Submission 2212
Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Inquiry into the
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
1. Introduction and Personal Context
This submission addresses aspects of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 that may affect participant supports, assessment processes, administrative requirements, flexibility, participant independence, and functional capacity.
I am a 61-year-old NDS participant living alone in a retirement village with no informal supports. I live with multiple complex disabilities that interact with one another and significantly affect my functional capacity, independence, mobility, communication, safety, and ability to participate in everyday life.
Without NDIS supports, I would be unable to maintain my current level of independence and community participation. The NDIS allows me to continue living in my own home and community rather than becoming more isolated.
The NDIS gives me independence and has significantly improved my functional capacity.
2. The Critical Impact of NDIS Supports
2.1 Overall Impact on Daily Functioning
It assists me with daily living supports, assistive technology, community participation, maintaining my home environment, attending appointments, managing daily tasks, and remaining connected to the world around me. Without these supports, my ability to function safely and independently would be significantly reduced.
2.2 Assistance with Daily Living
Assistance with Daily Living is essential to my independence. These supports help me maintain a safe and hygienic home environment, manage laundry and household tasks, organise clothing and household items, reduce hazards, support my nutrition-related needs, and assist me with tasks that I cannot safely undertake independently.
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These supports are not luxuries. They are reasonable and necessary disability supports that allow me to continue living safely in my own home and maintain my independence.
2.3 Assistive Technology
Assistive Technology is equally important. Technology helps me communicate, understand information, manage appointments, participate online, remain socially connected, navigate complex systems, and reduce my reliance on others. It provides practical solutions that help compensate for the impact of my disabilities and enables me to participate in daily life in ways that would otherwise not be possible.
2.4 Social and Community Participation
One of the most significant benefits of the NDIS has been Social and Community Participation support because it has given me greater freedom, independence and access to essential parts of life. Before receiving these supports, there were places I had not been able to safely access for approximately 30 years because of my disabilities.
With formal supports, I have been able to attend doctor appointments, dentist appointments, and minor medical procedures that would have been extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible, for me to safely manage alone.
For many people, attending a medical or dental appointment is a normal part of life. For me, being able to attend these appointments with support represents something much greater. It represents independence, safety, dignity, and participation in society.
After approximately 30 years of severe restriction, these supports have allowed me to regain parts of my life that I thought had been lost forever.
Social and Community Participation support has also enabled me to safely access suitable community environments, participate in supported walking, maintain physical and mental wellbeing, reduce isolation, and reconnect with parts of life that had been lost to me for decades. It has given me the freedom to leave my home safely, attend essential health appointments, participate in life beyond the walls of my home, and engage with the community in ways that many people take for granted.
2.5 The Relationship Between Support and Functional Capacity
Most importantly, the NDIS has improved my functional capacity. The NDIS has not removed my disabilities, but it has helped me function better, live more safely, maintain independence, and participate more fully in society. For the first time in approximately 30 years, I have been able to access parts of life that many Australians take for granted, including attending medical and dental appointments with appropriate support.
Submission 2212
If these supports are reduced, my functional capacity will be reduced. My independence will be reduced. My ability to safely attend appointments, manage daily living, participate in the community, and remain connected to society will be reduced.
3. Concerns Regarding the Bill and Associated Reforms
3.1 Administrative Burdens and System Complexity
I am concerned that provisions of the Bill and associated reforms may reduce flexibility, narrow access to supports, increase administrative burdens, and make it more difficult for participants to access supports that are essential to daily life.
Disabled people should not be forced to constantly prove their worth or justify every support they receive. Nor should disabled people be portrayed as receiving luxuries or unnecessary benefits in order to justify budget reductions. Public discussion often overlooks the reality that many supports are essential for safety, health, independence, participation, and basic quality of life.
We are not lawyers. We are not accountants. We are not policy experts. Disabled people should not have to become lawyers, accountants, advocates and policy experts simply to keep the supports that allow them to live safely and independently. We are disabled people trying to live as ordinary and meaningful a life as possible. The increasing complexity of the system, the constant need to justify supports, and the uncertainty surrounding future funding creates significant stress and anxiety for people who are already managing substantial daily challenges.
