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

Submission 1987

Submission to the Senate NDIS Inquiry

My daughter is 44 years old, blind, and lives independently. Assistance through the NDIS helps her lead a full life, including as the busy, self-employed consultant and socially engaged individual that she is today. As a single parent she has raised her son, now 23, again with vital assistance from NDIS after its inception twelve years ago. In later years, though, NDIS officials have repeatedly questioned her about her obvious and intractable condition and needs and have withdrawn some support. This has been a costant irritant for her. Now she is deeply unsettled by what the government’s drastic defunding of NDIS in the recent budget will mean for her.

As her parent, and as a citizen concerned with issues of social equity and social exclusion, i’m appalled by the scale and manner of the recent deep cut made to NDIS. It appears to be the work of accountants and economists with neither insight nor interest in the actual experience of living with a disability, the enlargement of life that external support can bring, and the cruel vulnerability of knowing that essential support can be withdraw at any time at the whim of officials. I know, from speaking to my daughter and others in the disability community, that this fear is deep, widespread and devastating. How else could it be when the very underpinnings of one’s engagement with work and community can be withdrawn at any time?

The currently proposed budget cuts reflect a razor-gang mentality in pursuit of a soft target. The search for savings should start with an administrative overhaul – with major input from those living with disability and their representative bodies – into exactly what inputs these people need to flourish as human beings and engage actively in the social processes they themselves choose. Savings could doubtless be made in getting rid of the endless scrutinising of the disabled that has metastasised in the NDIS administration. Just as humanitarian insight should tailor services, so a more targeted oversight of providers could weed out those not efficiently meeting their clients’ needs.

Above all, NDIS clients should enjoy reliability in the supports they access – not left in a state of constant fear of being excluded from the scheme.

NDIS exists to enlarge the lives of people with disabilities by making all possible social amenity available to them and to prevent their social exclusion. The proposed cuts effectively subvert those objectives.