National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
Submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance
Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill
2026
Introduction
My name is , and I am making this submission as both a disabled person and a former speech
pathologist. I have lived experience navigating disability and the realities of accessing support systems
that are already difficult, fragmented, and often inaccessible. In my previous work as a speech
pathologist, I supported disabled children and their families to navigate the NDIS and related systems.
This dual perspective has given me insight into both the personal and systemic consequences of
disability policy.
The proposed Bill will significantly reduce disabled people’s access to essential supports while
increasing administrative burden, surveillance, and barriers to participation. While the NDIS requires
reform and long-term sustainability, the proposed changes will not achieve that goal in a safe,
equitable, or evidence-based way.
This Bill will cause grave harm to disabled people, particularly those with communication
disabilities, psychosocial disabilities, chronic illness, fluctuating conditions, trauma histories, and
complex support needs.
This submission will focus particularly on:
• Communication accessibility and safeguarding • The impact of administrative burden on disabled people • The importance of community participation supports • Risks associated with reassessment and “not contactable” provisions • The consequences of narrowing support eligibility • The impact on children, families and early intervention • The disconnect between policy assumptions and the realities of disability support systems
Executive Summary
This Bill should be withdrawn.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
The Bill prioritises cost reduction and administrative control over accessibility, human rights, and
participant safety. Many of the proposed measures assume that disabled people are able to consistently
navigate complex administrative systems, provide extensive documentation, respond promptly to
communications, and advocate for themselves under stressful conditions. This assumption does not
reflect reality.
The reforms will:
• Misinterpret communication barriers as non-compliance • Disproportionately harm disabled people through increased administrative burden • Treat community participation supports as optional rather than essential • Leave participants without support before replacement systems are operational • Restrict reassessment pathways during periods of crisis • Further exclude vulnerable participants through automated or rigid decision-making processes • Undermine the individualised and rights-based foundations of the NDIS through broad
ministerial powers to reduce funding across categories of supports
The people most likely to struggle under these reforms are often those with the highest support needs.
The committee must withdraw this Bill and ensure that any future reforms are genuinely co-designed
with disabled people and representative organisations.
Lived Experience as a Disabled Person
Disabled people already face exhausting and inaccessible support systems. Even when supports exist
on paper, accessing them often requires extraordinary amounts of administrative labour. Disabled
people are routinely expected to gather evidence, attend appointments, complete paperwork, manage
communication, navigate changing systems, and repeatedly justify their needs. This process is
overwhelming, particularly for people experiencing chronic illness, cognitive fatigue, pain,
communication barriers, mental health challenges, or unstable living circumstances.
Many disabled people already live in a constant state of uncertainty regarding access to support. The
proposed reforms will intensify this instability.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
The Bill assumes that participants can consistently respond to communication, manage complex
administrative obligations, and advocate effectively for themselves. Disability itself can directly affect
a person’s capacity to do these things.
For many disabled people, periods of being “not contactable” may occur because they are:
• Hospitalised
• Experiencing mental health crisis or burnout
• Cognitively overwhelmed
• Unable to manage communication demands
• Without adequate support
• Experiencing housing instability
• Recovering from medical events
• Simply trying to survive day-to-day life
These situations should trigger additional support and safeguarding, not punishment or suspension of
support.
Communication barriers will be interpreted as disengagement or non-compliance. Communication is
not simply about speaking or responding to emails. Many disabled people require extra processing
time, alternative communication methods, support people, accessible formats, or reduced
administrative demands to participate safely and effectively.
The proposed reforms risk creating a system in which those least able to navigate the bureaucracy are
the most likely to lose support. My experience as both a disabled person and former speech
pathologist confirms this reality.
Professional Perspective as a Former Speech Pathologist
As a speech pathologist, I worked with children and families navigating systems that were already
difficult to access long before these proposed reforms. I saw families spending enormous amounts of
time and emotional energy fighting for the supports their children clearly needed. I saw parents forced
to become case managers, advocates, administrators, and therapists simultaneously. I saw the
consequences when supports were delayed, denied, or reduced.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
The reforms will disproportionately affect children with communication disabilities, developmental
delays, autism, intellectual disability, and complex support needs.
Families of disabled children are already navigating:
• Long waitlists
• Workforce shortages
• Inaccessible services
• Rising costs
• School exclusion
• Burnout
Reducing access to supports or delaying intervention does not eliminate need. It simply shifts pressure
onto families, schools, hospitals, emergency services, and state systems.
Early intervention and ongoing supports are not luxuries. They allow children to communicate,
participate in education, build relationships, regulate emotions, and engage safely in their
communities.
The proposed narrowing of support eligibility to needs arising only from “direct” impairments does
not reflect clinical reality. Disability is rarely experienced in isolated categories. Communication,
sensory, cognitive, physical, psychosocial, and chronic health factors frequently interact and
compound one another. A rigid or fragmented approach to disability assessment fails to reflect how
disability is actually experienced.
Ministerial Powers Will Undermine Individualised Support
The proposed provisions allowing the Minister to reduce funding for groups of supports across the
NDIS by determining percentage reductions to funding component amounts are deeply concerning.
While these powers may be framed as administrative or budgetary mechanisms, they create the
possibility of broad reductions to participant funding without adequate regard for individual
circumstances, functional needs, safety, or real-world support costs.
