Submission 1858

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

Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Date: 28/05/2026

I welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

I am a disability support worker with seven years of experience supporting people with disabilities both within provider organisations and as an independent support worker. My work primarily takes place in the community, supporting participants to access their communities, navigate everyday barriers, build relationships, pursue employment and volunteer opportunities, and exercise choice and control over their lives.

I support efforts to address fraud, poor practice, and the long-term sustainability of the NDIS. However, as it stands, this Amendment Bill risks causing substantial harm to the very people the NDIS is meant to serve. I will outline several key amendments that require further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds.

The stated objective of the Bill is to protect the future of the NDIS. However, many of the proposed amendments appear to achieve this by tightening eligibility, narrowing assessments, increasing reliance on unpaid supports, and imposing limitations on participant choice and control. These changes do not directly address the causes of fraud, exploitation, or poor practice. Instead, they shift responsibility onto people with disabilities, families, carers, and frontline support networks who are already under significant pressure.

In particular, I oppose amendments that:

• introduce a functional capacity assessment tool that risks creating an incomplete picture of how disability is experienced in everyday life;
• require support needs to arise “directly” from impairment;
• prevent multiple impairments from being considered together when assessing support needs;

Submission 1858

• tighten the definition of “permanence” and require participants to pursue all available treatment options regardless of affordability or location;
• grant ministerial powers to make broad funding reductions across categories of supports;
• increase reliance on family and informal supports; and
• progress major reforms before assessment frameworks have been meaningfully co-designed with people with disabilities.

I recommend that the Committee oppose these amendments and ensure that any future reforms preserve participant choice and control, maintain a whole-person understanding of disability, recognise the role of environmental and social barriers, and are developed in genuine partnership with people with disabilities.

The central concern of my submission is that the Bill moves away from whole-of-person consideration and places increasing responsibility on participants, families, carers, and support networks. Disability does not occur in isolation. Support needs are shaped not only by impairment, but by the interaction between a person, their environment, their relationships, and the barriers they encounter in everyday life. Many of the proposed amendments fail to recognise this reality.

Submission 1858

Moving Away from a Whole-Person Approach of Disability

One of my largest concerns about this Bill is that several amendments collectively move away from a whole-person understanding of disability. I am concerned that the introduction of functional capacity, the emphasis on support needs arising “directly” from impairment, and restrictions on considering multiple impairments together risk narrowing the way disability is understood and assessed.

●​ Functional Capacity

The issue: The proposed definition of functional capacity introduces a significant shift in how disability will be assessed. It focuses on what a person can do without assistance from other people, assistive technology, or modifications, and requires assessments to be conducted without reference to environmental and personal circumstances, i.e. isolated from the real world (Schedule 1 Part 1).

How this affects participants: People with intellectual disabilities and cognitive disabilities will be disproportionately affected by this amendment.

I have supported participants who can hold conversations, answer questions, and present as though they fully comprehend information being provided to them, when in reality they are confused, overwhelmed, agreeing without understanding, or simply attempting to navigate a situation they do not fully grasp. Presentation is not the same as comprehension.

This already creates challenges within the current system.

I have witnessed professionals make assumptions about a participant’s understanding, capacity, or independence based on how they present during an assessment or appointment. Yet once those professionals leave, it often becomes clear that the participant did not fully understand the information provided, the expectations placed upon them, or the implications of the decisions being made.

In some cases, assumptions of competence have resulted in support needs being underestimated. The participant appears capable during a short assessment, but the reality experienced by them and their families, carers, and support workers is very different.

Recommendation: Oppose the proposed definition of functional capacity, including the exclusion of environmental and personal circumstances from assessment. Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disabilities, including those with intellectual and cognitive impairments, episodic and fluctuating disabilities.

Submission 1858

• Support Needs Arising “Directly” from Impairment

The issue: The repeated emphasis throughout the Bill on support needs arising “directly” from impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3).

