Submission 178

Submission on the NDIS Amendment Bill

Name:

I am a: ☐ Disabled person ☐ Clinician / researcher (Occupational Therapist) ☐ Advocate

1. Introduction / my connection to this issue

I am an autistic person and a wheelchair user due to chronic illness. I rely on the NDIS for essential supports that allow me to live safely, participate in my community, and manage my health. I am also an occupational therapist working with highly marginalised people, including unhoused individuals with complex psychosocial and physical disabilities. I see the NDIS from both sides: as a participant and as a clinician supporting people who are already struggling to survive.

My submission is informed by both my lived experience and my professional experience. I am writing because the proposed amendments would worsen the exact harms I have already experienced under the current system and those of which I support in my clinician role.

2. My overall position on this Bill

☐ I support it ☐ I do not support it ☐ I have serious concerns

Why: The Bill increases administrative burden, reduces flexibility, expands punitive “not contactable” rules, and strengthens system-level control over supports. These changes disproportionately harm people with complex disabilities, people in crisis, and people without stable housing or support networks. My own experience shows how easily the system already disregards context, trauma, and disability-related barriers. These amendments would make that worse.

3. My key concerns

Communication access

The Bill increases expectations for participants to respond quickly and consistently. Many disabled people cannot do this due to executive dysfunction, hospitalisation, burnout, communication barriers, or lack of support. Punishing people for being “not contactable” is discriminatory and dangerous.

Administrative burden

I was forced into a plan review during a period of homelessness, domestic violence recovery, and full-time unpaid placement while writing a thesis. I physically could not meet the administrative demands placed on me. The result was catastrophic cuts. Increasing administrative requirements will harm people like me who are already stretched beyond capacity.

Loss of supports

My support work, transport, physiotherapy, and exercise physiology were all removed. I was given only one hour of OT per month. These cuts were made without considering my

Submission 178

disability needs or my circumstances. The Bill’s provisions allowing system-level adjustments to support categories will make these kinds of cuts more common and harder to challenge.

Crisis / “not contactable” rules

People in crisis: hospitalised, homeless, fleeing violence, or experiencing mental health collapse are the most likely to miss calls or deadlines. The Bill risks pausing or removing supports at the exact moment they are most needed. As a clinician, I see this constantly among my unhoused clients with psychosocial disability.

Automated decision-making

The Bill increases reliance on administrative and automated systems. My own plan review already felt automated and inflexible. There was no meaningful human consideration of my situation. Increasing automation will worsen this.

Funding / ministerial powers

Allowing broad adjustments to categories of supports risks entire groups of participants losing essential services. This undermines individualised funding, which is supposed to be the foundation of the NDIS.

4. My lived / professional experience

As a participant

As a participant, my experience with the NDIS over the past year has been destabilising, traumatic, and directly harmful to my health and safety. The way my plan was handled already reflects the rigid, punitive, and inflexible system that the Bill seeks to formalise and expand.

In December 2025, my plan was forcibly reviewed despite the NDIA being aware of my circumstances. At the time, I had just escaped domestic violence, become homeless, and was trying to rebuild my life. I was completing a full-time unpaid placement required for my degree while simultaneously writing a thesis. I had no capacity, practically, cognitively, or emotionally, to gather reports, attend assessments, or meet administrative demands.

None of this was considered.

The forced review

The review was initiated without regard for my safety, my trauma history, or my disability-related barriers. I repeatedly explained that I could not obtain updated reports due to homelessness, lack of stability, and the demands of my placement. These explanations were ignored. The process felt predetermined, as though the decision had already been made before I even participated.

The cuts to my supports

Submission 178

The outcome was devastating. My supports were slashed in ways that directly undermined my ability to function, stay safe, and manage my health:

• Support work cut removing the assistance I rely on for daily living, executive functioning, and community access.
• Transport cut despite being a wheelchair user and unable to safely use public transport or drive.
• Physiotherapy cut essential for managing chronic illness and mobility.
• Exercise physiology cut despite clear evidence of its necessity for my condition.
• Only one hour of OT per month an amount so low it is functionally meaningless for someone with complex needs. These cuts were not based on my needs. They were based on administrative convenience and a refusal to consider context.

Forced plan management

I was also forced into plan management against my explicit wishes. No justification was provided. This removed my autonomy, restricted my choice of providers, and created additional barriers to accessing supports. It was a unilateral decision made without consultation, transparency, or respect for my rights as a participant.

The internal review

After months of waiting, my internal review was dismissed. The decision did not address the context I provided, the harm caused, or the procedural issues. I asked simply to be reverted to my previous plan so I could gather the required information and then pursue a change of circumstances. This was refused.

The message was clear: the system is not designed to understand or accommodate real life, trauma, disability, or crisis. It is designed to enforce compliance.

