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

Submission 1815

Submission on the NDIS Amendment Bill

I am a:

Disabled Person AND Service Provider - Art Therapist

My connection to this issue

While I am not on the NDIS, I have experience of both inability to access services and ability to access services and a potential to need the NDIS in the future.

I lived on the DSP for 10 years which allowed me to access study at a slower pace, which allowed me to get a qualification and increase my hourly earning rate. Now as an art therapist working with young teens and adults who may have found many mainstream service providers inaccessible, I am able to see the short and long term benefit of therapeutic intervention that prioritised the participants accessibility. About 80% of my client list is on the NDIS and many have been unable to access more mainstream services due to insufficient neuroaffirming practices.

My overall view of this Bill

I oppose this bill overall due to the continued pattern of the Government engaging in precipitous and rash decisions regarding the governing rules of the NDIS, and rushing amendments through in the past 6 years. The Australian government has a horrendous track record for disregarding vulnerable populations in favour of money grabbing and detrimental sweeping decisions. This bill specifically does this through the many amendments it proposes, their vagueness, their malleability by the CEO and governing bodies and their complete disregard for actual disabled people.

My main concerns are

The complete lack of consideration for all the other services that will be affected by these changes leading to cost blowouts for other services and detrimental effects on hundreds of thousands of Australians.

While there certainly needs to be scrutiny and sustainability of the NDIS due to provider fraud, overfunding, underfunding and mismanagement, making vague and sweeping changes to a bill which are initiated purely on financial sustainability will lead to financial instability and cost blowouts in many other sectors.

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

Submission 1815

What I believe this Bill gets wrong

Disabilities do not exist in a vacuum. When you decide not to fund something for a participant and do not take into account their personal situation, you are pushing that cost on to someone else. This is done through the necessity of trying to access already exhausted public health services, or risking the wellbeing of the participant and their informal support due to increased expectations on them.

These changes will lead to:

• Increased hospital admissions due to inappropriate or non-existent supports that will lead to health deterioration, injury to participants and/or informal supports.
• Increased admissions to our public and private psychiatric systems which are already exhausted.
• Increased need for addiction services due to people’s inability to access appropriate supports, both participants and their informal carers.
• Increased need for housing services, disability pension services and jobseeker services because reducing/limiting access to disability supports will mean participants and their informal carers may no longer be able to work. This increases financial pressures and will also lead to reduction in mental wellbeing, and heightens risk and need for mental health services.
• Increased need for jobseekers due to the large number of providers and workers who will lose their market. This is a beast created by the NDIS/NDIA/government, you created job markets, provided enough years for these job markets to establish, for businesses to be developed, and these changes will lead to entire cohorts of workers being unemployed. The financial burden this places on hundreds and thousands of Australians will increase the need for other services to step in.

What needs to change or be protected

Yes, the NDIS needs sustainable reform. But you cannot remove hundreds of thousands of people from the scheme and manipulate the language of this bill without properly funding what’s supposed to catch participants and their families and carers. The government will simply be moving the cost, not eliminating it.