Submission 1935

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing as the parent of a child with disability to express my deep concern regarding the proposed NDIS reforms contained within the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

My concerns relate specifically to the proposed reductions to social and community participation supports, cuts to capacity building supports, restrictions on reassessment and review, expanded ministerial powers, increasing use of automation and algorithmic decision-making, and reforms that may reduce access to the Scheme for people with complex or lifelong disabilities.

These changes feel like gatekeeping for people living with disabilities. They do not reflect inclusion. They risk creating further segregation within our communities by making it harder for people with disabilities to participate in everyday life.

As parents of children with disabilities, we already advocate every single day. We advocate at school, at swimming lessons, at dance classes, at the supermarket, in community spaces, and in nearly every social interaction our children experience. The constant need to explain behaviours, differences, support needs, and why our children may respond differently to situations is exhausting. Living in a constant state of “fight or flight” to ensure your child is accepted, safe, and included is exhausting.

Now families are being told we may also need to fight for the funding that allows our children to participate in the community in the first place.

Some may argue that participation is a parent’s responsibility. Of course it is our responsibility to support our children. However, no teenager with a disability wants to tend extracurricular activities, go to the cinema, or spend time with friends while their parents stand beside them supervising every moment. Inclusion means allowing young people with disabilities the same dignity, independence, and social opportunities as their peers wherever possible.

I am the parent of a daughter with Down syndrome, and I am incredibly grateful for the therapies and support the NDIS has provided. Those supports have helped bridge the gap between her and her peers in many meaningful ways. But there will always be a gap.

My daughter will always require supervision. Her disability affects her ability to recognise danger and assess risk. This includes everyday situations such as crossing a road, using hot water safely, or understanding when someone may not have good

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Her intentions toward her. This is not a parenting failure. This is the reality of her disability.

Not all disabilities lead to full independence, regardless of therapy, effort, or support. Reducing funding for community participation and support workers does not create independence — it creates isolation.

The proposed changes risk excluding vulnerable people from the very communities the NDIS was designed to help them access. Inclusion cannot exist if participation becomes inaccessible.

I am also deeply concerned about the increasing use of automation, algorithms, standardised assessments, and digital compliance systems within the NDIS.

Professional judgement matters.

Occupational therapists and allied health professionals understand how disability impacts real life functioning in ways that cannot be reduced to a tick-box assessment or automated scoring tool. Good assessments require context, clinical judgement, obervation, lived experience, and understanding of the person as an individual.

The Bill appears to allow increasing reliance on systems, frameworks, and automated processes in decision-making. This is alarming.

Recent experiences in aged care already demonstrate the risks of over-standardised assessment tools failing to capture the complexity of people’s actual support needs. The NDIS must not repeat these mistakes.

Many families are frightened because this approach resembles the same dangerous overreliance on automation that occurred during Robodebt.

Robodebt used automated systems and data matching to accuse vulnerable Australians of debts they did not owe. Human judgement was removed. People were forced to prove their innocence against flawed computer-generated decisions. The consequences were catastrophic, and tragically, people died.

Now many disabled Australians fear we are watching the foundations of a similar compliance-driven system being rebuilt within disability supports.

Through expanded digital powers and compliance mechanisms, the government is creating systems that increasingly allow:

• automated decision-making,
• algorithmic risk assessments,
• electronic payment tracking,
• aggressive debt recovery,
• expanded investigations,
• and broad ministerial powers to alter funding rules with limited scrutiny.

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Support is increasingly being treated as though it is a suspicious financial transaction rather than an essential human need.

Families are deeply concerned about a future where algorithms can flag spending as “suspicious,” restrict supports, trigger investigations, or suspend funding while vulnerable people are left trying to prove themselves innocent after the fact.

Fraud enforcement once targeted organised criminal behaviour. Now disabled people requiring wheelchairs, autism therapies, support workers, or assistance getting out of bed are being subjected to increasing levels of financial monitoring and compliance scrutiny.

It is also important to put the discussion around “NDIS fraud” into perspective.

Fraud exists in every large government system and every sector where significant public money is involved. This is not unique to the NDIS.

The Australian Taxation Office estimates the tax gap — the difference between tax owed and tax actually collected — is worth billions of dollars each year due to tax avoidance, underreporting, phoenix activity, and fraud. Wage theft and unpaid superannuation also cost Australian workers billions annually.

Centrelink fraud and compliance issues have existed for decades, yet governments have not responded by placing the entire welfare population under the level of financial surveillance and automated compliance systems now being proposed within disability support.

Most Australians understand that genuine organised fraud should absolutely be investigated and prosecuted. However, there is a significant difference between targeting organised criminal activity and building systems that treat every disabled person as a potential suspect.

The overwhelming majority of NDIS participants are not fraudsters. They are people with disabilities and families trying to access therapies, support workers, mobility equipment, transport, social participation, and basic supports that allow them to live safely and participate in the community.

Yet public discussion has increasingly focused on “rorts” and isolated extreme examples while far less attention is given to the everyday realities of disability and caring responsibilities.

The danger is that repeated messaging about fraud creates the impression that disabled people themselves are the problem.

I am also concerned about the Bill’s expansion of ministerial powers to reduce or limit categories of support across the Scheme.

Supports should be based on individual need and clinically informed assessment, not

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broad system-level reductions or political decisions made behind closed doors.

The proposed restrictions on reassessment and review are also deeply concerning. Disability and support needs can change rapidly. Families need practical pathways to request reassessment when circumstances change. Limiting reassessment to “exceptional circumstances” risks creating unsafe situations and delays in essential supports.

I am particularly concerned about the risk of narrowing access to the Scheme for children, people with psychosocial disability, people with fluctuating conditions, degenerative conditions, or complex support needs that may not be easily captured by standardised assessments.

Early intervention and ongoing support matter.

Removing or reducing supports before alternative systems are fully established risks causing enormous harm to vulnerable people and families.

Capacity building and community participation supports are not luxuries. They are essential for independence, social connection, skill development, mental wellbeing, and inclusion. Reducing these supports will not create independence — it will create isolation, carer burnout, and reduced community participation.

I support the recommendations being put forward by Occupational Therapy Australia, including:

    ·   ensuring functional capacity assessments are conducted by appropriately
     qualified allied health professionals,
    ·   prohibiting fully automated eligibility and funding decisions,
    ·   maintaining human oversight and professional judgement,
    ·   protecting pathways for reassessment and review,
    ·   reversing proposed cuts to capacity building and participation supports,
    ·   limiting broad ministerial powers,
    ·  and ensuring NDIS reforms do not narrow access for people with complex,
      fluctuating, or lifelong disabilities.

I also support efforts to ensure pricing and integrity reforms maintain a sustainable allied health workforce, including occupational therapists, whose work is essential to participant safety, independence, and long-term outcomes.

Disabled Australians deserve inclusion, dignity, safety, autonomy, and the ability to participate fully in society — not a future built on suspicion, surveillance, and restricted access to support.

I urge Parliament to reconsider these reforms and ensure that any changes to the NDIS protect the rights, dignity, and humanity of the people the Scheme was created to

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support.

Sincerely,