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

Submission 1819

I am the mother of an NDIS Participant. My young person has Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 3 and a Severe Intellectual Impairment.

I do not support most aspects of this Bill; I don’t believe that it has been presented clearly enough; and there definitely has not been sufficient time provided for responses to it.

Specific aspects of the Bill which I would like to address are:

• Giving the Minister power to make cuts without transparency or appeal. NDIS has long had transparency issues — nobody knows how funding levels are determined, and the “system” seems to moving more and more towards an impersonal algorithm. Appeal is often the only option left for desperate Participants (or their Representatives or Nominees), where they can state their case for supports, and be heard and responded to by a person (albeit a traumatic and long-winded process — but at least there is an Appeal process currently available). It is a perfectly valid source of anxiety that a Minister might decide that a particular disability-group or support category has become too expensive, and drastically cut their funding.

• I belong to a group which may be impacted by the provider registration issue, but it is not explicitly stated that we will not — and that needs to be added. I self-manage my young person’s funding, and directly employ their support workers — because according to the ATO’s and FairWork’s guidelines, the support workers’ working conditions means that they are employees, not contractors. Please explicitly state that Participants/Representatives/Nominees who directly employ support workers are not considered providers for registration purposes.

• Cuts to Social and Community Participation budget would significantly negatively impact my family. Our use of this budget is very intentional towards skill-building, and I consider it a worthwhile investment in my young person’s future — because every skill that they acquire now is one less thing that they will need support for later. If my young person’s Social and Community Participation budget was cut now, their skill-acquisition would be slowed or halted, and it would cost the NDIS significantly more in the future, providing supports that would have been unnecessary if appropriate investment had been made now.

• I would also like to mention the impact on informal supports. There is always a cost. Just because the NDIS doesn’t want to pay it, doesn’t mean that it disappears — it reverts to me. If my young person’s Social and Community Participation funding was cut, and I had to do all the appointments and groups as well as repetitive skills practice in the community, on top of the administrative burden that coexists with disability, plus typical things like running a household — either I would burn out, or my young person would miss out. Probably a bit of both.

• Targeting Autism. The rates of Autism may have caught you by surprise, and derailed your budget … but these are people — not problems. It’s unbelievable that I have to remind anyone associated with the NDIS about this. Just because you didn’t know they were there, didn’t mean that they weren’t — and they still need supports. The level of anxiety in the Autism community is enormous at the moment, as they fear being removed from NDIS, with no other options fully operational yet. Please do not remove anyone from the Scheme until equivalent alternative services and wraparound supports are available.

• Tightening eligibility. Requiring potential participants to spend a lot of money “proving” their disability is permanent, stable and fully treated means that only rich people will be able to access the NDIS. There are a lot of people who simply can’t afford to get all the diagnoses, tests and treatments. Given that you’re now also talking about reassessing eligibility regularly — that

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

Submission 1819

sounds an awful lot like having your cake and eating it too. If people have to prove so much to access the system, then they shouldn’t need to be reassessed, as their condition shouldn’t have changed. But if regular reassessments are commenced, then it shouldn’t be a problem to admit people whose conditions don’t meet this unreasonably strict criteria, because they may not remain on the Scheme if their condition improves.

• Plan suspension after “reasonable attempts” to contact. Plan suspension is a very serious matter, for what is a very poorly-quantified reason. I have had multiple occasions in the past where I have been unable to answer calls (all day seminars, medical/therapy appointments etc); and one occasion where I cancelled an appointment, was assured that it had been cancelled, then I later found out that it had been written up that I was a no-show. I would like to see “reasonable attempts” quantified, made via every channel the participant has provided, thorough documentation of the attempts, and spread over a defined period of time, not less than three months.

• Changing the language to focus primarily on financial sustainability rather than individualised, choice-led and participant-directed is completely contrary to NDIS’s original focus. It frames people with disability as burdens, and their needs are only reasonable and necessary when they don’t cost too much. The Scheme does need to remain financially sustainable, but cost needs to be one of many considerations - alongside choice and control and participant-direction; not in lieu of them. Without Participants having the ability to state their preferences, and have those preferences actively considered as a high priority in the decision-making process, the whole Scheme is at risk of devolving into a form of paternalism. Language is important, especially when it is legislated, and removing the Participant-focused language and replacing it with financially-focused language essentially strips Participants of their choice and control.

I ask the Committee to reject this Bill until the issues listed above have been discussed with people who have lived experience of disability, and amended according to their advice. NDIS Participants also support the Scheme being financially sustainable, but not at the cost of their quality of life, or choice and control of how they use their supports.

Many thanks for reading and considering my submission.