Submission 2390
I wish to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
I am a family member , a friend and a carer of various disabled people on the NDIS .
I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. This Bill is too far-reaching to pass as it stands. I believe the Bill should be withdrawn from parliament altogether and the government should keep the NDIS as it is. Any changes to the NDIS should not come at the cost of the wellbeing and safety of disabled people and our families, carers and should not create further barriers to equality or autonomy. We are already living with so many barriers.
Tax gas companies or the top 10percent of wealthy australians if you need more money to balance your budget, Don’t punish disabled people and devastate peoples lives.. If it proceeds this bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds.I am writing to express my opinion to you that the NDIS reform Bill needs to be withdrawn at once and the NdIS needs to be kept as it is for participants. Get rid of fraudulent providers and keep the disabled NDIS participants
Any changes to the NDIS should not come at the cost of the wellbeing and safety of disabled people and our families, carers and should not create further barriers to equality or autonomy. We are already living with so many barriers.
The whole NDIS Bill and the changes it wants to make to the NDIS needs to be withdrawn. Aged care and NDIS eligibility and supports should not be determined by computer systems. Or by a Minister who wants to have powers to do whatever they want with no meaningful input by participants and their carers who have lived experience,with no input by medical experts in specialist fields and no meaningful input by social and community workers and therapists who work within the field.
Submission 2390
The consultation period for the Amendment Bill is two weeks, which is insufficient to
allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and communication
needs. Especially when you are talking about people on the NDS who are disabled and their families and carers who are often time poor and burn out with their unpaid caring roles. The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis says consultation should occur for a minimum of 30 days where possible.
The short timeline impacts me and everyone I know who this bill will directly and indirectly affect.
- Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30 days.
Key decisions left to ministerial instruments, not law
The issue:
The Bill allows Ministers to change who gets NDIS support (Schedule 1 Parts 8 and 9) and how much funding people receive (Schedule 1 Part 4; Schedule 3) by signing an instrument, without going back to Parliament. The rules that will determine critical eligibility thresholds (Schedule 1 Parts 1, 8 and 9) have not yet been written.
How this affects participants:
The decisions that shape the lives of participants, whether they qualify for the NDIS and what supports they can access, could be changed without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny. Participants may not know supports or eligibility rules have changed until their plan is affected.
- Recommendation: Require that all decisions affecting NDIS eligibility and funding levels be made through primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, with input by experts and community members in the disability field with mandatory advance notice to affected participants before any changes take effect.
They should not be reduced to a financial cost. The process of being accepted onto the current NDS requires professional assessments and diagnosis by skilled medical experts and takes time, effort and money. As does functional capacity
Submission 2390
assessments. People will not become less disabled because of the proposed changes in the NDIS Bill. They will still need supports and so will their families and carers.
The proposed NDIS Bill and its changes to the NDIS will cause harm to existing participants of the NDIS and potential future NDIS recipients.
Existing participants face narrower criteria and fewer rights to challenge decisions
The issue: The Bill changes the rules for existing NDIS participants and makes it harder to challenge some decisions about supports and funding. It also restricts when you can request a reassessment, removes review rights for automatic plan renewals, and makes funding reductions unreviewable (Schedule 1 Parts 1 and 8).
Combined with restrictions on reassessment requests (Part 2), automatic plan renewals without review rights (Part 5), and unreviewable funding reductions (Part 4), existing participants face narrower criteria with significantly fewer avenues to challenge decisions about their supports.
How this affects participants: This does not protect participants already on the NDIS, who could be reassessed under stricter rules. If someone’s funding is reduced or their plan renewed automatically, they may have limited or no ability to challenge that decision. This will make it harder for people to get extra support when their circumstances or disability change. It will also make
Recommendation: Require a “no harm” safeguard ensuring no current participant loses access to supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.
Unreviewable ministerial power to cut funding across all support categories
The Minister can reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specified percentage through an instrument that cannot be challenged (Schedule 1 Part 4).
Submission 2390
This applies across all budget categories. Unspent funds will no longer carry over at
plan renewal (Schedule 1 Part 5).
How this affects participants: A participant’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding could be cut without warning and without any right to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across plan periods for high- cost items will lose that ability entirely.The minister should not have powers that allow him to make cuts to whole sectors of NDIS recipients, their funding and supports. He is not qualified or compassionate to have these powers. The power to cut whole sections of diagnosed people from the NDS , to cut people’s plans, to cut people’s funding to things such as community and participation supports and make decisions on what supports people are allowed to use. And block funding and evidence based therapies chosen by the minister will not work.