3.2 Unintended Consequences of Reducing Supports
I am concerned that provisions of the Bill and associated reforms may result in unintended consequences for both participants and the broader community.
In my case, NDIS supports help me maintain my functional capacity, independence, safety, and ability to live in the community. These supports help prevent further deterioration and reduce the risk of greater reliance on other government-funded services.
If essential supports are reduced, delayed, or made more difficult to access, the result may not be savings. Instead, it may lead to increased health problems, increased social isolation, reduced functional capacity, greater demand on the health system, and increased reliance on more intensive and costly supports in the future.
The NDIS should be viewed as an investment in maintaining independence and preventing decline. Supporting people to remain safe, healthy, and living in their own homes is often a better outcome for both participants and government than waiting until a person’s circumstances deteriorate and more costly interventions become necessary.
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For these reasons, I am concerned about reforms that may weaken supports, reduce flexibility, or make it harder for participants to access the reasonable and necessary supports that allow them to live independently and participate in society.
3.3 Concerns about Impairment-Based Assessments
I am concerned that assessment processes arising from these reforms may place too much emphasis on standardised assessment tools and not enough emphasis on individual circumstances, lived experience, clinical evidence, and professional judgement.
People with complex disabilities cannot always be fairly assessed by a score or formula. My disabilities interact with one another and affect my daily life in ways that may not be properly captured by a single assessment tool.
Disability is not just a diagnosis or category. It is how a person functions in real life, in their home, in the community, and under the pressures of daily living.
Any assessment process should include proper human judgement, lived experience, clinical evidence, and the views of people who understand the participant’s circumstances. Without this, there is a risk that people with complex disabilities will be misunderstood, under-assessed, or given supports that do not reflect their actual needs.
People with complex disabilities are more than a score. Disability cannot always be accurately measured by a formula, algorithm, or assessment tool alone.
4. Broader Economic and Community Impact
I am also concerned that discussions about reducing NDIS funding often focus primarily on costs without giving equal consideration to the broader economic and social benefits the scheme provides.
The NDIS is not only an investment in disabled people. It is also an investment in independence, community participation, employment, health, and social inclusion.
In my case, NDIS supports help me maintain my functional capacity, live safely in the community, attend essential health appointments, and avoid further deterioration. Without these supports, there is a risk that I would become more isolated, experience worsening health, require greater intervention, and place increased demand on other government-funded services.
Research has estimated that every dollar invested in the NDIS returns approximately $2.25 to the Australian economy through employment, workforce participation, economic activity,
Submission 2212
and reduced long-term costs associated with disability. Reducing essential supports may therefore have wider consequences beyond individual participants, including impacts on employment, health services, carers, families, and local communities.
The NDIS should be viewed not only as a cost, but as an investment in maintaining independence, functional capacity, dignity, participation, and long-term social and economic outcomes.
5. Conclusion and Recommendation to Parliament
The NDIS was created to improve functional capacity, increase independence, reduce isolation, and help disabled Australians participate more fully in society. In my life, it has achieved those goals.
The NDIS has not removed my disabilities, but it has given me independence, improved my functional capacity, and allowed me to participate in life in ways that were not possible before. For the first time in approximately 30 years, I have been able to access parts of life that many Australians take for granted, including attending medical and dental appointments with appropriate support.
I respectfully ask Parliament to ensure that any reforms protect reasonable and necessary supports, preserve flexibility, reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, and do not make it harder for participants to access supports that are essential to daily life.
I also ask Parliament to ensure that any assessment process includes proper human judgement and does not rely too heavily on standardised tools, computer-generated processes, or algorithmic decision-making that may fail to capture the real-life impact of complex disability.
The NDIS should be recognised not only as a cost, but as an investment in independence, health, employment, community participation, social inclusion, and long-term economic outcomes. Supporting people to remain safe, independent, and living in their own homes helps prevent deterioration, reduces pressure on other government-funded services, and benefits the broader community.
It would be deeply concerning if reforms intended to save money resulted in reduced independence, increased isolation, declining functional capacity, greater pressure on the health system, and poorer outcomes for the very people the NDIS was created to support.
For me, these supports are not optional. They are the difference between independence and dependence, participation and isolation, maintaining my functional capacity and losing it, dignity and decline.