National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 1823
29 May 2026
Submission to National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
As requested, I am making a short submission to the committee for this Bill.
Support for disabled people is hard fought for, requiring reports and paperwork
from specialists to be provided, sometimes yearly. Do you have any idea how demeaning it is to spend money on a report to confirm, “Yes, I’m still disabled, no my diagnosis has not changed”.
The money spent on this paperwork was money in a meagre fund to support you; money that has now been wasted on providing an update on your care to see if you still require care. The person you need to provide your care as a client has had to spend their time writing a report on you.This includes, but is not limited to amputees who served their country, who have to justify new limb adaptations when previous models wear out. Or people who live with Trisomy 21, submitting paperwork confirming that, yes they still have it.
These reports from providers are often directly requested, paid for, chased, waited on, reminded to be emailed by family members at the centre of the care. Family members who are working unpaid to support the person in their care, while also working outside the home to feed, clothe and house their family. One hour of their provider’s time is more valuable than one hour of the family or client’s time. Instead of concentrating on living, they have to justify living at all.
Reports are frequently sent late, so the NDIS plan rolls over without amendment. Then when you finally have the paperwork, you request an amendment to be told “You’re too late because you should have provided information in the plan review period.”
You tried to, but reports are not income generating for providers, so they spend little to no time on them. The staff that do want to spend time on them are on the clock with their employers; do they work late, or at weekends to support the people in their care?
Our son’s disabilities are hidden, he lives with ADHD, ASD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia and a speech and language delay. Nevertheless, at almost 6’ tall, he visibly presents as a normal 15 year old. However, he has the reading and writing output of a 10 year old simply because his brain works differently to how the education system expects it to. Due to his IQ, he is not able to attend specialist school, he is expected to attend mainstream school and ‘cope’. After years of
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 1823
reports and months of waiting, we secured funding for him to have an aide withhim in his classrooms, however that aide is also expected to support every otherchild with a learning difference. Schools are so desperately underfunded they haveto share aides with children who need them.
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The language used in our son’s NDIS plan locks out supports that he currentlyneeds. As he develops and grows, the support he needed in Prep has changed,because he has. He doesn’t currently need OT support, or a speech pathologist,with their support we spent 2 years getting him ready to start High School. For thepast three plan reviews we have requested changes to his plan wording, as themoney we have sitting in his Improved Daily Living line cannot be accessed. Yetagain, his plan rolled over with no amendments to the wording, despite an hourlong phone call explaining why we need the funding changed. So yet again wehave money that we cannot use to support our son, because if we were to engagea social worker or key support as it is not explicitly written into the plan we wouldbe mis-using his funds.
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Instead of penalising the people who rely on funding to live and function in aworld that is not set up to support them, you ignore the people rorting the system atthe other end. Seeing NDIS funding as a bucket of money to be accessed to linetheir pockets, from sending out poorly trained staff to some of the most vulnerablepeople in the community, to over-invoicing while clients get breadcrumbs.
I have been a Labour / Labor voter all my adult life; from the UK to Australia, butnot any more. I cannot sit and watch the party that was founded on the eliminationof exploitation push through a bill directly harming the most vulnerable, the mostin need, the most ignored, dehumanised and othered group of people even further.