NDIA Accountability Project

This project is in DRAFT

Concerns regarding funding cuts and self-management restrictions for daughter with intellectual disability (Family or carer experience)

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

Submission 2104

RE: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment

(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 We write on behalf of our daughter to express serious concerns in relation to particular issues with the “Securing the NDIS for Future Generations” Bill 2026. Clearly, reforms to the NDIS are necessary to deal with issues such as financial fraud and misuse of the scheme’s funds, as well as other changes identified through a culture of continual improvement to ensure optimal effectiveness and efficiencies. However, we are alarmed that a number of the proposed amendments are excessively draconian, representing a regime of ‘cuts’ rather than a process of staged reforms. This includes provisions that give the Minister unprecedented powers to reduce participant’s budget without due process, and with restricted avenues for appeals of NDIA decisions. For our daughter, and consequently us, the primary areas of concern are:

    • Loss of adequate funding
  • Self-management of NDIS funds Automated Decision-Making I-CAN Assessment tool.

Our Daughter

Our daughter is a 44 year old woman with an intellectual disability and complex support needs. She lives independently with daily support funded by the NDIS. Before she received funding for support services, our daughter’s experience of life was one of limited choice, little control, and dependence on us. Her frustrations were often expressed in disruptive violent self-harming behaviours.Its only recently when she has experienced relative stability because her NDIS fund management allowed her independence over time.She never used full amount but managed reduced level which now stable.Any reduction below current would be destabilizing.

Submission

Yet the draft Bill gives the Minister the power to reduce her funding without regard to due process, with no avenue for appeal. This is very concerning.

Self-Management

The option to self-manage our daughter’s NDIS funding provides flexibility, giving us a greater degree of choice over how she experiences life through subcontracting workers who can better meet these specific needs or commit themselves towards understanding them more deeply than what might otherwise be possible under other circumstances; it also allows cost efficiency as well as responding directly on an individual basis rather than having everything done according to some pre-determined schedule which may not always suit everyone involved equally well across all aspects concerned here.

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

Submission 2104

After an extended period of consultation, the Government appears to be proceeding with a change process that does not reflect the consistent feedback from participants and their families, and is focused on “cuts” rather than reform – to the detriment of our society’s most vulnerable members. We are both in our 70s, and have been supporting, managing and advocating for our daughter for most of her 44 years. Just when we thought we had achieved a stable foundation for our daughter’s future through the NDIS, we find ourselves once again deeply concerned for her and her future.

Recommendations

We recommend that the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 not be passed without significant amendments, including:

  • limit the power of the Minister to cut participant’s budgets without due process;
  • ensure the right of appeal for NDIS participants in relation to NDIS decisions;
  • ensure that NDIS participant’s budgets won’t be reduced in a manner that undermines their legitimate support regime;
  • confirm that self-management of NDIS funding will continue to be an option;
  • re-frame the Automated Decision Making algorithm assessment tool as a guide for qualified practitioners, rather than having a decision-maker role, and ensure that qualified practitioners have the authority to make their own assessments and over-ride the automated algorithm decisions.