Disability support needs are highly individualised. Two participants with the same diagnosis may
require entirely different levels or types of support depending on:
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
• Communication needs
• Co-occurring disabilities or chronic illnesses
• Trauma history
• Informal support availability
• Geographic location
• Workforce shortages
• Housing circumstances
• Cultural and language needs
• Safeguarding risks
A blanket reduction applied across a category of supports undermines the foundational principle that
NDIS funding should be based on a participant’s actual reasonable and necessary support needs.
Supports that are frequently misunderstood or deprioritised are often essential to participation,
communication, safety, and independence. This includes:
• Community participation supports
• Therapy supports
• Support coordination
• Communication supports
• Psychosocial supports
• Capacity-building supports.
These supports frequently prevent crisis, isolation, hospitalisation, school exclusion, family
breakdown, and long-term system costs.
The proposed mechanism also creates significant uncertainty for participants. Disabled people
already live with ongoing instability regarding support access, reassessment processes, workforce
shortages, and service availability. The possibility that funding for an entire category of supports could
be broadly reduced through ministerial determination further undermines participants’ ability to plan
their lives, maintain stability, and exercise genuine choice and control.
These sweeping powers shift the NDIS further away from an individualised, rights-based framework
and toward a model driven primarily by expenditure reduction.
Any powers relating to funding reductions should be subject to:
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
• Strict legislative safeguards
• Transparent public consultation
• Independent oversight
• Human rights assessment
• Merits review rights
• Protections ensuring participants cannot be left without the supports necessary for safe and
dignified living
No participant should lose access to essential supports due to broad, category-based reductions that
fail to account for their individual circumstances and functional needs.
Community Participation Is Not Optional
One of the most concerning aspects of the proposed reforms is the apparent framing of social and
community participation supports as less essential than personal care or medical needs. This reflects a
fundamental misunderstanding of disability support.
Community participation is not recreational “extra” support. It is often what enables disabled people
to:
• Leave the house safely
• Maintain relationships
• Access healthcare
• Study or work
• Participate in civic and cultural life
• Reduce isolation
• Maintain mental health and wellbeing.
Isolation itself is a safeguarding risk. When disabled people lose opportunities for participation and
connection, the risks of abuse, neglect, mental health deterioration, institutionalisation, and crisis
increase significantly.
Community participation supports frequently prevent far more intensive and costly interventions later.
My experience as both a disabled person and former clinician confirms this.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
Administrative Burden and Accessibility
The Bill increases administrative expectations on participants while simultaneously narrowing
pathways for reassessment and flexibility. This is deeply concerning.
Disabled people should not have to prove their worthiness for support through endless administrative
processes that are inaccessible by design.
Administrative burden is not experienced equally. It disproportionately harms people with:
• Communication disability
• Intellectual disability
• Executive functioning challenges
• Psychosocial disability
• Trauma histories
• Limited informal support networks.
There is also a significant risk that automated or highly standardised decision-making processes will
fail to account for the complexity and context of disabled people’s lives. Disability support systems
require nuance, flexibility, and human judgment. A system focused primarily on efficiency and
compliance risks produces harmful outcomes for participants whose circumstances do not fit neatly
within rigid administrative categories.
Concerns Regarding Replacement Supports
The broader reform context surrounding Foundational Supports and other replacement systems is also
deeply concerning. It is unsafe to reduce or restrict access to existing supports before alternative
systems are fully operational, adequately funded, independently evaluated, and genuinely accessible.
Families and participants cannot rely on hypothetical future systems to meet current support needs.
Without robust replacement systems already in place, these reforms risk leaving many disabled people
without meaningful support during critical periods of their lives.
Recommendations
I urge the committee to consider the following recommendations:
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 164
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Withdraw this bill.
-
Ensure all reforms are co-designed with disabled people and representative organisations.
-
Protect community participation supports and recognise them as essential to safety,
wellbeing, and inclusion.
- Remove provisions relating to participant suspension or revocation for being “not
contactable.”
-
Ensure all NDIS processes are accessible and trauma-informed.
-
Preserve flexible reassessment pathways for participants experiencing crisis or changing
circumstances.
-
Prevent automated decision-making processes from replacing meaningful human review.
-
Ensure no participant loses support before replacement systems are fully operational,
accessible, and independently evaluated.
- Recognise the cumulative and interacting nature of disability rather than narrowly separating
impairments into isolated categories.
- Reduce administrative burden on participants and embed accessibility across all processes.
Conclusion
The NDIS was created to support disabled people to live with dignity, autonomy, and meaningful
participation in community life. While reform and long-term sustainability are important, sustainability
cannot come at the expense of disabled people’s safety, rights, and access to essential supports.
The proposed Bill risks creating a more punitive, inaccessible, and exclusionary system for the very
people the NDIS was designed to support.
The people most likely to be harmed by these reforms are often those already facing the greatest
barriers: people with communication disabilities, complex conditions, chronic illness, psychosocial
disability, trauma histories, cognitive fatigue, and limited support networks.
The committee must listen carefully to disabled people, families, clinicians, and advocates, and ensure
that any reforms strengthen – rather than undermine – the rights, safety, and participation of disabled
Australians.
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