Submission 1563
Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Date: 1 June 2026
To the Community Affairs Legislation Committee,
I am writing today not because I have the cognitive capacity or enthusiasm to do so, but
because the proposed changes to the NDIS are heinous and should not go unaddressed.
The NDIS is enough of a nightmare for disabled Australians to try and access, and the
proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 will only make it harder for citizens who need it most to get the care that they need.
Before we begin, let us first address the – frankly shady – behaviour of the Committee.
The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis states that consultations should occur for a minimum of 30 days. The Committee have granted us two weeks. For a community of disabled people and their carers, who need more support, not less, cutting this consult time in half is unjust. One would almost think the Committee wishes to rush the Bill forward with as little input from disabled communities as possible.
So: why is the Scheme Amendment a concern for me? I have been living with an adult- onset disability for six years. I am unable to work, commute, socialise, learn, or live like a ‘normal’ human being. And while I have exhausted all means of treatment, from pharmaceutical and physical supports, to physio- and psychotherapy, to medical trials my care team have fought to grant me access to, I am still considered ‘not disabled enough’ in the eyes of the NDIS to be granted access to the program. I am still fighting to be granted the support I need to function day-to-day. The proposed changes will make it even harder for people like me who desperately need aid to be approved for NDIS support, and will potentially disqualify others who rely on it to scrape some quality of life together.
The issues of greatest concern to me are:
Submission 1563
Impractical Assessment Tools
The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment.
The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I-CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disability, including those whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a point-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
Like many disabled people, I do not have just ‘one eligible impairment’, but a cocktail of conditions that make ‘normal’ life impossible. That cocktail’s severity can wax and wane by the hour. Sometimes I am capable of washing my own hair. At other times, it is not uncommon for me to shower just two or three times in a month because being upright in a wet area poses a serious health risk.
If the I-CAN assessment tool does not capture a person’s disability at the ‘right’ time, a participant may be found ineligible or have their supports undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual experience. This style of assessment also encourages participants to engage in activities that will trigger flare-ups of their conditions, making them feel worse in the name of trying to get support.
This assessment style needs to change to accommodate fluctuating disabilities and avoiding hurting participants/applicants.
Narrowing Funding Criteria
The Bill changes the rules for existing NDIS participants and makes it harder to challenge some decisions about supports and funding. It also restricts when you can request a reassessment, removes review rights for automatic plan renewals, and makes funding reductions unreviewable (Schedule 1 Parts 1 and 8). Combined with restrictions on reassessment requests (Part 2), automatic plan renewals without review rights (Part 5), and unreviewable funding reductions (Part 4), existing participants face narrower criteria with significantly fewer avenues to challenge decisions about their supports.
Submission 1563
If a participant’s funding is reduced or their plan is renewed automatically, they may have
limited or no ability to challenge that decision. This could make it harder for people to get
extra support when their circumstances or disability change. This instability will leave
thousands of disabled Australians with the uncertainty of ‘will I be able to afford my supports next month? Or will my funding be cut without warning?’ No-one should have to live under that sort of duress, especially not those already living with the 24/7/365 stress of disability.
Safeguards must be put in place to ensure participants do not lose access to supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.
Exhausting treatment options
As I have mentioned previously, I have exhausted all modes of treatment that I can safely utilise to manage my disability. There are only a handful of medications remaining that I have not trialled, all of which are known to cause visual impairment and kidney failure in people like me who have co-morbidities alongside their ‘main’ disability. My medical team have advocated strongly against my trialling these treatments, as adding ‘blindness’ and ‘organ failure’ to my health concerns is not something any of us want.
Forcing participants and/or applicants to exhaust all modes of treatment fails to take into consideration severe side effects like these, which may disable us even further in the name of ticking an NDIS box.
If the proposed changes go ahead, a person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, replaced by single eligible impairment consideration (Schedule 1 Part 3).
Unless there are safeguards regarding potential harm some treatments may inflict on participants/applicants, or a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity to access treatments, this proposed change should not go ahead.
In conclusion:
I strongly oppose this Bill and urge Parliament not to pass it. I entreat the government to
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call with disabled people and their carers, and co-design the NDIS with them to make
the system accessible and fair.
Yours in frustration,
Disabled-and-Supportless