Submission 1735

Introduction

Sporting Dreams is a disability sport organisation that has supported Australians with disability to participate in community sport, recreation, and pathways to elite competition both before and throughout the life of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

Our board is made up entirely of disabled people, family members or carers for people with disabilities led by our founder and president Paralympian Marayke Jonkers who competed at three Paralympic Games in swimming winning three medals and was Australia’s first female para tri athlete to medal at world championships when she won bronze in Budapest 2010.

Our experience spans grassroots participation, athlete development, community inclusion and the practical realities faced by people with disability and their families when attempting to access sporting opportunities.

We welcome the opportunity to provide this submission to the Senate inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

This submission focuses on the likely impact of the proposed reforms on participation in sport and community life. Our evidence is informed by decades of direct experience supporting people with disability to overcome barriers to participation and achieve outcomes that benefit individuals, families, communities, and the broader Australian economy.

Executive Summary

Sporting Dreams opposes the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and urges the Senate not to pass it. If the Bill proceeds, it should be substantially amended in consultation with people with disability and the disability sector.

As an organisation that operated before the NDIS, Sporting Dreams has seen first-hand the difference the Scheme has made for Australians with disability. Before the NDIS, participation in sport often depended on family wealth, informal support networks, or charity. Talent, determination and effort were often not enough.

Submission 1735

Before the NDIS, participation in sport often depended on whether a person had a wealthy family, a large support network, or access to charity. In practice, this meant:

• Many athletes could not participate in sport because there was nobody available to help them get to training, transport equipment, provide personal care, or navigate inaccessible environments.
• Children and adults were forced to use poorly fitting second-hand equipment, increasing pain, fatigue and injury risk.
• Families carried the overwhelming burden of support, often sacrificing employment, education and their own wellbeing.
• Participation in sport frequently depended on fundraising, sponsorship and luck rather than need.
• People without strong family support were often excluded entirely.
• Many people with disability experienced social isolation, poorer health outcomes and limited opportunities to develop the confidence, skills and relationships that sport can provide.

The NDIS changed that.

For the first time, many Australians with disability gained access to support workers, allied health professionals, assistive technology and individualised supports that allowed them to participate in community life, education, employment and sport.

The proposed Bill risks reversing those gains.

Through a combination of ministerial powers, reduced review rights, cuts to community participation supports, restrictive assessment processes and future reductions to funding categories, this legislation threatens to move disability support away from individualised participation and back towards a system where opportunity depends on family resources, charity and circumstance.

Australia is investing billions of dollars preparing for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Yet this Bill risks removing the very disability supports that provide the foundation for future Paralympians to train, compete and remain connected to sporting pathways.

This is not only a sporting issue.

It is a participation issue.

It is an employment issue.

It is a housing issue.

It is a transport issue.

It is a health issue.

It is a peer support issue.

It is a sustainability of informal supports issue.

It is a capacity-building issue.

Submission 1735

It is an investment issue, because investing in sporting participation and the individualised supports enabling it is much cheaper than attempting to achieve the same outcomes in the NDIS this Bill proposes or the inadequately funded foundational supports ecosystem, for which there is no modelling evidence to substantiate equivalent outcomes.

And it is when these supports fail that it becomes a national sporting participation and performance issue: Sporting dreams cannot be realised if fundamental support needs in daily life and beyond - including grassroots sporting participation - are slashed from the NDIS without equivalent and fully funded alternatives in place. Only when these are in place can the costs or benefits of changing the current funding model or removing these supports from the NDIS be quantified.

We therefore cannot have any confidence that needs will be met outside the NDIS. Any other supports need to be designed with - and approved by - athletes and disabled people to ensure they are suitable and adequately funded to achieve intended outcomes.

Sporting Dreams does not accept the argument that sustainability can only be achieved by reducing participant supports.

Our central concern is that the Bill shifts the NDIS away from its foundational principles of individualised support, choice and control, and social and economic participation. In doing so, it risks undermining many of the gains achieved since the Scheme was introduced.

There are substantial opportunities to reduce expenditure without harming participants. This requires the Government collaborating with the disability community, beginning with taking seriously the valid concerns and recommendations made by many other submitters.

In elite sport, championships are not won by cutting training hours, removing coaches and taking equipment away from athletes.

