National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2292
My name is and I am the closest to family my friend has. He was a ward of the state and had no living family when I met him 17 years ago. In the group home system from the age of 13 he still aspired for his life. Get a job, live in my own home, make friends, play basketball. A small but impossible list pre-NDIS. Life was for him to go to a day service for endless years of a pick and mix activity program, stay home on the weekend or go on outings in a bus with 5 other residents (all at least 10-20 years older than him).
One day in 2017 when he was 42 a NDIA planner came to his group home and told him about the NDIS and that he would have choice and control over some things like what to do and where to live. At the same time, he was told if he had no one to help him then it probably wouldn’t happen. I was in that meeting as an independent advocate. My friend looked at me and said, “Come on Rach you can help me”!
The next years involved thousands of hours of advocacy with agencies, applications to the Guardianship board and talking to everyone and anyone with more knowledge than I on how to obtain the funding needed for an adequate NDIS plan -a reasonable and necessary support plan to match my friend’s goals.
We eventually got there! My friend and I co-founded an urban farming co-operative with others to create a real job for those involved. This all done through the development of the specialist support worker team we built. The result a successful urban farming social enterprise over 10 years in the making. This is what my friend’s Social and Community support funding has enabled him to do. He’s now supported to do some paid work in this enterprise.
In early 2023 he left the group home and privately rented a home where he lives supported by his independent support worker team we have engaged together. Most are the same team members from day 1 (sometimes in the group home days he woke up in the morning to unknown two agency staZ in the home!) My friend was called “near mute” by his GP before the NDIS changed his life. Not to mention the systemic neglect of his complex health conditions. Now he has a full life that balances safeguarding with choice and control over his living situation. This NDIS plan cost no more than the NDIA was paying a private provider to provide basic care to him via the SIL system.
The great hope of the NDIS has come true for him and for our community through what he has had a part in creating as well as providing employment for those supporting him. He has always been a huge fan of the NDIS. He has seen incredible change as have I and everyone who knows him.
Please don’t change the scheme via the NDIS Future Generations Bill 2026 in order to mitigate the systemic failures created by the hasty way the scheme was rolled out. Don’t punish my friend because unscrupulous operators emerged, and the services and community could not keep up with this once in a lifetime change for some our society’s most vulnerable people. Every change proposed by this proposed bill will impact my friend’s life. Do not act in haste!
Regards