.7 million was paid to six external law firms in 2024–25 for Administrative Review Tribunal representation. [7] I cannot quantify the cost of my own matter. However, as a taxpayer and disabled person, I think it is reasonable to ask why public money is being spent on legal review at the tribunal stage when some matters could potentially have been resolved much earlier through careful, lawful, evidence-based decision-making.

If an applicant or participant provides substantial evidence, and if later correspondence or tribunal processes reveal that earlier reasoning was incomplete, contradictory, or overly rigid, then the system has not saved money. It has shifted the cost. It has forced the disabled person to carry months of stress, functional decline, financial strain, administrative labour, and legal uncertainty, while the public system pays for repeated handling of the same matter.

For a person already living with disability, the cost is not only financial. Each delay can mean lost therapy, worsening function, increased reliance on family, avoidable crisis, and deterioration that may later require more intensive and expensive support. What appears to be a short-term saving can become a long-term cost.

The NDIS should look closely at its own processes before reducing supports or narrowing access. Sustainability should include early resolution, better decision-making, consistency between delegates, proper engagement with evidence, appropriate subject-matter expertise, and accountability when matters are escalated unnecessarily.

Participants and applicants should not be passed between call centres, complaints teams, internal review teams, technical advice teams, ministerial response teams, and tribunal pathways without anyone being accountable for resolving the matter. There should be a clearly identified decision-owner with authority to explain, progress, and resolve complex matters. Without one accountable person or team, the system becomes a loop of handovers rather than a pathway to resolution.

The Scheme should also publicly report not only participant plan costs, but also the cost of administration, complaints, internal review delays, tribunal matters, external legal representation, repeated evidence handling, ministerial escalations, technical advice

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

processes, and remade or conceded decisions. Without this data, the public only sees participant supports as the cost problem, not the cost of system failure.

The Agency’s own Annual Report 2024–25 records 7,132 external merits review applications in 2024–25 and 5,185 open Administrative Review Tribunal applications at 30 June 2025, a 75 per cent increase from the previous year. It also records 203 tribunal hearing decisions, with 107 affirmed, 9 varied, and 87 set aside. [6] Those figures support the need to examine why matters reach external review and whether better early decisions could resolve more disputes before they become tribunal matters.

I am also concerned that the people conducting access reviews and internal reviews may not have the training, qualifications, or subject-matter expertise needed to properly assess complex disability evidence. Applicants are asked to provide evidence from medical practitioners, allied health professionals, specialists, and clinicians who are qualified, experienced, and respected in their fields. Yet that evidence can then be discounted, reinterpreted, or treated as insufficient by a decision-maker who may have no specialist understanding of the condition, no clinical training, and no real exposure to how that disability affects day-to-day function.

This is difficult to reconcile. If a specialist practitioner provides evidence about a person’s diagnosis, permanence, functional capacity, treatment history, risks, contraindications, and support needs, there should be a clear and clinically sound reason before that evidence is rejected or minimised. It should not be enough for a non-specialist decision-maker to simply prefer a narrower interpretation without properly explaining why the specialist evidence is not accepted.

This is especially concerning where a decision-maker appears to make clinical assumptions about treatment options. If treating doctors advise that an intervention, including surgery, is inappropriate or unsafe because of a person’s medical condition or overall clinical picture, what authority does a non-medical NDIS decision-maker have to effectively contradict that advice? What qualifications does that decision-maker have to decide that the person has not pursued enough treatment, where the treating clinicians have already explained why further treatment is not appropriate, not safe, not curative, or not reasonably likely to remove the functional impairment?

If the NDIA considers specialist or functional capacity evidence insufficient, it should be required to identify the exact evidentiary gap and give the person a fair opportunity to respond before refusal, reduction, or escalation. A person should not find out only after refusal that the evidence they were told to provide was not considered enough.

This matters especially for complex and less visible disabilities. A decision-maker who does not understand hypermobility-related disability, dysautonomia, chronic pain, fatigue, instability, post-exertional crashes, or fluctuating function may underestimate the severity of impairment. The applicant is then forced to keep proving the same reality, even when qualified practitioners have already explained it.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

Recommendation: Access and review decisions involving complex, fluctuating, neurological, genetic, connective tissue, or multisystem disabilities should include input from appropriately qualified subject-matter experts. Where specialist clinical or functional evidence is rejected, the decision-maker should be required to clearly explain why, with reference to evidence and expertise, not general assumptions. The NDIA should not deny permanence or access on the basis of hypothetical treatment options, including surgery, unless there is appropriately qualified medical evidence showing that the treatment is safe, appropriate, available, and reasonably likely to substantially improve the person’s functional impairment.