They are won through targeted investment, smart decision-making and focusing resources where they deliver the greatest return.

The same principle applies to the NDIS.

This Bill risks reducing Australia’s future Paralympic medal tally, but its consequences extend far beyond sport.

The greater risk is that Australians with disability lose opportunities to participate in education, employment, family life and their communities.

Sporting Dreams therefore recommends that the Bill not proceed in its current form and that any future reform agenda be co-designed with people with disability, informed by the Disability Royal Commission, aligned with the National Disability Strategy, and focused on achieving sustainability without causing harm.

Inadequacy and Inaccessibility of Consultation

Sporting Dreams is extremely concerned about the limited consultation period for reforms of this scale. Changes that affect eligibility, review rights, support categories and future scheme design require meaningful consultation with people with disability, families, representative organisations and service providers. Accessible consultation takes time, planning and resourcing. A compressed process risks excluding many of the people most affected.

Submission 1735

The real-world impacts of the unreasonable timeframe are far-reaching. This includes limits on the extent of feedback specific to the Bill we could collect from our community to ensure properly informed submissions representative of our networks. For example, we were unable to book an Auslan interpreter in time for a community forum, which generally requires a two-week minimum lead time - let alone when every major disability organisation is simultaneously trying to book interpreters for consultations with their members to respond to urgent disability policy issues such as this Bill.

Such timeframe consequences directly impact the ability to collect detailed views from the disability community or summarise those views adequately in time for submission deadlines.

The barriers created by the short timeframe is inconsistent with basic tenets of accessibility and Government’s associated international obligations to ensure proper consultation can, in fact, occur.

The Importance of Sport and Community Participation

Sport is often incorrectly viewed as an optional or recreational activity. For many people with disability, participation in sport is a critical pathway to health, independence, social connection, education and employment.

Research consistently demonstrates that participation in physical activity improves physical health, mental wellbeing, confidence, resilience and community engagement. For people with disability, these benefits can be even more significant because sport provides opportunities to build skills, reduce isolation and develop unpaid peer support networks that support broader life outcomes.

Participation in sport frequently requires supports that extend beyond the sporting activity itself. Athletes may require assistance with transport, personal care, communication, equipment management, orientation, behavioural support or specialised coaching arrangements. These supports are often the difference between participation and exclusion.

The NDIS has enabled many participants to access these supports for the first time. As a result, Sporting Dreams has witnessed substantial increases in participation rates, athlete retention, volunteer engagement and progression into leadership and employment roles.

Any reform that reduces access to these supports must therefore be assessed not only in terms of immediate budget impacts but also in terms of its broader social, health and economic consequences.

Key Concerns with the Bill

Sporting Dreams is concerned that several provisions within the Bill create uncertainty regarding future eligibility, funding and participant rights.

Submission 1735

The Bill contains several provisions of particular concern:

• Schedule 1 Parts 8 and 9 allow eligibility rules to be altered through ministerial instruments rather than primary legislation.
• Schedule 1 Part 4 permits broad funding reductions across support categories without participant review rights.
• Schedule 1 Parts 1, 2, 4, 5 and 8 reduce review and reassessment rights for existing participants.
• Schedule 1 Part 3 replaces whole-of-person assessment with a single eligible impairment approach.
• Schedule 1 Part 8 introduces requirements to exhaust treatment options before eligibility.
• Proposed funding reductions to social and community participation supports risk undermining participation in sport, education, employment and community life before Foundational Supports have been established.

The proposed expansion of ministerial powers to define key aspects of eligibility and support categories through legislative instruments reduces parliamentary scrutiny and creates uncertainty for participants planning their futures.

The reduction of review rights and reassessment protections may leave participants with limited avenues to challenge decisions that significantly affect their lives.

The move toward narrower impairment-based assessments risks overlooking the interaction between disability, environment and support needs. Participation outcomes are rarely determined by impairment alone. They are influenced by a person’s circumstances, available supports and opportunities within their community.

Similarly, proposals that restrict social and community participation supports risk disproportionately affecting people whose goals involve sport, recreation, volunteering and community engagement. These activities are not peripheral to the objectives of the NDIS. They are central to the Scheme’s purpose of supporting social and economic participation.

