National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 1649
Dear Senate Committee
This submission is response to potential changes to the NDIS which have been announced by the Government.
Doubtless there will be a torrent of suggestions from anxious parents and carers of current Participants in the NDIS on behalf of their dependents. I write this in the hope that the advantages the scheme has given our daughter are not brutally curtailed or cut short.
The construction of bridges between mainstream society and the disabled/disadvantaged in our community has been a godsend to our family and countless others. It has also been shamefully manipulated for personal gain by rorters and greedy elements with either an enlarged sense of entitlement or criminal disposition. It is a tragedy of immense proportions that a social system set up to help the least able among us has been hijacked in so many instances by unscrupulous individual who think nothing off stealing from those most in need of assistance just to live a worthwhile life to the best of their ability.
Our daughter has been a participant the NDIS since its introduction and the benefits she has received in becoming more able to live her own life with greater independence, are incalculable in dollar terms. Thankfully there is plenty of scope to work with. She is verbal, mobile, active and cheerful. She has a job, attends a special program at Sydney University and is able to give back to society by being part of it - not apart from it. Bridges are connections and they don’t have to be grand engineering structures - in her case, enough help to make her way through life with some autonomy and dignity. It would be a shame to have her support - her bridge - dismantled and to throw away the dividends that have been gained.
She/We don’t need much more but we also don’t need less now that the support network is in place and delivering the desired outcomes. Like all parents of a person with a disability, the biggest fear is of the future when we are too old and possibly unable to offer the care and sustenance necessary to ensure her wellbeing.
Our daughter’s situation has recently been clinically assessed by a registered psychologist who formulated her existing needs and capabilities with an eye to designing the next stage of her future progress.
The metaphor a bridge connecting the Us with the Them may involve some sort of a toll going forward. We understand this and we know from all of life’s experiences in this channel of social equity, that, the things that join can also divide. We have a vision for the future that has some solid foundation in the NDIS We take nothing for granted and want only what the system has, until now, been able to offer.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 1649
Our daughter’s participation in the NDIS has never been solely animated by convenience or a sense of entitlement.
We hope that all NDIS participants have their plans assessed in a humane way, as was originally intended from the outset.
Your sincerely