National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1669
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
To have an ordinary life. To have the same opportunities, choices, everyday experiences as other Australians. To not be supported by just the only lifeboat in the ocean. Micheline Lee wrote an essay about the lifeboat, disability, humanity and the NDIS. The point was to raise awareness that the world, our community, environment and life has barriers that the NDIS will not touch. The life boat metaphor has been taken by this Government and twisted into something else. That the NDIS can become a barrier too, in the life of a person with a disability, and this has never been more apparent in the way the most recent and current legislation has been introduced for people with a disability. Not produced with them and by them, but imposed on them.
https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2023/09/lifeboat/extract
Inclusion and diversity only work when things are done together with us being involved and fairness being applied to how we need to be supported in the first place. It means asking all of us, what we think will work, and putting together a plan that we have had input into and a say. Nothing about us, without us.
This bill has deliberately censored opinions and spread fear across Australia. It has done nothing to protect or empower a person with a disability. The Government of the day set the scheme, system and market which is failing and that is not the fault of the disability community who are now seen as reason for a budget blow out which is not true – wastage can be cut in all areas of Government but for some reason it seems easier to do it to services that the most vulnerable communities require.
Inefficiencies across government portfolios, wastage within government spending, tenders that have failed or been abandoned, services that have blown out or not gone ahead. Minsters who have claimed expenses that come from tax payer funds that they are not entitled too.
Fighting fraud and stopping rorts and shonks within a system that people with a disability did not design and had no say in. Fixing the system again, without us – denying anyone that lives with a disability a voice.
Adding further councils, panels, boards, further technical advisory groups to provide advice on new eligibility processes based on systems that are not yet in place for services that do not yet exist. How can that be called value for money?
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1669
The Bill memorandum on page 91 quietly indicates that there will be civil penalty points to the plan nominee if there is not a plan reassessment to be legislated but not clearly explained – what penalty points will be made to NDIA when they fail repeatedly to review a plan when its due, what penalty points will be made to NDIA each time a milestone is missed.
Not so long ago NDIS quietly added to their news page an apology to all people who are participants who were incorrectly told they had a debt to pay back to NDIS.
https://www.ndis.gov.au/news/10858-debt-review-strengthen-debt-approach-future
What will be the appeal process of debt collecting and how will fairness apply when the person with a disability is a target.
The legislation aims to remove funds if a person cannot be contacted – at what point is it reasonable to say that every attempt has been made to reach out. It was not so long ago that two adult brothers with intellectual disability were found in a very poor state because their father had passed away from a heart attack, but no one had reached out to them, no one noticed.
What funds will be used to allow welfare checks, home visits, outreach to ensure that the participant is ok and no longer needs the funds in their plan before the funding is removed. For many they fear the NDIS and remain uncontactable.
What will the government of the day do for each person who has a emotional psychological scar because they have been targeted as a burden and a waste on tax funding money – when it was the scheme design that caused it.
When will the NDIS explain why a previous CEO was able to exit a person off the scheme when that person presented their experience at a local radio station.
When will the NDIS explain why the milestone in the quality budget stats are misleading because the first case that is used to apply for access does not have a milestone, only the decision case counts against the milestone of 21 days in the data.
When will the government explain why it has decided to set the funding decrease to the year 2023 when that was the 3rd year that the word was in a pandemic and it was only on 20.10.2023
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1669
that they decided that Covid was no longer a disease of national significance. That year the Australian bureau of statistics showed 5,508 with a disability people passed away due to Covid.
Of people who are known to have a disability there are 760,000 on the scheme, we do not know how many have not applied because they cannot bring themselves to apply to a system that does not understand them. The Government wishes to see this reduce to 600,000 by 2030 without knowing what the function supports will look like and how these services will be provided and where all these people will go for support. Aging parents, newly required disability because of disease or accident, or lack of medical care does not exist in a vacuum.
The Government is confident that States and Territories will need to share that cost and the amount funded will be capped. So far, its not been possible to get the country to work as one, childcare, child protection, traffic rules, health care and more all are different depending on where you live. Some will have better systems than others because due to population growth, and specialist hospitals. People are more likely to survive an illness or premature birth and therefore more likely to have disabilities as a result.
The people that are no longer on the scheme, plus those who will not meet access to the scheme are not going to suddenly be a smaller group. It will take the same time to set these services up again as it did to dismantle them. This is time that people do not have, we have survived a pandemic, the world is at war, and we continue to have server weather events which bring hot days, bush fires, and floods.
The scheme is an insurance scheme not a welfare scheme for those who acquire a functional impact at some point in their life be it by birth or some other occurrence which is not a work cover or traffic insurance responsibility to cover.
Poverty and poor access to medical care, poor nutrition, unsuitable housing, injury due to medications, childhood accidents, life events such as fire all lead to injuries that can become permanent
Parentline has been decommissioned and now there will be a national development and autism information and advice hot line. How is this value for money?
