National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
Submission on Proposed NDIS Legislative Amendments
Dear Committee Members,
I welcome the opportunity to provide a submission on the proposed amendments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) legislative framework.
I write as a parent and time-limited working carer of a child with Cerebral Palsy, drawing on lived experience of the Scheme and its role in supporting a young child with a lifelong disability to reach his goals.
Like many families, when our son was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy, we took significant comfort in knowing he would have legislated lifelong access to reasonable and necessary supports under the NDIS. This understanding gave us confidence that he would have the best chance in life. It is deeply confronting that access to essential supports may become increasingly dependent on budget settings rather than his developmental need.
While I support efforts to address fraud, strengthen integrity, and ensure the long-term sustainability of the Scheme, I do not support this Bill in its current form. I urge the Committee to hear the voices of the disability community and delay the passage of this legislation. Embedding expenditure controls within eligibility, reassessment, and support definitions risks progressively shaping access to supports not on need or evidence, but on shifting budgetary constraints and the politics of the Parliament of the day.
Executive Summary
This submission argues that the proposed amendments to the NDIS represent far more than targeted integrity reform. Collectively, the changes amount to a significant structural redesign of the Scheme, shifting it away from individualised, needs-based support and towards a more fiscally constrained and administratively controlled model.
While efforts to address fraud and ensure long-term sustainability are important, these reforms risk embedding expenditure controls into eligibility, reassessment, and support access in ways that may progressively subordinate participant need to budget settings.
For children with lifelong disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy, the implications are significant.
Children with Cerebral Palsy rely on specialised, intensive, evidence-based supports that are highly time-sensitive. Allied health therapies are not optional supports; they are essential interventions that build and maintain mobility, communication, independence, and long-term functional capacity. Developmental windows cannot simply be paused while funding settings or administrative processes change.
We have seen this directly in our own family. Intensive physiotherapy delivered at the right time enabled our son to achieve independent walking prior to starting preschool. That outcome was
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
not incidental — it was the result of carefully planned, appropriately resourced intervention during a critical developmental period.
The Bill creates significant uncertainty regarding continued access to these supports. Proposed cohort-based funding reductions, annual therapy caps, expanded reassessment powers, and poorly defined functional capacity frameworks risk limiting access to therapies and assistive technology that are clinically necessary for children with Cerebral Palsy to achieve optimal long- term outcomes.
The proposed reforms also fail to adequately recognise the reality of lifelong neurological disability. Although Cerebral Palsy is non-progressive, functional capacity can deteriorate over time without ongoing therapy, rehabilitation, and appropriate assistive technology. Functional gains achieved through therapy are not permanent if supports are withdrawn.
This submission raises concerns that:
The Bill expands executive power while reducing parliamentary oversight and transparency Supports may increasingly be shaped by fiscal targets rather than clinical evidence and individual need Undefined functional capacity frameworks create risks of inconsistent and inequitable decision-making Blanket funding reductions will disproportionately harm participants with the highest support needs and the least capacity to advocate Children may lose access to essential, time critical supports before equivalent foundational services are established Reductions in therapy and assistive technology may create greater long-term costs through preventable decline in function and increased dependence
This submission does not argue against reform, integrity, or sustainability. It argues that reforms of this scale must not quietly redefine the NDIS in ways that undermine participant rights, developmental need, and long-term inclusion.
The Bill should not proceed without substantially stronger safeguards, including:
Explicit safeguards for children and people with lifelong disabilities Transparent and validated functional capacity frameworks Independent clinical and lived-experience input into reforms Equity and human rights impact assessment Parliamentary oversight of major funding and eligibility changes Protection of continued access to specialised, evidence-based therapy and assistive technology for children with Cerebral Palsy and other lifelong disabilities.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
- This is not a targeted fraud control package: it is a structural redesign
Despite public messaging, the Bill constitutes a major restructuring of the NDIS. The combined effect of provisions relating to eligibility, support definitions, reassessment powers, and ministerial discretion reshapes the foundations of the Scheme.
