Submission 2011
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submitted by
28 May 2026
This submission addresses specific provisions of the Bill and explains how those provisions are likely to affect me as an NDIS participant with significant and permanent physical disability.
Submission 2011
1. Executive Summary
I support a safe, sustainable and high-integrity NDIS. I support action on fraud, abuse, poor provider conduct and administrative settings that do not serve participants well. I also accept that long-term sustainability matters.
My concern is that this Bill goes beyond strengthening integrity and improving administration. As drafted, several provisions risk reducing, destabilising or reclassifying supports that are essential to the daily functioning, safety, employment, parenting, family life and civic participation of people with significant and permanent disability.
For participants like me, disability support is not simply about attending social activities. It is often the practical assistance that makes it physically possible to get to work, set up, function safely through the day, access food and facilities, participate in family life, be present for my children, volunteer, coach sport, contribute to committees and continue playing an active role in the community.
My key concern is that the Bill does not sufficiently protect the distinction between an ordinary activity and the disability-related support required to undertake that activity safely and with dignity. That distinction is especially important where supports may be characterised as social, civic or community participation supports, even though in practice they are essential to safe daily functioning and equal participation.
This submission focuses on six areas of concern: the proposed Ministerial power to reduce funding for groups of supports; automatic renewal of plans; tighter limits on participant-requested reassessments; the narrowing of the link between supports and impairment; new powers to set maximum funding, intensity and worker-to-participant ratios; and the automation of administrative action.
2. About Me and Why This Bill Matters to Me
I am an NDIS participant with permanent and significant physical disability. I live with quadriplegia and rely on disability-related supports to live safely and independently.
Those supports enable far more than generic community access. They enable me to function as a worker, parent, family member, volunteer, committee member, community leader and citizen.
I work full-time in an executive role. I also volunteer on community and advisory groups, coach my son’s soccer team and attend school events and family commitments wherever possible. In my case, the support is often not the activity itself. It is the physical assistance that makes the activity possible, safe and sustainable.
For that reason, the Bill is not an abstract policy issue. The way it defines, reduces, renews, limits or categorises supports could directly affect my ability to work, parent, contribute to my community and maintain a safe and dignified daily routine.
Submission 2011
Proposed Section 34A — Ministerial Power to Reduce Funding for Groups of Supports
One of my strongest concerns relates to proposed section 34A, which would allow the Minister, by legislative instrument, to reduce funding for a specified group of supports by a set percentage for old framework plans.
My concern is not only that reductions may occur, but that they may occur at the level of a group of supports rather than by reference to the actual function those supports perform in a participant’s life. Broad category-based reductions risk flattening important distinctions between supports that are genuinely discretionary and supports that are essential to safe daily functioning.
For a participant with profound physical disability, support used in a workplace, at a school event, at a committee meeting, on a sporting field or at a family event is not automatically optional or social in nature. It may involve assistance with getting there, entering the space, setting up, positioning, transfers, access to food and facilities, fatigue management, or simply being able to remain present and function safely.
If those supports are captured within a broad category reduction, the real-world effect may be to reduce a person’s ability to work, parent, volunteer and participate in civic life, even though the support itself is fundamentally disability-related assistance.
In my view, the Bill should not permit broad percentage reductions to groups of supports unless there are much stronger safeguards to ensure that essential disability-related assistance is excluded. A requirement that the Minister merely have regard to participant safety is not sufficient protection where the mechanism itself is so blunt.
Proposed Section 50A — Automatic Renewal of Plans
I am also concerned by proposed section 50A, which would provide for an old framework plan to renew automatically as a new plan on the plan’s end date.
I can see why automatic renewal may be presented as a way of reducing administrative burden or avoiding unnecessary disruption. However, for participants with complex needs, automatic renewal can also entrench error.
If a support is underfunded, incorrectly framed, placed in the wrong support bucket or misunderstood as discretionary when it is in fact essential, automatic renewal allows that problem to continue. A participant may simply be carried forward under the same flawed assumptions.
This is particularly concerning where support needs are mixed or easily mischaracterised. If support that enables me to attend work, maintain my role as a parent, or take part in community and civic commitments is loosely labelled as participation support rather than essential disability-related assistance, automatic renewal risks carrying that error into future plan periods without a genuine opportunity for correction.
There should be a clearer right for participants to trigger a meaningful, participant-involved review before an automatically renewed plan takes effect where support adequacy, categorisation or safety is in dispute.
Submission 2011
Proposed Section 48A — Tighter Limits on Participant-Requested Reassessments
The Bill also narrows the circumstances in which a participant can obtain an unscheduled reassessment of their plan on request, while extending the relevant decision timeframe.
On paper, this may appear to promote order and reduce unnecessary reassessment activity. In practice, however, it risks setting too high a threshold and too slow a pathway for participants with high and ongoing support needs.
For people with significant physical disability, changes in support arrangements can have immediate consequences. A change in work arrangements, living arrangements, family capacity, informal support, or the continuity of trusted workers can materially affect safety, independence and the ability to function day-to-day.
In my own circumstances, a support issue is not merely an inconvenience. It can directly affect whether I can get to work, remain safe through the day, access meals and facilities, participate in parenting and family life, and maintain the routine and support structure that makes everyday life workable.
