Submission 1580
Please do not pass the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
My sister is in her early 30’s and lives independently in regional Victoria. She has an incredibly full, active life. She runs her own small business, works doing accessibility audits, rides horses competitively, and is the flag scorer for our local footy club. My sister also has a severe physical disability, uses a wheelchair, is speech impaired, and is almost blind due to a rare, degenerative disorder. She requires a 24/7 care framework with a 1:1 support worker by her side at all times to live a safe, full and normal life in the community. This Bill represents a punitive, fundamental shift away from individualised care, treating vulnerable Australians as numbers on a spreadsheet and leaving families like ours in permanent fear.
It collapses individualised care
The mechanism introduced under Section 34A and Section 33(2EA) completely turns its back on an individualised scheme. By granting the Minister unbridled power to make systemic funding cuts and support caps across entire categories without individual plan reviews, the Bill creates a path of least resistance designed to herd people into group homes. The government has already used this framework to target Social, Civic and Community Participation for a 50% budget reduction. The Minister’s decision to cut community participation funding for a group that has been historically marginalised, oppressed, and excluded from community life (creating the conditions where abhorrent abuse has been permitted to foster) is unjustifiable.
For my sister, if her community hours are slashed, her 24/7 safety net collapses, leaving dangerous, unstaffed gaps in her day that put her life at immediate risk. Furthermore, giving the Minister the power to cut anything at the drop of a hat means families live with a constant pit in their stomachs. What will the Minister cut next?
The burden of care will fall disproportionately on families, forcing carers to leave the workforce entirely, or it will shift the long-term financial cost directly onto state hospitals and nursing homes. I’m also in my early 30’s and at the peak of my career. I am consistently thinking about my professional future and my ability to start a family, against the possibility that my sister’s essential care will be withdrawn - I know I will not be able to do both.
The Erosion of rights, appeal Hurdles, and the absence of natural justice
Compounding this physical danger, the Bill dictates that funding cuts made via Ministerial support determinations are exempt from merits review. If the Minister cuts the hours keeping my sister alive, we are stripped of our right to appeal to an independent tribunal. This is a terrifying violation of natural justice, especially since we have so many first hand examples of the NDIA routinely making administrative mistakes, losing paperwork, and employing staff who do not understand their own policies and legislation.
Submission 1580
We know up to 90% of appeals inside the independent review system were overturned in favour of the participant. Instead of fixing NDIA incompetence, this legislation has been surgically crafted to reduce appeals by making the hurdles practically impossible to clear.
Requiring an individual appeal to prove it satisfies a “financial sustainability” marker effectively shuts down the pathway entirely. As the Bill also blocks standard plan variations for a “change of circumstances,” a top-down budget cut will throw a participant’s life into chaos without any legal avenue to fix it.
The ability to participants to seek a merits review of decisions must be enshrined in the Bill.
The Bill is not consistent with Australia’s human rights obligations or democratic principles
The Bill is written in a way that is deliberately inconsistent with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The text actively removes the foundational human rights principles previously found in the legislation, replacing the requirement for support to be “reasonable and necessary” with a highly restricted definition of what the “NDIS will support.” This is designed to prevent the Federal Court from interpreting the law in a way that aligns with the UN CRPD, including Article 19 which explicitly states that people with disabilities have the right to live independently and must not be forced into congregate group living arrangements due to their impairment.
The Bill also allows the Minister to make transitional rules that deal with matters relating to amendments or repeals in the Bill for the next 12 months (often called “Henry VIII clauses”). Allowing a Minister to make sweeping changes to the operation of the legislation without needing it to go through ordinary Parliamentary scrutiny is an extraordinary use of power, that is typically reserved for emergency customs regulations- not for Bills which will impact the daily lives of the most vulnerable Australians. The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills has consistently maintained that Henry VIII clauses represent a significant departure from democratic principles, and should be resisted because they undermine the central role of Parliament in the law making process.
We must legislate strict constraints on the Minister’s rule-making powers, eliminate the use of Henry VIII clauses, and retain and enshrine compliance with the UN CRPD.
Isolated impairments vs whole of person approach
The narrowing of Section 34(1)(aa) demands that a support must “directly” stem from a single qualifying impairment, completely abandoning the traditional whole-of-person approach. This disproportionately disadvantages participants with complex, overlapping disabilities. In my sister’s case, her metabolic issues, her blindness, and her inability to walk interact constantly. Evaluating her needs as isolated medical impairments completely ignores how her disabilities compound one another, and makes it an administrative nightmare to get what she needs.
When this medicalised barrier is combined with Section 17B, which forces the CEO to prioritise financial sustainability over individual capability, the Bill sends a message to
Submission 1580
disabled Australians: you are not worth living if your care is too expensive. The public wants a scheme that treats people with dignity.Anyone can become disabled at any point in their lives, and the standard we build today is the standard we will all have to rely on tomorrow. We are better than a system that forces high needs individuals into mini institutions run by Corporate monopolies, which is neither cost effective nor better for participants.
We need to amend Section 34(1)(aa) to remove the word “directly” to restore the whole-of-person planning standard, and amend Section 17B to remove financial sustainability.
“> In Institutions are not defined by their size, but by the extent to which people lose control over their own lives.” John O’Brienn