This legislation will cause significant uncertainty for participants, families, and providers, including uncertainty about access to allied health supports, which are essential and not optional for people with Cerebral Palsy.
Australia must strive to uphold the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), including dignity, independence, and participation. This Bill should not pass without an rights assessment.
Key concern: The Bill shifts the Scheme away from needs-based support and towards access determined by national budget parameters.
Recommended action: Retain clear legislative protections for participants with permanent and lifelong disabilities and extend consultation and co-design timeframes before implementation.
- Public messaging vs actual impact of the Bill
The Bill has been presented as an integrity and sustainability reform. However, its practical effect extends far beyond fraud prevention.
It tightens eligibility It reduces flexibility within plans It restricts access to supports
Departmental modelling has indicated a substantial reduction in projected participant numbers, raising questions about the intended impact of the reforms.
When discussing the reforms with family members, colleagues, and others in the community, there has been broad agreement that fraud and misuse within the NDIS should be appropriately prevented and addressed. However, many are not aware that the practical effect of a number of provisions extends well beyond targeted anti-fraud measures and into restricting eligibility, reducing supports, limiting flexibility within plans, and tightening access to therapies and community participation supports for legitimate participants.
While public messaging suggests that children with lifelong disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy will remain eligible for the NDIS, the Bill does not provide any such guarantee.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
Key concern: The Bill does not clearly protect children with lifelong disabilities, creating a risk that even those with the clearest eligibility may lose access to the Scheme.
Recommended actions:
Provide explicit legislative protections for children with lifelong disabilities and improve transparency regarding the practical impacts of the reforms Provide per cohort modelling on access changes and budget impacts Protect the safety and continuity of supports for participants with high support needs
- Expansion of Executive Power & Reduced Parliamentary Oversight
The Bill significantly expands Ministerial and delegated powers over core elements of the NDIS, including eligibility frameworks (s 9B), reassessment mechanisms (s 34A and related provisions), cohort-based funding caps (s 33(2EA)), and wide-ranging transitional rule-making powers (Schedule 5).
These changes represent a substantial shift in decision-making authority from Parliament to the Executive, reducing transparency and limiting accountability over decisions that directly determine participant access to supports.
A particularly significant concern is the introduction of proposed section 34A, which enables the Minister to impose broad, percentage-based reductions to categories of participant supports for reasons of “financial sustainability.” Critically, these reductions may occur without individual reassessment, without consideration of clinical evidence or functional need, and with limited parliamentary scrutiny.
This provision represents a fundamental departure from the core principle of the NDIS as an individualised, needs-based scheme. It creates a mechanism by which supports can be adjusted at a cohort level in response to fiscal targets rather than participant need. In practice, this risks overriding individualised planning processes and undermining the requirement that supports be reasonable and necessary.
The implications of this are profound. Participants with lifelong disabilities, including children requiring time-critical therapy and assistive technology, may experience reductions in essential supports despite no change in their functional capacity or developmental need.
For children, the implications are particularly significant. Development does not pause while funding settings are adjusted. If therapy intensity is reduced or assistive technology is delayed or removed, children do not simply “wait”—they may lose skills, miss critical developmental windows, or require greater long-term support as a result.
We have seen this firsthand. For our son, intensive therapy has supported him to make significant gains in fine and gross motor skills during important developmental windows. For example, in the
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
three weeks prior to starting preschool, he participated in an intensive physiotherapy program and achieved independent walking for the first time. This was the result of careful planning and targeted, timely, appropriately resourced intervention.
These risks are compounded by the absence of requirements for:
independent clinical input lived experience representation equity or human rights impact assessment consultation with States and Territories to ensure alternative supports are in place
In combination with expanded discretion in eligibility frameworks and reassessment processes, section 34A contributes to a broader shift toward administrative and fiscally driven decision- making.
