National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2369
Submission on the NDIS Amendment Bill
To the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee,
I am a disabled person, who loves many disabled people within my social circle as well as the broader community. I am writing to oppose the proposed NDIS reforms.
My main concern about this Bill the increased use of administrative or automated systems.
When unpacking someone’s life goals, disability related needs and the barriers they may face, utilising human insight and building relational safety is essential at every step.
Only then can the following foundational elements of care be implemented; affording someone the care and nuance that capturing their life narrative deserves; securing their right to privacy and the ability to provide informed consent in how their health data is used and distributed; and upholding their dignity when someone is disclosing their life circumstances during assessment.
The proposed reforms of increasing the use of automated systems and Artificial Intelligence threatens the aforementioned foundational elements of care. This is because it will prioritise human oversight over and above human insight. Specifically, standardised or homogeneous decision- making models will likely not be designed, nor primarily intended to account for the dynamic nature of people’s disabilities. People’s disability related needs can manifest differently across various environmental and social contexts (e.g., home, school, work, engaging in unpaid labour roles, or being in the community). Importantly, these same disability related needs can vary within these contexts (due to things like energy levels, mental health status, and the impacts that multiple disabilities have on each other). These standardised and automated systems will likely overlook the fluctuating and context dependant nature of a person’s disability related needs during the assessment and planning process. Making sure service providers and participants are doing the right thing in an (economically) sustainable way is important. However, I do not support this Bill. Instead, I urge the Committee to remember that implementing a sustainable framework must not come at the cost of safeguarding the bidirectional relationship between disabled people living meaningful, autonomous lives and the quality of the formal support systems they can access, including the NDIS.
Thank-you for considering my submission.
Regards,
A concerned NDIS participant