NDIA Accountability Project

Concerns regarding impact on supports for individuals with psychosocial, intellectual, and behavioural disabilities

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Submission 1552

Submission Regarding Proposed NDIS Reforms

To Whom It May Concern, I write this submission as a parent, carer, and advocate for three young people with complex disabilities and support needs. Our family lives the reality of disability support every single day, and I wish to express our deep concerns regarding the proposed NDIS reforms and the likely impact these changes will have on participants, families, carers, and ultimately the broader community.

While we understand the importance of ensuring the sustainability and integrity of the NDIS, we are extremely concerned that many of the proposed changes risk shifting the system away from its original purpose — enabling people with disabilities to live meaningful, safe, connected, productive, and dignified lives. For families like ours, the NDIS is not a luxury. It is the difference between survival and collapse.

Our young people are not simply “service users.” They are human beings with goals, imotions, identities, friendships, aspirations, and a desire to participate in the world around them. The supports they receive are what allow them to access the community safely, build skills, maintain emotional regulation, develop independence, attend appointments, participate in activities, maintain relationships, and experience a quality of life many people take for granted.

Without adequate supports, the consequences are severe and far-reaching. The proposed reforms appear to place significant emphasis on reducing costs, tightening access, and limiting what is considered “reasonable and necessary.” While accountability is important, we fear these reforms fail to fully recognise the complexity of caring for individuals with psychosocial disabilities, intellectual disabilities, behavioural complexities, trauma backgrounds, communication difficulties, and high support needs. For our family, supports are not optional extras.

Support workers are often the only reason our young people can safely engage in the community. They provide supervision, emotional regulation assistance, behavioural support implementation, transport, social connection, life skill development, and crisis prevention. Reductions or restrictions to supports may look financially beneficial on paper, but in reality they simply shift the burden elsewhere — onto exhausted families, emergency services, hospitals, mental health systems, schools, and the justice system.

The long-term cost of inadequate support will far exceed the short-term savings. Families caring for individuals with complex needs already experience significant burnout, financial strain, emotional exhaustion, relationship breakdown, social isolation, and mental health impacts. Many carers sacrifice careers, sleep, stability, and their own wellbeing to keep their loved ones safe.

The reforms risk pushing families beyond breaking point. We are particularly concerned about:

  • Reduced flexibility in how supports can be used.
  • Narrower interpretations of what constitutes disability-related support.
  • Increased administrative burden on participants and carers.
  • Delays in accessing funding and approvals.
  • Greater difficulty obtaining support for psychosocial disability and behavioural complexities.

Submission 1552

  • Restrictions that may reduce community access, social participation, respite opportunities, and pathways toward independence and employment.
  • Increased scrutiny creating fear and anxiety for participants and providers genuinely trying to do the right thing.
  • Changes that may disproportionately impact young people transitioning into adulthood who require intensive support to build independence and avoid long-term institutionalisation.

Meaningful lives cannot be measured solely by clinical outcomes or cost containment. The NDIS was intended to support inclusion, participation, dignity, choice, independence, and the ability for people with disabilities to contribute meaningfully to society. For our young people, this includes being able to participate in activities, build friendships, learn daily living skills, engage safely in the community, pursue goals, and develop pathways toward meaningful and productive lives.

These supports also directly impact my son’s ability to operate and participate in his micro- business, which provides not only skill development and routine, but also purpose, significance, confidence, social connection, and an opportunity to contribute to the community in a meaningful way. Without adequate support, opportunities like these become significantly limited or impossible.

When supports are reduced, people do not suddenly become less disabled. Instead, families absorb the impact behind closed doors.

We also ask decision-makers to recognise the complexity of behavioural support needs. Many participants require consistency, relationship-based supports, structured routines, skilled staff, and intensive supervision to remain safe. Removing or reducing these supports can rapidly destabilise individuals and place both participants and the community at risk. The voices of carers and families must be genuinely heard in these reforms.

We are not speaking from theory. We are speaking from lived experience — from sleepless nights, crisis management, advocacy fatigue, appointments, behavioural incidents, emotional exhaustion, and years spent fighting for appropriate support for our children.

We urge the Government to ensure that reforms:

  • Preserve participant choice and control.
  • Protect funding flexibility for complex support needs.
  • Recognise the essential role of respite and informal carer sustainability.
  • Maintain funding for community participation, employment pathways, micro-business opportunities, skill development, and meaningful productive engagement.
  • Avoid overly restrictive interpretations of supports.
  • Ensure psychosocial disability and behavioural complexities are properly understood and supported.
  • Reduce administrative complexity rather than increase it.
  • Engage meaningfully with participants, carers, and frontline providers before implementing significant changes. The success of the NDIS should not be measured solely by reduced expenditure. It should be measured by whether people with disabilities are safer, more included, more independent, more connected, and able to live lives with dignity, purpose, and meaning. Our young people deserve that opportunity. Families like ours deserve the ability to continue caring without being pushed into crisis.

Submission 1552

We ask that the Government carefully reconsider reforms that may unintentionally reduce quality of life, increase carer burnout, limit opportunities for independence and meaningful contribution, and create greater long-term social and economic costs. Thank you for considering our submission and the lived experiences of families navigating complex disability support every day.

Yours sincerely,

On behalf of our family and the young people we care for

I am extremely concerned about this submission as I worry cause I’m trying to have a voice for my family our future plans will be adversely affected this is a very common feeling amongst our community the fear and feelings of dread. But I cannot not try have a voice for our family and others. We have plans that work perfectly for our family and to lose them will cause catastrophic adverse effects to our family unit.