National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2301
Submission on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
I have lived with disability-related support needs throughout my adult life and have received support from multiple government systems across several decades, including income support, health services, mental health services, employment services, disability services and for the past five years, the NDIS.
I acknowledge the importance of ensuring the long-term sustainability and integrity of the NDIS, including the need to address fraud, improve consistency, clarify responsibilities across service systems and ensure the Scheme remains available for future generations.
However, many of the concerns raised throughout this submission relate not to these objectives themselves, but to the way in which they are proposed to be achieved. The operation of several key reforms remains dependent upon assessment methodologies, implementation frameworks, operational guidance and interactions with other service systems that are not yet fully developed, publicly available or subject to meaningful consultation and scrutiny.
As a result, Parliament is being asked to consider significant changes to NDIS eligibility and access arrangements without full visibility of how these new concepts will be applied in practice. This makes it difficult to assess their likely impact on people with disability, the broader service system and the Government’s stated objectives of sustainability, consistency and improved outcomes.
My concerns about this Bill are informed by extensive disability evidence held across government systems, including a Functional Capacity Assessment and Specialist Disability Accommodation assessment, which document substantial and enduring functional impacts and identify support needs across multiple areas of daily life.
My concern is not that my needs have gone unidentified, nor that I have been unwilling to engage in treatment, rehabilitation or support. Rather, my experience has been that the greatest challenge is often identifying which system is responsible for responding to those needs and accessing practical supports once responsibility has been allocated.
Many of my support needs continue to sit across multiple systems, including disability, health, mental health, employment and housing. The result is repeated assessments, repeated evidence gathering, repeated referrals between services and significant administrative burden, while some of the underlying issues remain unresolved.
My experience demonstrates that recognising a need is not the same as providing an effective pathway to support. Despite extensive assessment and evidence, recognised needs do not necessarily translate into practical, accessible supports when responsibility is fragmented across systems. In my experience, the burden of navigating this uncertainty
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2301
and attempting to identify a pathway to support becomes immobilising in itself, resulting in extreme social isolation, reduced participation in community life, maladaptive coping strategies and further deterioration in functional capacity.
I am concerned that the proposed reforms may increase the number of people whose needs are recognised, but who face uncertainty regarding which system is responsible for providing support and how that support can actually be accessed.
For this reason, I believe Parliament should carefully consider not only the proposed eligibility changes within the Bill, but also whether the pathways outside the NDIS are sufficiently developed, accessible, accountable and capable of meeting the needs of people who may be excluded under the revised framework.
Proposed Section 9B – Functional Capacity
The Bill requires environmental and personal circumstances to be excluded from assessments of functional capacity.
This provision raises concerns regarding how functional capacity or impairment will be measured in practice.
Disability is not experienced in isolation from a person’s circumstances. Functional capacity is often most evident through a person’s ability to communicate, maintain housing, access services, participate in the community, achieve meaningful goals, have meaningful relationships and sustain daily living activities. The Bill does not explain how functional capacity can be assessed reliably while excluding the very circumstances in which those limitations are experienced.
Parliament should seek clarification regarding how environmental and personal circumstances will be separated from disability-related functional impacts and what evidence demonstrates that such assessments can be undertaken safely, reliably and consistently.
Part 3 Amendments – Supports Arising “Directly” From Impairment
The Bill replaces the existing concept of supports arising from impairment with supports arising directly from impairment.
This amendment introduces a narrower causal connection between impairment and support needs.
The Bill does not explain how decision-makers will determine whether a support need arises directly from impairment, particularly where disability-related impacts interact with environmental, social, health, housing, employment or other factors. Many support needs arise through the interaction of multiple circumstances, yet the Bill provides limited guidance regarding how responsibility for those needs will be determined.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2301
The introduction of a direct causation test may increase disputes regarding responsibility for supports where disability-related impacts interact with other circumstances.
Parliament should seek clarification regarding the criteria that will be used to determine whether a support need arises directly from impairment and how review processes will operate where causation is disputed.
Proposed Section 25A – Appropriate Treatment and Permanence
The Bill strengthens the relationship between permanence and treatment.
This provision introduces new considerations regarding whether appropriate treatment has been undertaken and whether further treatment may improve functioning.
The Bill provides limited detail regarding how these determinations will be made in practice. It is unclear what will constitute appropriate treatment, how treatment history will be evaluated, and how decision-makers will account for circumstances where services are unavailable, inaccessible, ineffective or inappropriate.
As a person who has engaged with health, mental health and disability systems for decades and continues to undertake treatment and rehabilitation, I am concerned that the proposed treatment requirements may further shift responsibility for disability support needs across multiple service systems.
A person may be recognised as requiring support, yet be directed to pursue treatment, rehabilitation or other interventions before eligibility can be determined. This risks increasing fragmentation between disability, health and community services, while placing additional responsibility on individuals to navigate multiple systems in order to access support, which in my experience can further immobilise participation in everyday life.
Furthermore, treatment recommendations are not infallible or static. Clinical practice changes over time as new evidence emerges, treatment models are revised and professional opinions often differ. Interventions that are expected to improve functioning do not always do so and may, in some cases, cause harm. The Bill does not adequately address how uncertainty, misdiagnosis, conflicting clinical advice, changing treatment approaches or unsuccessful treatment histories will be considered when determining whether a person has undertaken all appropriate treatment.
The proposed framework does not provide a clear endpoint for treatment requirements. For people who have engaged extensively with treatment and rehabilitation over many years, it remains unclear when treatment will be considered sufficient for the purposes of determining permanence and eligibility.
The proposed treatment requirements also raise broader ethical questions regarding autonomy, informed consent and access to support. While the Bill does not require a person to undergo treatment, it is unclear how decisions to decline, defer or discontinue
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2301
treatment will be considered when determining whether all appropriate treatment has been undertaken.
This is particularly significant where treatment recommendations are contested, carry risks, have uncertain outcomes or are based on evolving clinical models. Access to support should not depend upon a person’s willingness or ability to pursue every available intervention, particularly where informed consent requires individuals to weigh potential benefits against risks, burdens and personal circumstances.
Parliament should seek clarification regarding the evidentiary and ethical standards that will apply to these determinations, how consistency and fairness will be ensured in their application, how decision-makers will account for unequal access to treatment and rehabilitation services, and the safeguards available to participants affected by them.
Overall Concern
Taken together, proposed section 9B, the “directly arising from impairment” amendments and proposed section 25A introduce new concepts that may significantly affect access to the NDIS.
These concepts create new eligibility boundaries, yet the Bill provides limited detail regarding how they will be operationalised, measured, reviewed or challenged.
The Government has stated that these reforms will improve sustainability, clarify system responsibilities and reduce growth in the NDIS. However, the practical operation of the new eligibility concepts remains uncertain, as the assessment methodologies, implementation arrangements and interaction with alternative support systems are not fully articulated within the Bill.
Without greater clarity regarding how these provisions will operate in practice, it is difficult to assess whether the reforms will achieve their stated objectives. There is a risk that costs may be displaced rather than reduced, including through increased assessment activity, review processes, administrative complexity, interagency disputes and unmet support needs.
Parliament should therefore ensure that the operational framework underpinning these new eligibility concepts is transparent, evidence-based, developed through meaningful consultation with people with disability and their representative organisations, publicly available for review, and subject to appropriate independent scrutiny before significant changes to access and eligibility are implemented.
For these reasons, I urge the Committee to carefully consider whether the operational, evidentiary and implementation frameworks required to support these reforms are sufficiently developed, transparent and available for scrutiny before the proposed amendments are enacted.