How this affects participants: Supports that advocate for participants and help them access community safely may be no longer seen as required supports under this amendment. Many support needs arise not only because of impairment itself, but because of the interaction between impairment and an inaccessible environment.

For example, I previously supported an autistic, non-speaking participant who was asked to leave an otherwise empty lap lane at a public pool because they were not using a recognised swimming stroke. The barrier in that situation was not the participant’s disability. It was a lack of understanding about disability and an environment that was not prepared to accommodate different ways of participating.

Much of disability support involves advocacy, communication, education, and helping participants navigate environments that were not designed with them in mind. These needs cannot be neatly separated from the social and environmental context in which disability occurs.

Recommendation: Oppose amendments requiring support needs to arise “directly” from impairment.

• Multiple Impairments

The issue: The Bill may prevent multiple impairments from being considered together when assessing support needs.

How this affects participants: Where a person has needs arising from multiple impairments, supports will only be funded for the impairment that meets the eligibility threshold for the scheme.

In practice, disabilities rarely operate independently of one another. The impact of one impairment is often shaped by the presence of another. Autism may interact with anxiety. An intellectual disability may be compounded by communication barriers. Physical disability may interact with mental health challenges.

The people I have supported do not experience their disabilities as separate conditions. They experience them as a whole person. Assessing impairments in isolation risks creating an incomplete picture of support needs and moves away from the whole-person approach that has been one of the strengths of the NDIS.

Submission 1858

Recommendations:

• Oppose provisions preventing multiple impairments from being considered together when assessing support needs and eligibility.
• Require support planning that considers participants holistically.

Permanence and the Requirement to Exhaust Available Treatments

The issue:

The proposed definition of permanence requires a person with disability to exhaust all available treatment options, regardless of affordability or geographic location, before being eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8).

How this affects participants:

This sets an unrealistic threshold for recognising disability. Access to treatment is shaped by cost, location, waiting lists, transport, specialist availability, family circumstances, and a person’s capacity to engage with treatment. These factors are part of how disability is experienced in everyday life and cannot simply be ignored.

This new definition states that an impairment will only be considered permanent if further treatment is unlikely to “materially improve, reverse, or alleviate the impact of […] the impairment”. The inclusion of the word “alleviate” is particularly concerning. Many treatments do not reverse a disability. They may reduce pain, improve comfort, increase confidence, or make daily life more manageable. These outcomes should be celebrated, not used to suggest that a person’s disability is somehow less significant or that their need for support has diminished.

More broadly, I question whether a person’s entitlement to support should depend on whether a treatment can temporarily reduce some impacts of their disability. Disability is not suspended because someone experiences periods of improved functioning. The underlying support needs often remain.

This amendment risks creating additional barriers for people seeking support and appears inconsistent with a preventative approach to disability. A system that requires people to demonstrate increasing hardship, worsening symptoms, or failed interventions before their needs are recognised is not preventative. It is reactive.

Tightening the definition of permanence does not remove disability. It does not remove support needs. It simply makes support harder to access.

Recommendation:

• Oppose amendments to the definition of permanence that require participants to exhaust “all available options” to materially improve, reverse, or alleviate the impact of an impairment.
• Require safeguarding measures around participant harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity to access treatments.

Submission 1858

Ministerial Powers to Reduce Categories of Support

The Issue:

The Minister can reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specific percentage through an instrument that cannot be challenged (Schedule 1 Part 4). This applies across all budget categories. Unspent funds will no longer carry over at plan renewal (Schedule 1 Part 5).

How this affects participants:

The NDIS will no longer be designed around individualised supports that reflect a participant’s unique circumstances, goals, and needs. This amendment will allow funding adjustments to be applied across broad categories of support rather than being based solely on individual assessments.

Impact:

The impact of reducing a category of support will not be the same for every participant. What may be a minor change for one person may be life-changing for another.

While the Bill states that participant safety must be considered, there is little clarity around how risk will be assessed or mitigated when decisions are applied across broad groups of participants rather than on an individual basis.