The Bill should preserve greater flexibility for participant-requested reassessment where real-world changes materially affect safety, daily functioning, work, housing or the sustainability of existing support arrangements.
Direct Impairment Nexus, Day-to-Day Living Costs and the Risk of Mischaracterising Essential Support
A further concern is the Bill’s tightening of the connection between funded supports and impairment, combined with its stronger sustainability and day-to-day living cost principles.
I understand the policy intent behind these provisions. The NDIS should not become a scheme that funds ordinary living expenses or supports more appropriately delivered by another system.
However, the Bill does not sufficiently protect the distinction between an ordinary activity or ordinary cost, and the disability-related support needed to undertake that activity safely.
That distinction is critical. The cost of lunch is an ordinary cost of life. The disability-related support required because of quadriplegia to physically access lunch, manage positioning, safely eat and drink, and continue functioning through the day is not an ordinary cost of life.
Likewise, attending work, a meeting, a school event, a soccer training session or a community committee is part of ordinary life. But the disability-related support required to get there, enter the environment, set up, remain safe, access facilities, function through the activity and return home is not ordinary. It is the practical support that turns formal inclusion into real inclusion.
If the distinction is not made clearly enough, the effect of the Bill may be to characterise essential disability-related assistance as optional participation spending or ordinary day-to-day living cost. That would have a profound impact on participants whose ability to work, parent, volunteer and contribute depends on those supports.
Submission 2011
Proposed Subsection 33(2EA) — Maximum Funding, Intensity and Worker-to-Participant Ratios
The Bill would also allow determinations to specify, for a support or class of supports, a maximum amount of funding, a maximum intensity of provision, or a maximum ratio of worker to participant.
This may appear administratively efficient, but for participants with complex physical disability it creates real risk. Support intensity is not a luxury. It is often the difference between safe and unsafe, feasible and unfeasible, sustainable and unsustainable.
A one-size-fits-all approach to caps on intensity or worker ratios may work badly for people whose needs are highly physical, highly individualised and safety-critical. It risks prioritising administrative neatness over actual participant need.
If Parliament proceeds with this power, there should be much stronger safeguards to ensure that any maximums remain subordinate to participant safety, dignity and individual circumstances.
Schedule 3, Part 2 — Automation of Administrative Action
I am also concerned by the Bill’s automation provisions, which would allow administrative action to be taken by the operation of a computer program, including action involving evaluative judgement.
Complex disability support decisions are often highly contextual. They turn on how a person actually lives, what is safe, what is sustainable, what support is genuinely duplicative, and what support is genuinely essential. These are not always matters that can be reduced cleanly to automated logic.
Where decisions affect plan budgets, support classification, reassessment rights or the practical ability of a person with disability to live safely and contribute to society, meaningful human scrutiny matters.
The Bill should be amended so that high-impact decisions affecting participant supports cannot be automated in a way that diminishes transparency, accountability or genuine individual assessment.
Recommendations
- Amend proposed section 34A so that broad Ministerial reductions to groups of supports cannot apply to supports that are essential to a participant’s safe daily functioning, employment, parenting, family life or civic and community contribution.
- Amend proposed section 50A to provide participants with a meaningful right to seek review or reconsideration before an automatic renewal takes effect where support adequacy, classification or safety is disputed.
- Amend proposed section 48A to ensure participant-requested reassessments remain available where a change in support arrangements, work arrangements, housing, family capacity or informal supports materially affects safety, sustainability or daily functioning.
- Clarify in the Act, Rules or Explanatory Materials that disability-related assistance required to undertake work, family, civic and community activities is not to be treated as an ordinary day-to-day living cost merely because it occurs in an ordinary life setting.
- Amend proposed subsection 33(2EA) so that any maximum funding, intensity or worker-to-participant ratio settings are expressly subject to participant safety, dignity and individualised need.
Submission 2011
6. Limit the use of automation for high-impact administrative decisions relating to support classification,
plan budgets, reassessments and other matters that require close attention to individual circumstances.
10. Conclusion
I support reform that strengthens the integrity, safety and long-term sustainability of the NDIS.
However, sustainability should not be pursued by treating the supports that make real life possible for people with significant disability as though they are merely optional participation spending.
For participants like me, support is what makes it possible to work, parent, volunteer, contribute, lead and live with dignity. The fact that those activities occur in workplaces, schools, family settings and community environments does not make the support any less essential.
I urge the Committee to recommend amendments to the Bill so that it better protects participants whose supports are inseparable from safe daily functioning and equal participation in Australian life.
Appendix A — Illustrative Personal Examples
The following examples show how apparently broad support categories can, in practice, contain essential disability-related assistance:
- Work attendance and meetings: transport support, physical access, workstation setup, positioning, access to meals and facilities, pack-up and safe departure.
- School events and family commitments: physical assistance to attend, enter venues, position safely, access amenities and remain present as an active parent.
- Coaching children’s sport: support to travel, access grounds, remain physically safe and function in a volunteer coaching role.
- Committee and advisory participation: support to enter venues, set up, access facilities, maintain physical functioning and participate effectively in civic and community roles.