National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2308
My thoughts on the NDIS cuts that are already happening and are being proposed:
As a long term Participant I can honestly say there is very little real oversight over what providers claim. No one is properly checking whether the hours being claimed were actually worked. We run our business ethically and only claim for supports that are genuinely delivered, but the reality is that it is far too easy for dishonest providers to rort the system. That is one major issue. The other is that participants are often not funded properly from the very beginning. When plans are inadequate, it creates a domino effect — more support coordination, more therapy reports, more review requests, more administrative work for the NDIA, and huge amounts of taxpayer money spent fighting participants through lawyers at the Tribunal. These are the issues that should be addressed before governments start slashing plans or removing people from the Scheme altogether. I have three disabled children myself, and we are struggling. At the same time, I see participants and families struggling more and more every single day. What also gets ignored in this conversation is the economic benefit of the NDIS. When you factor in payroll tax, income tax, portable long service leave, and the thousands of jobs the sector creates, the government gets a significant amount of that money back. The NDIS also boosts the economy by helping predominantly women return to the workforce around school hours, while enabling participants to engage in their communities and spend money locally. Research has shown that every $1 invested into the NDIS generates approximately $2.25 in economic activity. So this is not simply about “saving taxpayer money” or “making the Scheme sustainable.” If sustainability were truly the goal, the focus would be on reducing waste, improving oversight, properly funding participants from the start, and cutting the enormous administrative and legal costs built into the system. The NDIS should be made sustainable by fixing waste, fraud, poor planning decisions and administrative inefficiency — not by cutting supports from disabled people and families who are already struggling. PARTICIPANTS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM THE PROBLEM LIES ON The system design, oversight Failures and Greed
Vital disability supports are not taxpayer luxury perks as the media would have you believe, they are an essential necessity for some NDIS Participants to live their lives to the fullest. Sometimes these supports determine whether a person can get up in the morning, shower, get ready for the day ahead, eat meals, shop for groceries, attend medical appointments or go to work .
Vital disability supports assist NDIS Participants to do tasks, everyone else takes for granted!! While I will admit that there is a minority of Participants that have done the majority of Participants do the right thing. To punish the majority of Participants for the actions of small minority of Participants is grossly unfair.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2308
The media have been focusing on Support Workers taking NDIS Participants for haircuts–Doesn’t everyone need a haircut? While the NDIS pays the Support Worker to take the Participant for a haircut, it doesn’t pay for the haircut itself!!
NDIS Participants are receiving funding to pay for supports that allow them to participate in life on an equal footing to other members of the community.
It is not the fault of Participants that service providers and organised crime gangs have committed crime against the NDIS or that service providers have charged for services that Participants have never received or that prices suddenly go up, once a business knows you are a NDIS Participant and it is definitely not our fault that service providers hire Support Workers that are lazy and sit on their phone all day, instead of doing their actual
We know that you’re angry, we are angry too, but please be angry at the right people, and that’s not NDIS Participants!!
Any changes to the NDIS should not come at the cost of the wellbeing and safety of disabled people and our families, and should not create further barriers to equality or autonomy.