Key concern: The expansion of executive power—particularly through proposed section 34A—enables non- individualised funding decisions and risks undermining the foundational principle that supports are determined based on individual need.
Recommended action:
Delete proposed section 34A; or at minimum require: o parliamentary disallowance o public consultation o independent clinical and lived experience input o published equity and human rights impact assessment o consultation with States and Territories
- Functional capacity: lack of clarity and definitional risk The Bill does not include a sufficient statutory definition of “functional capacity” or safeguards regarding how it is defined, operationalised, and reviewed.
At a time of increasing global pressure on disability inclusion frameworks, undefined or weakly defined concepts risk becoming vulnerable to reinterpretation through policy or administrative guidance rather than legislative scrutiny.
These risks include inconsistent interpretation across participant groups, limited recognition of fluctuating or psychosocial conditions, reliance on tools not validated for specific cohorts, and assessments conducted without appropriate clinical expertise, particularly in the absence of clearly defined, validated, trauma-informed, and clinically appropriate frameworks. There is also a risk that, if tools are developed or adapted to meet policy or budgetary targets, including reducing participant numbers or support levels, assessments may become biased or misapplied in ways that are not aligned with clinical evidence or individual need.
As a parent of a child whose access to the scheme will be re-assessed by 2028 this is a major concern.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
Key concerns:
Undefined and insufficiently safeguarded functional capacity frameworks risk inconsistent, non-clinical, and potentially inequitable access decisions.
Recommended action: Define, validate, and publish functional capacity frameworks prior to implementation.
Define and clearly articulate functional capacity in legislation. Validate all assessment tools against appropriate cohorts before implementation. Ensure assessments are trauma-informed. Require that assessments are clinically appropriate and evidence-based. Ensure assessments are delivered with fidelity by appropriately qualified professionals. Establish governance and review mechanisms for assessment tools. Prevent the development or adaptation of tools to meet policy or budgetary targets, including reducing participant numbers or support levels. Ensure assessment frameworks are applied in a way that reflects individual need and clinical evidence, rather than administrative or fiscal priorities.
- Equity impacts of blanket funding reductions and advocacy disparities
Funding reductions will not affect all participants equally. Participants with stronger advocacy support, financial resources, and system literacy are better positioned to maintain supports. Participants in metropolitan locations with stronger advocacy resources, family support, financial capacity, literacy, and system familiarity are more likely to secure higher baseline plans. Those without these advantages are already under‑supported.
When reductions are applied broadly, the result is a predictable structural inequity: • those least able to advocate experience the greatest harm, and • those with greater resources are best positioned to mitigate cuts.
The Bill does not require equity impact assessment or monitoring of harms associated with funding caps, nor does it examine how these harms are distributed across cohorts. Without such safeguards, existing inequities within the Scheme will deepen rather than improve. These inequities may become even more pronounced if participants are transitioned from the NDIS before equivalent mainstream or foundational systems are fully established.
Key concern: Broad funding constraints are likely to exacerbate existing inequities, disproportionately disadvantaging participants with the least capacity to advocate for supports.
Recommended action: Require formal equity impact assessment and monitoring of funding reforms affecting vulnerable cohorts.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
While long-term reform of foundational and mainstream supports could be an appropriate policy objective, the Bill does not specify how children would transition out of the NDIS, what services would replace current supports, how continuity of care would be maintained, or what safeguards would apply during transition periods.
Without clear sequencing and demonstrated service capacity, children risk losing essential, time- critical supports before equivalent systems are in place. Already, hundreds of Australian families are being kicked off the Scheme each week with nowhere to go for support. The pace of exit is likely to increase if the Bill passes. The impact of this policy change must be measured.
The Minister has publicly indicated an intention that children with developmental delay and autism will be transitioned out of the NDIS over time as part of broader reform settings.
All children with disabilities rely on timely access to time-critical supports. Without clear sequencing, there is a risk that children may lose access to supports before equivalent, accessible, and adequately resourced alternative systems are in place.