Recommendation: The Bill and any related NDIS reform should include safeguards and reporting mechanisms that examine the cost of avoidable disputes, call centre escalation, internal double-handling, technical advice processes, complaint pathways, internal review delays, tribunal escalation, legal representation, repeated evidence handling, contradictory reasoning, and poor-quality first-instance decision-making. Saving money should start with reducing administrative waste and preventable escalation, not by making disabled people fight harder for essential supports.

What I want the Committee to understand

People without disability may not realise how much work it takes to appear functional. They may see one appointment, one outing, one task, or one good moment and assume the person is coping. They do not see the planning, pain, braces, medication, rest, crashes, fear, financial strain, family support, and lost independence behind that moment.

They may not realise that being young does not mean being physically reliable. They may not realise that hypermobility is not simply being flexible. It can mean unstable joints, pain, injuries, subluxations, fatigue, proprioceptive problems, autonomic dysfunction, and loss of function.

They may not realise that treatment is not always about cure. Sometimes treatment is the thin line preventing further decline. If supports are removed or denied, the result is not independence. The result may be isolation, family burnout, increased injury risk, increased health system use, and loss of dignity.

The NDIS should not wait until people break further before accepting that they need support.

References and evidence base

This submission is primarily based on my lived experience as a disabled person navigating the NDIS access, complaint, internal review, and tribunal pathways. The following references are relied on for public factual claims made in the submission. They

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

do not replace lived experience. They support it by showing that many of the issues raised by disabled people are not isolated personal complaints, but part of broader questions about scheme design, governance, decision quality, administrative cost, access to supports, and public accountability.

[1] National Disability Insurance Agency, “What is supporting evidence”, NDIS website, current as at 7 May 2026. This source states that supporting evidence from a treating health professional tells the Agency what the disability is, what treatments have been tried, how the disability impacts daily life, and any recommendations made.

[2] National Disability Insurance Agency, “What is a functional capacity assessment”, NDIS website, current as at 7 May 2026. This source states that a functional capacity assessment is an official assessment of a person’s ability to perform daily tasks at home, at work, and in the community, and must be completed by qualified professionals.

[3] NDIS Review, Working together to deliver the NDIS, “Recommendations and actions”, Recommendation 1 and Action 1.1. This source recommends that National Cabinet jointly design, fund, and commission an expanded and coherent set of foundational disability supports outside individualised NDIS budgets. The same recommendations also refer to transparent functional capacity assessment, fairer participant pathways, smooth transition, navigation supports, and nationally consistent support systems.

[4] National Disability Insurance Agency, Annual Report 2024–25, pp. 12–14. This source records participant outcome examples, co-design activity, social and community engagement outcomes, choice and control outcomes, complaints performance, and National Contact Centre performance.

[5] National Disability Insurance Agency, Annual Report 2024–25, p. 108, Note 1.1B “Suppliers”. This source records legal expenses of $75.414 million in 2024–25 and $51.899 million in 2023–24.

[6] National Disability Insurance Agency, Annual Report 2024–25, p. 154, “Administrative Appeals Tribunal reviews”. This source records 7,132 external merits review applications in 2024–25, 5,185 open ART applications at 30 June 2025, a 75 per cent increase in open cases from the previous year, and 203 hearing decisions, including 107 affirmed, 9 varied, and 87 set aside.

[7] Kate Lyons, “They’ve engaged a barrister! Parents of high-needs children say Labor is waging lawfare over disability support”, Guardian Australia, 24 September 2025. This public reporting states, based on Freedom of Information material, that the NDIA paid $60.7 million to six external law firms in 2024–25 for Administrative Review Tribunal representation.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

[8] National Disability Insurance Agency, Annual Report 2024–25, p. 155, “Australian National Audit Office reports”, “Freedom of information”, “Participant Information Access Scheme”, and “Commonwealth Ombudsman”. This source records Australian National Audit Office performance audits involving the NDIA, including recommendations about board oversight, risk management, compliance frameworks, payment assurance testing, and performance reporting. It also records Freedom of Information requests, Participant Information Access requests, and Ombudsman complaint referrals.

