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

Submission 191

UNOFFICIAL

Submission on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill

(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Dear Committee,

I am writing to making this submission about this Bill, in particular, the changes to the NDIS which would potentially exclude 160,000 current NDIS participants, and the introduction of mandatory registration for providers.

As you are aware, these changes have not been well received by the disability community, for good reason.

It was always understood that changes to the NDIS criteria should not affect participants already accessing the scheme, because retrospectively changing the criteria for participants and forcing them off support they have been receiving and have come to rely on, is unconscionable, particularly for this cohort of vulnerable people.

If you must restrict criteria in order for the scheme to be sustainable, could individual participants who already receive support be maintained for as long as they need it? This wouldn’t seem to represent a huge cost, nor undermine your efforts to restrict eligibility for long term sustainability of the scheme.

Mandatory registration for providers, while it may sound reasonable and appropriate, will actually only favour larger providers over community providers (including providers from within the disabled community). I know that in rural and regional areas in particular, these smaller providers have been providing an important and very accessible service to many participants that they have not been able to receive from the big providers. Mandatory registration would effectively exclude many of these smaller providers due to the costs and other resources required. If the government wishes to mandate registration and increase transparency/accountability (which is of course important to exclude fraudulent actors), could it at least be made more affordable and accessible to smaller/community based providers to ensure (a) than participants have a meaningful choice of quality providers, including providers from within their own community; and (b) that small providers founded and operated by people with a disability can continue to operate and thrive, leading to that community having a role in the scheme that is not just as recipients, while contributing to local business and the local economy in a way that larger more centralised providers do not. The disability community wants to avoid fraud and rorts as much as your government does, or more so. Their own suggestions and contributions should be centred in designing ways to achieve this.

Noone is arguing that the NDIS doesn’t need to be sustainable, but there are measures that can be taken which do not exclude current receivers of support,

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

Submission 191

UNOFFICIAL

and/or do not create unnecessary barriers to people within the disability community from participating in the scheme as providers.

I hope you will do everything in your power to ensure that your government does not unconscionably exclude current participants or small community based providers.

I don’t have a disability, nor any other direct interest in the NDIS. Nor do I purport to speak on behalf of anyone with a disability.

But as an Australian and a taxpayer I wholly support and wish to protect the NDIS in its best form - that is, an NDIS which supports people with a disability and community based providers as much as possible.

Catherine Hooper

UNOFFICIAL