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

Submission 1867

Submission for NDIS Amendment Bill 2026

These thoughts on the proposed changes to the NDIS, are provided from a parent of a person with a permanent impairment, who is struggling to get access to NDIS even now. I also have a work history in HACC/NDIS and Aged Care dating back to the early 2000’s, and am supporting a mother on Support at Home, with a mother in law recently admitted to permanent care.

1. It is already challenging gaining access to NDIS support. The proposed
  changes will increase these challenges and barriers to accessing supports
  needed to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities. These
   challenges, and an inability to gain access to support, will continue to impact
   stressed families, and impact the sense of worth of people with disabilities.
2. Social and community supports are arguably a foundational support
   necessary for our society to really accept and include people with disabilities.
  They are not optional, but an essential component of the program.
3. Decreasing capacity building support will ensure people with disabilities
   remain reliant on families for supports. This will continue a cycle of ongoing
    financial supports needed through government pension payments anyway
    (including aged pensions, carer payments and disability support payments
  and low income health care cards) as parents capacity to work will be
   impacted reducing their capacity to save sufficient superannuation to support
   themselves through their retirement from paid work.
4. The proposed system will become a system predicated on financially secure
    families who do have capacity to fund and trial "all available treatments" as
   not "all available treatments" are available through the public system or in a
    timely manner. Our least financially secure families are the ones wo really
   require the most support.
5. While I agree that the NDIS should provide support only for those people with
  permanent conditions, this is already being used as a roadblock in the
   approval process. Our most recent application for NDIS support for our
   daughter who has a degenerating nerve problem, has been declined on the
   basis that we have not established the "permanence of her impairment". This
      will get worse as NDIA staff interpret or are required to interpret, applications
     in a particular way.
6. The proposal for other services to be created to support people with
     disabilities who are not eligible for NDIS, sounds a bit like a reversion to the
   previous HACC system. Operating multiple programs will surely be more
   expensive than operating just one. Fix the broken one, don’t create another
  one that will likely repeat the mistakes of the other.

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

Submission 1867

• I agree that improvements need to be made to the system, however rushing through a Bill so the government can save $37B is not the best way forward.