Submission 2222
Cheeky Monkeys Occupational Therapy for Children
Shop 2 / 199 Pacific Highway Charlestown
Email: kim@cheekymonkeysot.com
Mobile: 0437 032 382
Website: www.cheekymonkeysot.com.au

   [Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill](/library/release-materials/00da626001b3-139a4600-01c3-4785-895f-98b07f03e6bc/material-001__submission-national-disability-insurance-scheme-amendment-securing-the-ndis-for/) 2026
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Date: 30 May 2026
I welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

I am a NDIS provider, running a small sole trader occupational therapy business providing direct supports to families and children.

I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. This Bill is too far-reaching to pass as it stands. I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds.

Parliamentary Scrutiny and Transparency
The consultation period for the Amendment Bill is two weeks, which is insufficient to allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and communication needs. The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis says consultation should occur for a minimum of 30 days where possible.
The government’s own policy guidelines confirm that consultation MUST be made with all parties for a minimum period of 30 days. The two-week timeline we have received does not allow sufficient consultation time, especially given that many of the proposed new policies such as Thriving Kids have not yet been written to ensure INFORMED consultation occurs.
Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30 days.
Key decisions left to ministerial instruments, not law
The issue: The Bill allows Ministers to change who gets NDIS support (Schedule 1 Parts 8 and 9) and how much funding people receive (Schedule 1 Part 4; Schedule 3) by signing an instrument, without going back to Parliament. The rules that will determine critical eligibility thresholds (Schedule 1 Parts 1,
8 and 9) have not yet been written.

Submission 2222

How this affects participants:

The decisions that shape the lives of participants, whether they qualify for the NDIS and what supports they can access, could be changed without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny. Participants may not know supports or eligibility rules have changed until their plan is affected.

No government department should hold supreme power over the administration of the scheme, espe- cially around proposed changes involving level of funding and eligibility, without consultation and scru- tiny to ensure fair, equitable and non-discriminatory process occurs.

Recommendation:

Require that all decisions affecting NDIS eligibility and funding levels be made through primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, with mandatory advance notice to affected participants before any changes take effect.

Existing participants face narrower criteria and fewer rights to challenge decisions

The issue:

The Bill changes the rules for existing NDIS participants and makes it harder to challenge some decisions about supports and funding. It also restricts when you can request a reassessment, re- moves review rights for automatic plan renewals, and makes funding reductions unreviewable (Sched- ule 1 Parts 1 and 8). Combined with restrictions on reassessment requests (Part 2), automatic plan re- nuals without review rights (Part 5), and unreviewable funding reductions (Part 4), existing partici- pants face narrower criteria with significantly fewer avenues to challenge decisions about their sup- ports.

How this affects participants:

This does not protect participants already on the NDIS, who could be re- asessed under stricter rules. If someone’s funding is reduced or their plan renewed automatically, hey may have limited or no ability to challenge that decision. This could make it harder for people to get extra support when their circumstances or disability change.

The inability to challenge a decision erodes the fundamental rule of procedural fairness that a statu- tory authority having power to affect the rights of a person is bound to hear him before exercising the power. There are many reasons that a family may need to challenge a decision including but not lim- itied to:

• Large life changes – child transitioning to school, high school or employment, changes in family dy- amics reducing informal supports, as well as growth changes such as puberty that may impact.
• Non allied health providers deciding on access and funding requirements does not consider the full implications of a condition. For example, a child may not be able to sequence tasks due to execu- tive functioning issues or physical deficits which require different approaches to manage, and may not improve.
• Participants must be able to provide additional evidence that can challenge a decision to ensure unilateral power is not retained by the NDIS without accountability which could lead to unfair, dis- missive and inadequate funding decisions that may cause harm to families.
• Degenerative conditions may suddenly accelerate, requiring an immediate increase in funds.

Submission 2222

• In some instances, as occurred with my own daughter, a diagnosis can be missed for many reasons. My own daughter was 16 before receiving a diagnosis, and after I spent $50,000 in out-of-pocket medical expenses because there was no NDIS to help her. I work with children who sometimes re- ceive a genetic diagnosis that requires months to establish, or an upgrade in autism level, and this MUST be considered in allowing for more intensive supports to be established with a funding re- view.

Recommendation: Require a “no harm” safeguard ensuring no current participant loses access to sup- supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.

Unreviewable ministerial power to cut funding across all support categories

The Minister can reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specified percentage through an instrument that cannot be challenged (Schedule 1 Part 4). This applies across all budget categories. Unspent funds will no longer carry over at plan renewal (Schedule 1 Part 5).