Thriving kids a backward step from the early intervention services that had a key worker which was implemented by the education department in Victoria and was fantastic, high in demand
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1669
and evidence based and not enough to go round. NDIS has not been able to replicate or replace it and failed children terribly. How this this value for money?
NDIS commission toothless and full of mistakes and controversies growing in staff but there is a cap on NDIS levels, and they are unable to keep up with day to day tasks.
How is it fair to pass legislation where the rules can change on a whim based on the direction of the government or senior manager of the NDIS board of the day?
The scheme is built on grey areas when reliance is on the words reasonable and necessary, value for money, functional impact and permeance.
At what point will all treatments be enough? What if a profoundly deaf person does not want to take the cochlear implant pathway, or the person with spinal muscular atrophy does not wish to engage in all surgical treatment when their function will be at risk an d the diagnosis is degenerative and will continue to decline over time – will they be turned away till they do? All appropriate treatment according to whom?
The meaning of functional capacity and the assessment of thresholds of functional capacity will be dependent on the skill of the professional and their feelings about the circumstances of what their judgment is. There is always bias in this and ultimately the final say will be the delegate that holds the funds and the board of directors and Government minster that sets the rate. Or worst still it will be left to AI.
In some countries there are cut off levels of disability based on severity - depending on how physically or sensory impacted you are the funds you got given was capped to provide a basic hearing aid or wheelchair for mild impact, a more customised one for middle impact and a fancier one for high profound impact. Bells and whistle equipment was fund raised or privately funded covering the gap. It meant that if you were already at a disadvantage say in the system or on a low income the likely outcome would be no bells and whistle for your chair or hearing aid even if it was going to be life changing.
When a delegate makes a mistake on a plan it affects one person, when an algorithm is incorrectly set it effects thousands of people and the risk and impact is that much greater. Human oversight, the ability to override a algorithm to correct a mistake or add common sense because the algorithm has been built incorrectly is just common sense. We know that with debt collections of misspending funding from plans – where mistakes were made and people were accused of doing something when in fact this had not occurred has sadly led to suicide. We
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1669
should not be allowing legalisation or decisions to potentially have the ability to cause harm, and it is paramount that we put safeguards in place to prevent this.
The NDIS on the other hand, has allowed equipment to be accessed at the level you require based your need and functionality. Based on how good your assessor and how hard your delegate will fight for you. Sometimes it means appealing and going to tribunal – but ultimately it is a fairer system if you can advocate for yourself. Not so much if you can’t.
The app and portal are frequently down or not working and the Government now wish to have claims made within 90 days. What if we cant log on, or we are in hospital. We have disabilities that frequently compromise our health and fatigue us in ways that others would not understand. Our lives are already busy with appointments and organisation of services. Why make it harder with less time to put through the accounting as well?
The new system Pace via salesforce was rolled out nationally on 30.10.23 and continues to have issues and not everyone is transitioned from the old platform. The NDIS has allowed plans to roll over or auto extend and not give a plan reassessment to participants which has led to inflated budgets and no review of a person’s need when the plan ends even when the participant has said they do not wish to have a renewal of the current plan they have still been declined a review of their situation. This is not a reviewable decision because no decision has been made and it leaves the person in limbo with a inflated plan that is not suitable and it is inflated by the NDIS failing to action a review.
The NDIS is not able to decide if to action a plan reassessment before the end date of the current plan. The NDIS is now proposing they have 90 days not 21 days to decide if to agree to a plan change request. People with complex needs are not able to put their crisis or change of circumstances on hold – what are they expected to do in a crisis or emergency for the next 90 days?
The new pace system is not built for NDIS purposes, its out of the box design and updated and broken and updated and fixed on the fly. Difficult to use, not user friendly and does not have the tools that one would expect if they have used system like Epic then to go to Pace is a big disappointment and not what was promised. Its tender is questionable to why this was selected after a pilot in Tasmania.
It is almost impossible to find case notes and understand the timeline when looking at a person account, understanding their story is near impossible to do.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 1669
It was not purpose built and it still does not meet the need of the participant yet the new legislation is going to have new and old framework plans.
This Bill has been rushed, the main reason is a cost saving has to come from somewhere and NDIS seems to be the target rather than say sorting out wastage within how the Government is run and what the minsters have been claiming for their travel expenses. Tax reform, submarines that won’t be here for many years.
There has been no modelling completed to what the proposed bill has suggested. The Government does not know what will actually work but want legislation in place. The Government has not accepted the NDIS review blue print in full but appear to be putting together ideas in theory with out much information about what this really means to legislate a “in principal” idea.
If something so complex is going to be implemented be transparent
Test and piolet the correct model of care
Tell us in full what the changes mean.
Fix the broken bits of the market.
Involve us in being able to contribute and provide the answers to the problems – its our life we live the problem every day.
Legislate after and not before.
This Bill is lacking in fairness for who it impacts. It is not within the intention of the human rights charter for a person with disabilities to have full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms in the same way as their community and promote respect for our inherent dignity.
There is nothing dignified with how this has taken place when it is rushed through without full transparency fairness and respect.
Anonymous
27/5/26
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