Supports often serve multiple purposes simultaneously. A support that appears non-essential on paper may in practice contribute to safety, independence, communication, emotional regulation, community participation, employment pathways, or carer sustainability. These outcomes are difficult to capture through broad funding categories.

Participants who have saved unspent funds across plan periods for high-cost items will lose that ability entirely.

Recommendation:

Oppose the proposed amendment that allows the Minister to reduce funding across categories of supports through determination. Supports should remain centred on the individual participant and their circumstances. Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights before any funding reduction takes effect.

Increased Reliance on Family and Informal Supports

The Issue:

The amendments made to the Reasonable and Necessary supports provisions introduce a more restrictive framework for accessing support by prioritising value-for-money considerations, measurable outcomes, and increasing and tightening family responsibility (Schedule 1 Part 6).

Submission 1858

How this affects participants:

Participants may face greater barriers to accessing supports, while families are expected to absorb responsibilities that would previously have been recognised as disability-related support needs. These amendments risk shifting additional responsibility onto families who are already operating beyond sustainable limits. Reducing supports does not remove the need for support. It simply transfers that responsibility elsewhere.

Working alongside people with disabilities and their families, I have witnessed extraordinary levels of unpaid care, advocacy, coordination, supervision, emotional support, transport, crisis management, and administrative work. Many carers have shaped their entire lives around supporting a loved one. Some have reduced their work hours, left employment altogether, and/or experienced significant impacts on their physical health, mental health, relationships, and financial security.

The question is not whether families are willing to help. In my experience, families are already doing everything they can. The question is whether they have anything left to give. When families are pushed beyond their limits, they do not become stronger. They burn out. The support needs remain, but by then the consequences are often more severe, more costly, and more difficult to address.

Recommendation:

Oppose amendments that increase reliance on unpaid family and informal supports. Ensure that decisions about reasonable and necessary supports adequately recognise family capacity, carer wellbeing, and the realities of long-term caring responsibilities.

Consultation and Co-Design

The issue:

Significant reforms are being proposed before people with disabilities have been meaningfully involved in designing them.

How this affects participants:

People with disabilities, families, carers, advocates, and frontline workers hold critical expertise about how disability support functions in the real world. Their knowledge should not be sought after decisions have already been made. It should be central to the development of those decisions from the outset.

Meaningful co-design is not simply a matter of consultation. It is good policy. If the goal is a more sustainable NDIS, reforms should be developed with the people who understand the system best and who will live with the consequences of these changes long after legislation is passed.

Submission 1858

Recommendation: Delay implementation of new assessment, eligibility, and planning frameworks until they have been meaningfully co-designed with people with disabilities, families,

carers, advocates, and frontline workers.

Conclusion

I support efforts to strengthen the long-term sustainability of the NDIS and address fraud, exploitation, and poor practice within the Scheme. However, I do not believe the amendments proposed in this Bill, as it stands, achieve those objectives in a way that adequately protects the people the NDIS was created to serve.

Throughout my experience as a disability support worker, I have consistently seen that the greatest barriers faced by people with disabilities are not simply their impairments. They are the barriers created by inaccessible systems, community attitudes, inadequate support, and a lack of genuine inclusion.

Many of the amendments proposed in this Bill risk placing increasing responsibility on people with disabilities, families, carers, and frontline workers while doing too little to address those broader barriers.

The people I support are already doing everything they can. Their families are already doing everything they can. Their carers and support networks are already doing everything they can.

Sustainability does not look like creating additional barriers to support. Sustainability looks like meeting support needs before people reach crisis point, recognising carer burnout before families collapse under the weight of responsibility, and building communities that are genuinely equipped to include people with disabilities.

Any reforms to the NDIS should be developed in genuine partnership with people with disabilities and should strengthen, rather than weaken, the principles of choice and control, individualised support, continuity of support relationships, and community inclusion that sit at the heart of the Scheme.

I urge the Committee to oppose the amendments identified throughout this submission and ensure that future reforms are guided by the lived experience of the people who rely on the NDIS every day.