Submission 2417
Submission on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for
Future Generations) Bill 2026
My son, who has my heart, I write this for you.
To the members of the committee,
Covid. Pandemic. Lockdowns. Social distancing.
We can all remember the uncertainty, stress, and chaos of the pandemic. Being told about the risk to our lives of this new plague. Government made rules and for the most part, people went along with those. I did too. The majority of us hadn’t travelled that path before, but most people understood, the plague was bad and preventing harm to Australians was important.
In 2026, Australians who rely on the NDIS for vital disability support and services are dealing with a new plague. The same uncertainty, stress and chaos of the pandemic have been unleashed on hundreds of thousands of people with disability and their unpaid carers. This plague will also segregate, isolate, cause despair, and their will no doubt be some who will die.
This however is a plague manufactured by the Australian Government against disabled people through proposed regressive policy. Unlike the Covid-19 pandemic, this path has been travelled many times before. It leads no place good. You have the evidence that tells you that violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation thrive when a person’s rights are eroded and when they become less visible to those outside in the places and spaces where non-disabled people live, work and play.
The NDIS was a promise that helped disabled people to re-join the world. Despite the many structural and systemic barriers that continue to exist, many disabled people are supported through the NDIS to be visible members of our local communities. I ask that you stop proposed changes to the NDIS that will significantly limit disabled people from leaving their homes safely to access the world outside.
Like me, would you miss their faces. I would miss seeing people with disability at the local shops, in workplaces, at events, at the cinema, at the café. I will grieve the loss of the missing. It is wrong to not support people while knowing this will force them into more isolated, lonely, unsafe lives. The despair is real, it is predictable, it is dangerous. I ask that you shift from the hive-mind for a moment of your political brand, to acknowledge and act to prevent mass casualties from regressive policy.
My son is one of the people that these changes will impact. He is a 19-year-old man and is a good news NDIS story.
It is a myth that somehow services and support existed in a functional way pre-NDIS.
was one of the many kids who pre-NDIS had been assessed as having high support needs. He was placed on the states waiting list for an individual support package. He was always close to the top of that list. Meanwhile we were paying out of pocket for most of his therapies and support. Families like mine went into massive debt for things like speech therapy to help our kids.
Submission 2417
After a while on the states wait list, I checked in for an approximate timeline for support. Mainstream services did not exist to support at the time. Not in schools. Not in hospitals. I checked in with a manager from Disability Services Qld who explained to me that for to get an individual support package, that another child would usually have to die. The dead child’s funding would then be returned to the department, and it would be reallocated to a child on the waiting list. Any system that relies on children dying so the living ones can one day get support, truly is rubbish. It is a myth that things were good pre-NDIS and that services existed to properly respond to people with low, moderate or high support needs. It was horribly hard. It’s still horribly hard. Restoring what was there before the NDIS won’t be an adequate response to meeting the needs of people with disability.
I don’t want to have his life trajectory changed for the worse due to changes being proposed by the government. It terrifies me that he won’t be seen as a whole person when being assessed for NDIS supports and that we will be left with a disjointed plan that does not meet his needs.
It is alarming that there is no guarantee that won’t be booted from the scheme. I can only imagine that with such an enormous target of people to discard from the scheme, that many with high support needs will find themselves reliant on state-based systems that have absolutely no capacity to respond to complex needs. Rebuilding these supports won’t be enough. You would need to invest an enormous amount of money to properly support people, so they don’t end up in crisis.
It is terror that I feel when I think of the impact on of cuts. He will become more isolated, lonely, and segregated if he loses social and community participation funding. I care for two other people in my home. When is out and about with a support worker, I am usually busy turning my attention to my other family members – one has four hours of support through aged care’s Support at Home, and the other has no funding at all. I fear that the impact of cuts for will place increase pressure on me as an unpaid carer. I fear for my personal wellbeing with the opportunity to rest my body and mind already very limited. I also have a disability with permanent injuries to my back. I have injuries to my shoulders and elbows from lifting disability equipment for the 90-year-old family member who I care for. My injuries are progressing however I’m becoming less able to just push-through and do everything for and other family members. The proposed cuts will hurt me as an unpaid carer. The cuts will hurt the other two family members in my home who also need support as I will need to somehow absorb ’s lost hours of support. I too will be more isolated and less safe. If you value unpaid carers, I ask that you don’t hurt or kill us too.
I am very concerned for any increase in ministerial powers and any erosion of our democracy. Australians should always have the right and ability to challenge decisions made by government agencies. It all feels very unsafe. I hope that you stop proposed changes that deliver the minister more power over disabled people’s lives. You will create vulnerability for people who you constantly talk about as already being vulnerable. That is a bad thing.
Please address the risk of seeing a repeat of RoboDebt. The lack of human oversight and function to intervene when the robot spits back a plan that is inadequate, is disturbing. I fear that government doesn’t care enough for people like to even build such a system that lacks obvious human control. RoboDebt was horrific. RoboNDIS will be just as bad – this is predictable. You have the evidence if you look at what has gone before. If RoboDebt repulsed you, this should too!
Submission 2417
I am worried about the changes to living arrangements and that could end up being forced to live with total strangers. It isn’t a safe way to live. I would like him to have choice and control over this aspect of his life, including over the staff that enter his home. It is dangerous to force people who might not get along to live together. Please address this as when wants to move out of home, we would like options to exist to support him to do this safely and with support. Being in an institutional setting is not something that we believe is safe. This path has history. Paving the path to institutionalisation is not a legacy to be proud of. I encourage you to dig into the history of institutionalisation. Having the choice to be supported to live alone is important. If you only fund institutionalised settings, and if you are at all a person who would not want that for yourself or your family members, please act to ensure to keep choice and control in the NDIS.
There are moments in history which will be remembered by the disability rights movement. This will be one of those. A vulgar stain on Australia when changes made by government will change the trajectory of disabled people’s lives. A vulgar stain on Australia when policy made by government will hurt and likely kill its own citizens.
I ask that you use your power for good. Step away from the hive and take a stand. Do this for hundreds of thousands of people with disability who need the NDIS. Protect them from being discarded like trash to state and territories that have no capacity any time soon to catch them. I ask that you don’t buy into producing policy that ignores the needs of disabled people who exist today. If this policy really is about the future, then I ask that you create something that makes the future worth living. This policy change does not deliver that.
I’m a woman who is heading towards 60. I was also a kid who was sent to live in a “home” for kids with disability at age 6. I understand the harm that is done to people who are invisible. That harm is a part of my story, but it is people just like you, the committee members, who are responsible for building goalposts and safeguards. I ask that you think of people like when doing that work.
My darling – a man full of love, humour, fun and sweetness. The proposed changes to the NDIS
will hurt . They will hurt me. The NDIS has enabled to have a life worth living.Back to Covid – government responded quickly and with the goal to limit the harm and death of Australians. Unlike the Covid response, government has time and an enormous amount of historical information, previous inquiries and reports, a royal commission, and the countless stories from disabled people about what helps them to prevent harm and their death. The proposed new Bill will build a system that won’t help future generations, or the ones who are living in your communities right now. It’ll just shift costs, remove support, and create chaos for people with disability and unpaid carers.
Please don’t betray and abandon people with disability. Stand against the Bill.
Yours sincerely,