Any foundational support model intended to replace or complement existing NDIS-funded early intervention should be independently evaluated to ensure:
therapy intensity aligns with established clinical evidence clinicians delivering services have appropriate specialist qualifications service capacity is sufficient to meet demand continuity of care is maintained across transitions children with higher support needs are not disadvantaged by standardised or capped service models
Key concern: While much discussion regarding foundational supports has focused on developmental delay and autism, children with lifelong physical disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy face different risks: removal to programs without sufficient capability to provide highly specialised paediatric services, or remaining eligible for the Scheme while experiencing increasing restrictions on the adequacy, flexibility, and continuity of supports.
Recommended action: Prohibit transitions to foundational supports until equivalent, accessible, and adequately resourced services are demonstrably available.
- Impacts on children with Cerebral Palsy
Allied health supports for children with Cerebral Palsy are not optional; they are essential to development, independence, and participation.
Paediatric physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech pathologists working with neurological conditions are highly specialised clinicians. There is strong evidence that therapy dose, intensity, and timing are critical for neuroplasticity and functional outcomes. There are
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
many world leading Australian Researchers in the Cerebral Palsy space who could be called to provide evidence on therapy dose.
We have seen this firsthand. Intensive physiotherapy delivered at the right time supported our son to achieve independent walking prior to starting preschool. That gain was not incidental—it was the result of targeted, appropriately resourced intervention at a critical developmental stage.
Children with more significant impairment often require substantially higher therapy intensity to achieve progress. Blanket reductions, standardised caps, or cohort-based funding assumptions risk disproportionately disadvantaging those with the highest support needs.
I am very concerned about annual caps of 30 allied health sessions per year. A cap of 30 allied health sessions per year is not a safeguard for sustainability; it is a restriction that falls well below evidence-based care. In addition to weekly therapy, intensive, evidence-based therapy plays a critical role in supporting neuroplasticity and muscle development, enabling children with Cerebral Palsy to achieve significant functional gains and developmental milestones that would not otherwise be possible. Clinicians, researchers and families must be consulted prior to the implementation of cohort-based caps.
Therapy for children with Cerebral Palsy is entirely consistent with the insurance-based foundations of the NDIS. Early and sustained investment in evidence-based intervention improves functional outcomes, reduces long-term support needs, and delivers better life trajectories.
Reducing access to therapy may create short-term savings, but it risks significantly higher long-term costs by allowing preventable decline in function and increased dependency over time.
Assistive technology is also essential and predictable. As children grow, supports such as ankle– foot orthoses (AFOs) must be regularly replaced and adjusted. These are not exceptional requests—they are routine, clinically necessary supports. For our son, AFOs costing approximately $4,000 every six months are required for him to walk safely.
We are already experiencing increased difficulty accessing these essential supports. Recently, our son’s plan was automatically rolled over without assistive technology funding included, despite AT being clearly identified in his plan. This highlights the risk that increasing rigidity and administrative processes may reduce the practical effectiveness of the Scheme.
For growing children, delays in therapy or equipment are not minor issues. They directly affect mobility, participation, musculoskeletal development, and long-term functional outcomes. Developmental windows cannot be paused.
Key concern: While children with Cerebral Palsy may remain broadly eligible for the Scheme, they are not protected from reduced access to the specialised, intensive supports required to achieve optimal long-term outcomes.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
Recommended action: Ensure continued access to specialised, evidence-based supports for children with lifelong disabilities, including adequate therapy intensity and timely provision of assistive technology.
- Rehabilitation, functional decline, and unintended consequences of “treatment” provisions
A significant concern in this Bill is how the concepts of “appropriate treatment,” permanence, and functional capacity interact in practice.
Cerebral Palsy is a lifelong, non-progressive brain injury.
However, this does not mean functional capacity remains stable.
Most individuals experience changes over time, including muscle tightening, contractures, fatigue, pain, and reduced endurance. Without appropriate supports, functional capacity may decline.
