National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2434
Submission: NDIS Future Generations Bill 2026
I am the parent of two wonderful children, both of whom are Autistic/ADHD and who have accessed the NDIS since 2020. Our family was lucky enough to be able to afford the cost of multiple paediatric, neuropsychology, psychological and psychiatric assessments for our children to get their respective diagnoses to allow access to the NDIS. It was many years of waiting for services due to living in rural Victoria before we could access these services, and eventually therapy.
My concerns relate to multiple parts of the Bill that would reduce capacity building supports, reduce social and community participation supports, and allow future funding reductions across groups of supports.
Area of Concern: Cutting Capacity Building Supports I am extremely concerned about the proposed cut across the board of 10% of capacity building supports for all participants. Such a decision will adversely impact most participants because it does not consider the individual needs of each participant. Capacity building supports are essential to help participants to build and maintain skills that improve their ability to function in everyday life and to experience a greater level of independence.
My child needed to access capacity building supports to improve their health and wellbeing, and they could not do this without the help of allied health 1:1 sessions with an exercise physiologist. If this support had been cut by 10% at the time we needed this intervention, my child would have regressed in their physical and mental health and withdrawn further from participating in daily life.
Area of Concern: Cutting Social and Community Participation Supports The proposed reduction of community participation supports by 50% for all participants starting on 1st October 2026 will do significant damage to the quality of life for many participants and put basic human rights at risk. Participants rely on social and community participation supports to complete essential tasks of daily living, to be able to access the community with greater levels of independence, and to engage in social interactions that would otherwise be denied them without funding for support workers.
My child got to the point where they were unable to leave the house, had no social contact with anyone, could not attend school and had significant behaviours of concern. At that time, we were considering splitting our family up, not because of parental relationship breakdown, but because living all together was becoming unsafe for myself and our other child. I was unable to work due to the support needs of both children, and I was experiencing carer burnout. What helped us to begin to break out from this survival situation, was that my child had a sufficient social and community participation support budget that allowed for regular support workers to engage with them. It was a lifeline. It wasn’t easy, and it took time for my child to build trust and relationship with their support worker. But when I reflect on that period of our family’s life, that was the time when my child had a glimmer of connection and slowly began to re-engage with the world. Because my child got the supports that they needed, they were able to gradually return to school, get their year 12 certificate and now attends university. My child will be exiting the NDIS later this year, because the supports were flexible, met my child’s needs and were adequately funded to support their individual needs.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2434
If we had not had support worker funding to allow my child to go out into the community, it is unlikely that our situation would have changed. I can honestly say, that if my child did not have the appropriate amount of social and community supports at such a crucial moment, they would likely have entered the juvenile justice system. Not because they were “bad” but because their support needs were so complex. NDIS budgets need to match the need of the individual to be equitable, rather than making sure every participant has a “fair” or “equal” amount of funding.
Parents, carers and informal supports cannot necessarily meet the needs of a NDIS participant without external supports. The benefit of accessing appropriate levels of funding for community supports is essential to ensure participants get the supports that meet their needs and affords them a greater level of independence.
Area of Concern: Allowing Future Funding Reductions Across Groups of Supports As discussed above, this should not be allowed to occur. Participants are not just numbers or dollar amounts that need to be “cut” as and when the Minister feels the need to strip the most vulnerable in our community of vital supports, without considering the real-life impacts that will occur. Just because a participant has funding reduced, it does not mean that the very real need they have for that funding support disappears.
I want Parliament to:
- Change the Bill to ensure that there are no reductions to participants access to allied health (speech pathology, occupational therapy, physiotherapy) and music or art therapy.
- Reverse their decisions to cut capacity building supports by 10% and community participation supports by 50% for all participants starting on 1st October 2026.
- Remember that they have an ethical, financial and moral responsibility to treat NDIS participants as individuals with human rights and to ensure that the NDIS scheme is equitable. Changes do need to be made to ensure the NDIS is sustainable for future generations. However, it should not be at the cost of human life, human dignity or diminishing the quality of life of our nation’s most vulnerable population.