The experiences of Sporting Dreams participants demonstrate the practical consequences of reducing support availability. Many athletes rely on support workers to attend training sessions, competitions and community activities. Without these supports, participation becomes impossible regardless of talent or motivation.

Participants with complex disabilities often require specialised assistance that cannot always be provided by family members or volunteers. Restricting flexibility in support arrangements may remove access to the very people who possess the skills necessary to facilitate safe participation.

We are also concerned that reductions in preventative and capacity-building supports may increase long-term costs. Physiotherapy, exercise physiology, skill development and community participation frequently reduce reliance on more intensive supports over time.

Likewise, the proposed evidence hierarchy will have adverse impacts. Many effective disability supports do not yet have extensive published peer-reviewed evidence because disability research is underfunded, participants with complex disability are frequently excluded from formal studies, and highly customised supports are difficult to standardise.

Submission 1735

It is essential to recognise lived experience evidence and reject provisions which reinforce a culture of low expectation when you can’t see potential or where the priorities, dreams and innovative solutions created by people with disability are devalued, rather than formally recognised in legislation.

Investment in participation is often investment in independence.

Case Studies

In sport, no athlete reaches the podium alone.

Behind every medal is a team of coaches, support staff, family, equipment specialists and community networks.

For athletes with disability, NDIS-funded supports often form part of that team.

When those supports are removed, the athlete is not merely disadvantaged. They can be forced out of sport entirely.

Brian’s Story – Why Community Participation Supports Matter

Brian is a young swimmer who relies on disability-related supports to attend training, competitions and club activities safely. Those supports include assistance with transport, personal care, equipment management and navigating environments that are not fully accessible. Without that assistance, his participation in swimming is severely limited, regardless of his talent, commitment or motivation.

Brian lives on the Autistic Spectrum, has cerebral palsy, and is a walking wheelchair user. The impacts arising from these experiences and support needs will not be recognised accurately by this Bill. Under this Bill, the NDIA can choose whether Brian is reduced to a physical impairment or Autism.

Or, the NDIA could recognise Brian as in a class targeted for removal from the NDIS to Thriving Kids, with no wheelchair or help for mobility and toileting if only Autism is recognised, no help that recognises how Autism and cerebral palsy create unique support needs, and potentially harmful ‘support’ when Thriving Kids falls short of Brian’s needs.

This would have no basis in the reality of Brian’s life, disability, or support needs, and Brian and his future would suffer under Thriving Kids, not thrive. On paper, the Government would call this success.

Previous NDIS changes to Short Term Accommodation have already reduced Brian’s ability to travel to competitions away from home. Where other children in his club can rely on informal support or family resources, Brian often requires funded assistance for travel and accommodation. As those supports have narrowed, he has had to miss competitions, reduce training opportunities and make difficult choices about which events he can attend.

The consequences are not limited to sport. Reduced participation means weaker peer relationships, fewer opportunities to build confidence and independence, and a greater risk of social isolation. It means Brian’s family is expected to cover the shortfall, whether in the unreasonable expectations placed on the informal support they provide, or the extra

Submission 1735

disability-related cost of paying for support workers familiar with Brian’s needs (and their travel, food and accommodation costs to provide support for events). All the other kids are supervised by the coach and do not need to travel with another adult. If the family budget is already strained, Brian misses out.

Brian’s experience illustrates how cuts to community participation supports do not simply reduce recreation; they reduce childhood opportunities, community belonging and future pathways to education, employment and elite sport.

George’s Story – Why Capacity Building Matters and Why Historical Compensation Recipients Must Be Protected

George sustained a spinal cord injury in a motor vehicle accident in the 1970s, long before the establishment of the NDIS and before the creation of modern lifetime care schemes such as the National Injury Insurance Scheme Queensland and other state-based accident compensation systems.

Following years of legal proceedings, George received a compensation settlement. However, much of that settlement was used to repay government agencies and services that had funded his care and support during the lengthy court process, including Medicare, Centrelink and state-funded disability support systems. The remaining funds were used responsibly to secure his future. George built a wheelchair-accessible home, where he continues to live today, and invested in education and training opportunities that enabled him to pursue disability-friendly employment.

Like many Australians injured decades ago, George no longer has detailed records showing how compensation funds were allocated between future care costs, loss of earnings, pain and suffering and other heads of damage. Courts were not required to retain such records indefinitely and many documents no longer exist.