In this context, rehabilitation—commonly understood in Australia as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy—is not a short-term or optional intervention. It is essential to:
Build skills in early childhood Maintain functional capacity over time Prevent deterioration across the lifespan
The Bill defines “appropriate treatment” as treatment that can materially improve, reverse, or alleviate the impact of an impairment. For children with Cerebral Palsy, therapy clearly meets this definition.
This creates a concerning tension. If therapy is interpreted as treatment that improves functional capacity, there is a risk that:
Participants may be considered not yet to have a “permanent” condition because treatment is ongoing Therapy may be treated as time-limited rather than lifelong Reductions in therapy may be seen as appropriate once some gains have been achieved
This reflects a misunderstanding of how rehabilitation functions in lifelong neurological conditions. Functional gains achieved through therapy are not fixed. Without ongoing intervention, they may be lost. In many cases, therapy is required not only to improve function but to prevent decline.
This creates a paradox:
When therapy is effective, it may be used to justify reducing support When therapy is reduced, functional capacity may decline
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
At the same time, the Bill strengthens the requirement that supports must arise directly from impairment and not be more appropriately provided by families or other systems. This raises practical concerns for children with motor disabilities, where supports that build functional capacity (such as assistance with dressing or mobility) may be contested.
Key concern: The interaction between “appropriate treatment,” permanence, and functional capacity risks unintentionally restricting access to rehabilitation supports for people with lifelong disabilities and does not reflect the reality of functional decline over time.
Recommended action: Clarify in legislation and guidance that:
Non-progressive conditions may still involve deterioration in functional capacity over time Rehabilitation and therapy are ongoing supports, not one-off treatments Improvements in functional capacity do not invalidate eligibility or justify reduction of necessary supports
- Community participation and capacity building
Community participation and capacity-building supports are frequently misunderstood as discretionary or recreational.
In practice, they function as essential supports for communication, social inclusion, skill development, and protection against isolation. For many participants, these supports are central to:
Safety Independence Relationship-building Confidence Long-term participation in employment and community life
Restricting these supports carries predictable consequences:
Increased isolation Family and carer burnout Mental health deterioration Behavioural escalation Increased pressure on acute service systems
Key concern: Restricting community participation and capacity-building supports risks increasing isolation, carer burden, and long-term demand for more intensive services.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2327
Recommended action: Retain community participation and capacity-building supports as core elements of the Scheme.
Recommendations in Summary
Extend consultation and co-design timeframes Retain legislative protections for participants with permanent and lifelong disabilities, including explicit protections for children Delete proposed section 34A or require parliamentary oversight, consultation, and independent clinical, equity, and human rights impact assessment prior to use Require parliamentary oversight for major eligibility, reassessment, and support changes Publish, validate, and legislate functional capacity frameworks prior to implementation Require formal human rights and equity impact assessment and ongoing monitoring Strengthen procedural fairness safeguards, including: o accessible communication o protection from inappropriate suspension o retention of review and appeal rights Prohibit transitions to foundational supports until equivalent services are demonstrably available Ensure continued access to specialised, evidence-based supports across the lifespan Retain community participation and capacity-building supports as core elements of the Scheme
Conclusion
Families like mine understood the NDIS to represent a national commitment that children with disabilities would receive supports based on need and evidence, not on changing fiscal pressures.
That promise has shaped decisions and hope for our son’s future.
It is deeply confronting that access to essential supports may become increasingly dependent on budget settings rather than developmental need.
This submission is not an argument against reform, integrity, or sustainability. It is an argument that reforms of this scale must not quietly redefine the Scheme in ways that subordinate participant rights, developmental need, and long-term inclusion to fiscal constraint and administrative control.
The cumulative effect of these amendments risks fundamentally changing the character of the NDIS from a rights-based and enabling framework into a more conditional, administratively constrained system.
If that change is intended, it should be openly acknowledged, transparently debated, and subject to meaningful co-design with the disability community.