[9] Christopher Knaus, “Damning report finds NDIS complaints ignored for months”, Guardian Australia, 15 May 2018, reporting on Commonwealth Ombudsman findings about NDIA review delays, complaint volumes, poor communication, backlogs, and review processes. This source is relied on only as public reporting of historical Ombudsman concerns because it summarises earlier systemic issues that pre-date the current reform debate.

[10] Public reporting of Per Capita’s 2021 report, False Economy: The economic benefits of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the consequences of government cost-cutting, has reported an estimated return of approximately $2.25 in economic activity for every $1 spent on the NDIS. This source is relied on for the economic-return principle, not as a precise guarantee that every individual dollar will produce the same return in every circumstance.

Recommendations

I respectfully ask the Committee to recommend that the Bill be amended or accompanied by safeguards to ensure that:

1. Functional capacity assessments consider real-world functioning, fluctuating capacity, fatigue, pain, post-exertional crashes, autonomic symptoms, joint instability, and cumulative impact. 2. People are not required to exhaust every possible treatment before a lifelong or incurable disability is accepted as permanent, and permanence is not denied on the basis of hypothetical treatments, including surgery, where treating clinicians have advised that those treatments are inappropriate, unsafe, not curative, or not reasonably likely to substantially improve functional impairment. 3. Maintenance therapy, prevention of deterioration, safety, dignity, and preservation of function are recognised as legitimate NDIS outcomes. 4. Social and community participation supports are protected where they are necessary for safe access, inclusion, mental health, and reduction of isolation. 5. Informal family support is assessed for sustainability and is not assumed to be unlimited. 6. Other service systems are only relied on where they actually provide the required support in practice and within a reasonable timeframe.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

7. Any movement of supports from the NDIS to state, territory, or foundational support systems is backed by real funding, national minimum standards, enforceable rights, and practical service availability before people are refused, removed, or redirected. 8. Plan reassessment and suspension powers include safeguards for fluctuating disability, health crises, cognitive overload, and lack of support. 9. Provider regulation is risk-proportionate and does not remove access to safe, trusted, smaller, flexible, or direct support providers. 10.Compliance and record-keeping rules distinguish genuine fraud from disability-related or administrative mistakes. 11.Plan management and digital payment reforms remain accessible, flexible, and participant-centred. 12.Pricing mechanisms do not create funding gaps between approved supports and the real cost of obtaining those supports. 13.Automated decision-making is limited to low-risk administrative tasks and never replaces human judgment for access, planning, funding, reductions, suspensions, or reviewable decisions. 14.The NDIS measures and publicly reports the cost of avoidable escalation, including administration, complaints, technical advice processes, ministerial escalations, internal review delays, tribunal matters, legal representation, repeated handling of evidence, and remade or conceded decisions. 15.Participants and applicants have one clearly identified accountable decision-owner for complex matters, with authority to explain, progress, and resolve issues rather than passing them between teams. 16.First-instance and internal review decision-making is improved so that clear, evidence-supported matters are resolved earlier wherever possible, and the NDIA must identify specific evidentiary gaps before refusing, reducing, or escalating matters. 17.NDIS governance accountability is examined, including ministerial oversight, senior decision-making, early warning signs, complaints data, lived experience evidence, budget forecasts, political escalation pathways, and whether earlier safeguards could have prevented the current level of pressure on the Scheme. 18.Public communication about the NDIS explains the purpose and value of disability supports, including economic participation, support-worker employment, carer workforce participation, reduced crisis costs, and community inclusion, not only fraud, misuse, and cost pressures. 19.Disabled people have genuine co-design power in reform, including meaningful involvement before major decisions are made. 20.Transitional arrangements protect current applicants, participants, internal review applicants, and ART applicants from unfair disruption.

Conclusion

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1549

I want the NDIS to be sustainable. I want fraud addressed. I want the Scheme to be fair, safe, and accountable. But the answer cannot be to make it harder for people with complex, permanent, fluctuating disability to be believed.

My lived experience shows that disability is not always visible, linear, or easy to measure. A person can look capable in one moment and still be unable to function safely, repeatedly, or sustainably. A person can be trying every day and still need support. A person can be young and still be severely disabled.

The NDIS should support people before they deteriorate further, not after they have lost more independence, more health, more dignity, and more connection to life.

Thank you for considering my submission.

Yours sincerely,

Gabriella Mirabito