How this affects participants: A participant’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding could be cut without warning and without any right to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across plan periods for high-cost items will lose that ability entirely.

Participants sometimes need to wait to access services for intensive blocks of support, or due to lack of providers, and I have witnessed firsthand funds not being rolled over and families missing out on a sup- pport that had been scheduled before plan rollover that was now denied. This cannot be allowed to happen, families cannot be disadvantaged because they could not access the equipment or the service until the end of a plan that has been cut before the service was due to commence.

Recommendation: Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights before any funding reduction takes effect.

Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility

The issue: A person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, re- mplaced by single eligible impairment consideration (Schedule 1 Part 3). The note that previously acknowledged environmental factors and other ineligible impairments could affect support needs will be removed (Schedule 1 Part 3).

How this affects participants: People with disability will need to prove their impairment cannot be treated before they access the NDIS. Once in the scheme, their supports will only be assessed against a single eligible impairment rather than their whole experience. A person’s individual circumstances will not be considered, including ability to pay for treatment, where they live or whether treatment is actu- ally available to them.

Submission 2222

This requirement severely impacts participants who are struggling to maintain employment to provide for their families in the face of high care needs. These demands already impact their capacity to sus- tain full-time employment due to frequent absences to meet care needs, whilst trying to balance that with normal family demands and increased costs not covered by NDIS now such as medications and paediatricians.

Many families that I work with are from disadvantaged backgrounds, including lower socio-economic circumstances who cannot afford private health insurance or gap payments, cultural differences that may inhibit access to informal supports, and/or out of home care children with complex trauma needs. These families cannot meet the expectations of the new definition of ‘reasonable and necessary paren- tal responsibility’ nor the financial pressures of private therapy. Housing is often inappropriate and a primary barrier to independence, but all they can afford.

Recommendation: Do not proceed with a requirement to exhaust “appropriate treatment” options – there are no safeguarding measures around participant harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity to access treatments.

Unvalidated functional capacity assessment tool risks misidentifying need

The issue: The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impair- mment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment.

The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I- CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disabil- tity, including those whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a point-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.

How this affects participants: If the assessment tool does not accurately capture the full extent of a person’s disability, including needs that fluctuate or vary over time, a participant may be found ineligi- bile or have their supports undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual experience.

Understanding WHY a child is experiencing big behaviours or struggling with social interactions, school- ing and activities of daily living is a critical part of therapy. Reducing funding that allows us to address the underlying skill deficits results in a longer term, bigger picture issue where children will not able to remain in main stream schooling and preschool settings, requiring more intensive school based sup- pports (teacher aids, support units) and burnout for families and carers who are already providing high levels of support to their child and siblings. They literally do not have the capacity to provide more. On top of this, failure to provide the appropriate skills development and support will impact these chil- dren for the rest of their lives, including their capacity to gain meaningful employment to contribute to society or to live independently.

Submission 2222

Current FCAs look at the underlying REASONS for poor functional independence, varying from mental health through to physical and cognitive delays impacting skills development. Allied health can determine from their FCA the relevant course of treatment, interventions and adaptations required to enhance functional independence which varies according to the reason. Many children present with the inability for example to complete self-care tasks which may be physical (such as poor strength), sensory (reduced ability to sense feedback such as toileting urges) or cognitive (can’t recall sequences) amongst other reasons. The ICAN does not capture this information and consequently cannot determine the relevant type of intervention required.

Recommendation: Do not pdisability andAN as the functional capacity assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disability, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.

Supports cut before replacement system is ready

The issue: From 1 October 2026, the government has announced funding for social, civic and community participation supports will be cut by 50 per cent and capacity building daily activities by 10 per cent for all participants, reductions that will be implemented through the ministerial instrument power in Schedule 1 Part 4. The Foundational Supports system intended to fill that gap has no confirmed implementation date and is not yet operational.

How this affects participants: Supports that help participants connect with their community, build skills and maintain independence may be cut before anything exists to replace them, leaving carers and families with greater responsibilities and no additional support. These supports are often what help people stay visible, connected and safe.

Many families have multiple special needs children, children with complex needs requiring 2:1 support, and no informal supports to allow them to access the community safely. Removal of supports will place these families at high risk of harm, and direct harm to children who are overwhelmed and prone to absconding.

Recommendation: Require that no reductions to community participation or capacity building supports take effect until Foundational Supports are fully operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those who will lose NDIS supports.

I would be happy to be contacted directly in relation to the concerns that I have raised.

Kind Regards

Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Page 5 of 6