For many years George lived independently, but the long-term impacts of spinal cord injury gradually took their toll. He developed significant overuse injuries from decades of wheelchair use and experienced recurrent pressure injuries that resulted in lengthy hospital stays and prolonged periods confined to bed. His physical condition deteriorated to the point where he believed his active life was over.

Before entering the NDIS, George had largely accepted that he would no longer participate in sport or structured exercise. He had transitioned to a powered wheelchair, adopted different methods of managing personal care and adjusted to a future that seemed increasingly limited by his disability.

The NDIS changed that.

Through NDIS-funded assistive technology, George received his first properly fitted powered wheelchair. The wheelchair’s pressure-relieving features allowed him to remain out of bed for extended periods without placing his skin at risk. NDIS-funded physiotherapy helped him rebuild strength, address years of deconditioning and manage chronic overuse injuries.

For the first time in more than a decade, George was able to participate in physical activity again. Using adapted exercise equipment, resistance training and a wheelchair-accessible hand cycle, he gradually regained strength, confidence and independence. The benefits

Submission 1735

extended well beyond physical health. George’s mental health improved, his community participation increased and he regained a sense of purpose and enjoyment that had been missing for many years.

Importantly, these supports reduced his reliance on more costly interventions. Investment in physiotherapy, exercise and appropriate assistive technology helped avoid further deterioration, reduced pressure on the health system and enhanced George’s independence.

George’s experience demonstrates why the NDIS must continue to support capacity-building and participation rather than focusing solely on crisis responses.

His story also highlights a serious risk created by the proposed legislation.

George may be considered a person who once received compensation, yet he is not covered by any ongoing accident compensation scheme. The funds he received decades ago have long since been spent on legitimate disability-related needs, housing and education. Without the NDIS, George has no alternative system to fund the support workers he relies on for essential daily activities such as getting out of bed, showering, dressing and managing his personal care.

If the Bill proceeds without specific protections, people like George risk falling through a gap between historical compensation systems and modern disability support arrangements. They may lose access to the NDIS despite having significant support needs, no remaining compensation funds and no alternative source of assistance.

Sporting Dreams believes this outcome would be fundamentally unfair and inconsistent with the objectives of the NDIS.

We therefore recommend that the process of passing this bill is slowed down. Grandfather in people in a situation such as George who have been injured in a motor vehicle accident so long ago they have no records to defend against removal from the NDIS and will have no other access to funding schemes to support their needs.

Look for all the people who might fall through the cracks of systems. They might not be in George’s scenario, but many people are about to leave the NDIS to support that does not yet exist.

Sarah’s Story – Why Flexible Support Arrangements Must Be Preserved

Sarah is a cyclist with vision impairment who participates using a tandem bicycle. To train and compete safely, she requires a support person who can act not only as a disability support worker but also as a capable cycling pilot and guide. This is a highly specialised form of support that depends on trust, shared experience and sport-specific skill.

Under flexible arrangements, Sarah has been able to identify support that matches both her disability-related needs and the practical demands of cycling. More restrictive support settings, particularly those that reduce participant choice or make it harder to engage appropriately skilled workers, would place that arrangement at risk. A generic provider may not be able to offer a person with the experience and capability required for safe participation in the sport.

Submission 1735

For Sarah, this is not only about cycling. It is also about independence, community participation and the transition to adulthood. Flexible supports help her study, work, travel and participate more confidently in community life. Her experience demonstrates that participant choice is often essential to both safety and long-term outcomes.

Conclusion

The NDIS has been life-changing for many Australians with disability, including those who seek to participate in sport, community life, education and employment. It has enabled many people to move beyond survival and towards independence, connection and contribution. Sporting Dreams is deeply concerned that the Bill risks reversing those gains before alternative systems are in place and before broader disability reform commitments have been delivered.

For these reasons, Sporting Dreams recommends that the Bill not proceed.

If it proceeds, the Bill and reform agenda requires extensive amendment co-designed with people with disability, aligned with broader disability policy commitments, and focused on sustainability measures that reduce waste and improve outcomes without causing harm.

Yours sincerely,

Marayke Jonkers (President and Founder) On behalf of Sporting Dreams Board