National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 1796

To whom it may concern.

I am a 36 year old, late diagnosed AuDHD person. I am what the NDIS considers ‘low support needs’. I would like to offer some insight into my conditions from my perspective for your consideration in the enquiry.

I am a married homeowner, I have a full time job in a corporate environment and some pets and a small group of friends. I pay my taxes and try to contribute to society in as many ways I can when I have the capacity.

The NDIS was a path I looked down initially after diagnosis, I’m a smart person who works in a corporate quagmire - I can probably figure it out! But the process felt insurmountable- was it not obvious! I have a document by a trained professional stating in explicit detail my deficiencies. Deficiencies that are spelled out so as to leave no question that, while I may be ‘low support needs’ that does not mean I have no support needs. And yet the process kept culminating in a doom spiral of me asking for help.

the NDIS saying you need to be very specific in what you are asking for and why.

Me saying it’s difficult to be specific when I don’t know what is available. I have struggled my whole life but scraped by, I don’t even know what is possible, what would take a load off, what could help.

Only to be told you need to be specific with what you are asking for and why.

This process was so frustrating I never followed it up - I’ve often wondered if this is a bug in the system or a feature. The NDIS saw that I could work, that I could provide for myself and maintain relationships. The NDIS saw that I can survive.

I set about trying to find ways to accomodate for myself. Advocate, adjust, learn and improve quality of life. I have put in the work and it has helped some, but that work came at great personal cost. And I had the realisation that in order for me to not just survive but thrive there would need to be considerable limitations on my goals and abilities.

As mentioned I work full time - I work for a big Australian corporation who have agreed to a mostly work from home situation for me - I will note this also took a considerable amount of self advocating, admin and struggle to come about because while corporations know they have to care about neurodivergence disabilities; I’m not sure anyone understands them. Working full time takes up almost all of the mental wherewithal I have for life, and that is working from home, and I deal constantly with leaders and management trying to subtly coerce me back into the office ‘can we offer you tools to accommodate like noise cancelling headphones’.

I have already purchased tools like tinted glasses, headphones, sensory devices to help regulate me while I am in the office. I want people to understand that even with these tools

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 1796

they do not get me to ‘normal’ - I still come home after an office day and am functionally useless for several hours office days must be takeout night because I cannot cook - I can’t walk my dogs, I can’t maintain exercise on those evenings, I can’t make plans or have hobbies where they might fall on these nights.

Without the tools is even worse. I would get home and shut down entirely, not sleeping not really away just blank in my bed for an hour because my body was so overwhelmed. Some days I couldn’t grocery shop even the day after an office day.

With our without the tools simply being in the office for one day will mean I don’t sleep until 2am that night - even though I have to wake up an hour and a half earlier to get to the office and I’m exhausted. The ringing in my ears the spiralling anxiety the sheer physicality of having to process all of the sounds, lights and interactions my brain witnessed that day and needs to filter.

Due to having EDS it takes days for my body to recover - my muscles tense around shaky foundations when I am outside of my house and that makes me sore, leaves me feeling like I ran a marathon and then on the way home got in a fender bender when all I did the day before was have the same day everyone else had.

I’m terrified to advance my career by looking for another job role, because while I have begrudging support from my current work, can I guarantee I will get it in a new role? The idea of even trying to start that process again - while having to learn a new job and talk to and get to know new people with my social deficiencies is, itself, exhausting.

Prior to being diagnosed and medicated for that which I can be I used to self medicate with alcohol - very frequently. Thankfully since being medicated and learning to regulate alcohol has almost no appeal to me, making me healthier. Also since being medicated and working from home I have been able to lose 40kg because I have had the time, room, energy and capacity to focus on my health.

The government is seeking to strip funding from the NDIS - and while I understand it is a massive undertaking and that there is a lot of nuance and opportunities for waste I fear that the people who will be affected the most are the people who need help.

I have reckoned with the fact that I will not get meaningful assistance in this life, this is a level of personal grief I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And yet I still feel privileged and lucky that I am as capable as I am without it. That does not mean that I don’t need assistance.

I believe that giving people access to help with their health and their disabilities is actually the cheaper option for the government. The other coping mechanisms available to neurodivergent individuals will cause more of a strain on public health organisations, will cause more addiction and crime related to that, will cause strain on resources because people can’t afford to prioritise their health - either monetarily or just with the amount of energy they have.

I believe that the NDIS needs to be expanded, not reduced. Even if not for me. For everyone like me. And for the person I could have been had mental health assistance in this country not been the quagmire it has been for my entire life.