Why this matters for the Bill

My experience is not an outlier, it is a preview of what the NDIS will look like if this Bill passes. The amendments would:

• Increase administrative demands
• Reduce flexibility
• Expand punitive “not contactable” rules
• Strengthen system-level control over supports
• Increase reliance on automated or standardised decision-making
• Make it harder to challenge harmful decisions Everything that happened to me, the forced review, the disregard for crisis, the cuts, the lack of transparency, the refusal to consider disability-related barriers, would become even more entrenched.

Conclusion

Submission 178

The NDIS already failed to consider my homelessness, trauma, disability, and professional obligations. It already punished me for being unable to meet administrative demands during a crisis. The Bill would make this the norm.

This is exactly the kind of rigid, punitive system the Bill would expand.

As an occupational therapist

As an occupational therapist, I work primarily with unhoused people who live with significant psychosocial disabilities, complex trauma, and chronic health conditions. The people I support are already navigating extreme barriers to communication, stability, and safety, including culturally responsive supports for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants and those from CALD communities. The NDIS is often the only system that can provide them with the supports they need to survive, yet they are the people most likely to be harmed by increased administrative requirements and “not contactable” rules.

In my daily practice, I see the same patterns over and over:

• Many have no phone or lose phones frequently due to theft, violence, or unstable living conditions. This means they cannot reliably receive calls, texts, emails, or letters from the NDIA. Under the proposed Bill, this would be interpreted as non-engagement rather than a predictable consequence of homelessness.
• Many are in and out of hospital, often involuntarily, due to mental health crises, infections, injuries, or unmanaged chronic illness. During these periods, they cannot respond to NDIA contact attempts. Punishing someone for being hospitalised is not only unethical, it is dangerous.
• Many experience severe executive dysfunction, cognitive overload, or trauma-related avoidance. These are disability-related barriers, not “non-compliance.” The Bill does not recognise this distinction.
• Most cannot meet administrative requirements, even under the current system. Tasks like gathering reports, attending assessments, or responding within strict timeframes are often impossible without stable housing, support coordination, or a safe environment.
• Many have no support to manage communication, especially those without family, advocates, or consistent support workers. They are already falling through the cracks. The Bill widens those cracks into chasms.
• People are already being cut off or penalised under current rules, even when the NDIA is aware of their circumstances. I have seen participants lose supports because they missed a phone call while in a psychiatric ward, or because a letter was sent to an address they no longer had.

The proposed “not contactable” provisions will disproportionately harm this group, because they formalise and expand the exact mechanisms that already fail them. These provisions assume that communication barriers are a choice, rather than a predictable outcome of disability, trauma, and homelessness.

Submission 178

From a clinical perspective, removing or pausing supports for this population has immediate and severe consequences:

• Increased hospital admissions
• Worsening mental health
• Higher risk of self-harm or suicide
• Loss of housing opportunities
• Increased exposure to violence
• Reduced ability to engage with treatment
• Greater long-term cost to the health and justice systems The NDIS is often the stabilising factor that allows someone to begin recovery. When supports are removed due to administrative rules, the person’s entire life can unravel within days.

Why the Bill makes this worse

The Bill increases administrative expectations and reduces flexibility. It gives the NDIA more power to pause or alter supports when a participant cannot be contacted, even when the reason is directly related to their disability or circumstances.

For the people I work with, this is not a hypothetical risk. It is a guarantee.

Professional conclusion

From a clinical, ethical, and human rights perspective, the “not contactable” provisions are incompatible with the realities of homelessness, psychosocial disability, and trauma. They will push people further into crisis, homelessness, and hospitalisation, the exact opposite of what the NDIS is meant to achieve.

5. What I believe this Bill gets wrong

• It assumes participants can meet administrative demands, when many cannot.
• It treats non-responsiveness as non-compliance rather than a disability-related barrier.
• It prioritises system efficiency over human rights and safety.
• It expands powers to reduce supports at a system level, undermining individualised funding.
• It increases automation when what participants need is human understanding and flexibility.
• It fails to protect people in crisis, people without stable housing, and people with communication disabilities.

6. What needs to change or be protected

• Strong protections for people who are “not contactable,” including pauses on adverse decisions during crisis.
• A requirement for the NDIA to consider disability-related barriers to communication and administration.

Submission 178

• Limits on automated decision-making and mandatory human review for any decision that reduces supports.
• Preservation of individualised funding rather than broad category-level adjustments.
• A trauma-informed, disability-informed approach to reassessments and reviews.
• Clear rights for participants to choose their plan management type.
• Flexibility during periods of homelessness, hospitalisation, domestic violence, or major life disruption.

7. Final Statement

The NDIS is meant to support disabled people, not punish us for being disabled. My own experience shows how easily the system can harm people when it prioritises administration over humanity. The proposed amendments would make these harms more frequent, more severe, and harder to challenge.

I ask the committee to consider my lived experience when reviewing this Bill.