Recommendation: Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights before any funding reduction takes effect.The minister should not have powers that allow him to make cuts to whole sectors of NDIS recipients, their funding and supportsTHis needs to be performed by medically trained experts who have years of expertise and experience working within the NDIS and disability framework. They have the skills and knowledge to assess, diagnose , perform meaningful and life changing functional capacity assessments and recommend supports and therapies specific to an individual’s needs. This needs to be done on a case by case basis looking at the whole person and the impact that their disability has on their whole life and how it combines with other disabilities, symptoms and health or mental health problems that the disabled person has..
Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility
The issue: A person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, replaced by single eligible impairment consideration
Submission 2390
(Schedule 1 Part 3). The note that previously acknowledged environmental factors and other ineligible impairments could affect support needs will be removed (Schedule 1 Part 3).
How this affects participants: People with disability will need to prove their impairment cannot be treated before they access the NDIS. Once in the scheme, their supports will only be assessed against a single eligible impairment rather than their whole experience. A person’s individual circumstances will not be considered, including ability to pay for treatment, where they live or whether treatment is actually available to them.
Recommendation: Do not proceed with a requirement to exhaust “appropriate treatment” options – there are no safeguarding measures around participant harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity or functional capacity to access treatments.
Unvalidated functional capacity assessment tool risks misidentifying need The issue: The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment.
The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I-CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disability, including those whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a point-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
How this affects participants: If the assessment tool does not accurately capture the full extent of a person’s disability, including complex and nuanced needs that fluctuate or vary over time, a participant may be found ineligible or have their
Submission 2390
supports undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual daily lived experience. And they will have no way to get a review of the decision.There needs to be human being not computers who make these decisions.
Recommendation: Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool . It cannot replace human beings and reports by people with expertise in the disability sector including people living with disability, their carers, NDIS participants and medical and health professionals including but not limited to psychologists,occupational therapists, autism assessors, social and community workers. The minister should not have powers that allow him to make cuts to whole sectors of NDIS recipients, their funding and supports. He is not qualified or compassionate to have these powers. The power to cut whole sections of diagnosed people from the NDIS , to cut people’s plans, to cut people’s funding to things such as community and participation supports and make decisions on what supports people are allowed to use. And block funding and evidence based therapies chosen by the minister will not work.. Medically trained experts have the skills and knowledge to assess, diagnose , perform functional assessments and recommend supports and therapies specific to an individual’s needs. This needs to be done on a case by case basis.
There needs to be an appeal system left in place and there needs to be meaningful human oversight where nuanced and complex needs can be examined included in the NDIS plan for each individual,. This includes reading and taking advice from experts and medical practitioners and social workers and health professionals, the disabled individuals themselves and their carers and families who live with this disability.
Supports cut
The issue:
From 1 October 2026, the government has announced funding for social, civic and community participation supports will be cut by 50 per cent and capacity building daily activities by 10 per cent for all participants, reductions that will be
Submission 2390
implemented through the ministerial instrument power in Schedule 1 Part 4. The
Foundational Supports system intended to fill that gap has no confirmed implementation date and is not yet operational.
How this affects participants: Supports that help participants connect with their community, build skills and maintain independence may be cut before anything exists to replace them, leaving carers and families with greater responsibilities and no additional support. These supports are often what help people stay visible, connected and safe.These supports are what help people to live on a daily basis and are fundamental to an individual’s autonomy, social , medical and community connection.
Recommendation: Require that no reductions to community participation or capacity building supports take effect . And do not even consider them until Foundational Supports are fully operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those who will lose NDIS supports and reviewed by those medical experts who are already working in the disability sector and people living with a disability.The current structure of the NDIS funding and in particular flexible funding options enables the participant to use the funding as they need to and results in the NDIS participant functioning at their best so that the NDIS participants can have a chance at living a life. Many participants have fluctuating capacity and their needs and abilities change from day to day. They need to be autonomous to make decisions on who will be supporting them, what supports they will use and where those supports will be used, My grandson cannot leave the house and the supports need to come to him or be over the internet. He cannot function without his current NDIS plan and its current level of funding.
The proposed changes with th eNDIS Bill will have devastating effects on members of the disability community, NDIS participants, their carers and their families. It needs to be withdrawn from parliament.
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme