Submission 2439
PWDA Template: Submission to the
National Disability Insurance
Scheme Amendment (Securing the
NDIS for Future Generations) Bill
2026
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Date: 31st May, 2026
I welcome the opportunity 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 long-time friend and previous support carer of 2 young men with a disability
and their parents, one of whom has an acquired disability.
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 requires further scrutiny
and amendment before it proceeds.
Parliamentary Scrutiny and Transparency
The consultation period for the Amendment Bill is two weeks, which is insufficient to
allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and communication
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Submission 2439
needs. The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis says consultation
should occur for a minimum of 30 days where possible.
The limited consultation timeframe has affected not only people with disability and their families, but also members of the broader community who wish to participate meaningfully in this process. I was unaware that submissions were being sought until it was brought to my attention by my friend—a mother, carer, service provider, and disability advocate. The responsibility of monitoring policy changes, interpreting their implications, and alerting others should not fall upon individuals who are already carrying extraordinary caring responsibilities.
For my friend, this represents yet another addition to an already unreasonable cognitive and emotional load. She is not only advocating for herself, but for her husband and two sons, while simultaneously navigating the complexities of disability support systems and daily caregiving responsibilities.
It is also important to recognise that people with disability are not a homogenous group. Many individuals may require additional time, support, and resources to understand proposed changes and their potential consequences. Some may need assistance from communication partners, support workers, advocates, assistive technology, or communication devices in order to participate in consultations. Others may face barriers related to literacy, cognition, executive functioning, language, or access to technology. When consultation periods are short and systems or portals are inaccessible or not functioning effectively, these barriers are compounded.
Meaningful consultation requires more than simply providing an opportunity to respond. It requires ensuring that people are genuinely able to access information, understand what is being proposed, consider the implications, and communicate their views in a way that is accessible to them. A process that fails to account for these realities cannot reasonably be described as inclusive.
This approach is particularly concerning given the well-documented reality that caring responsibilities continue to fall disproportionately on women. Expecting carers, many of whom are already stretched beyond capacity, to absorb the burden of understanding complex reforms and responding within a limited timeframe creates yet another layer of inequity.
I am making this submission in support of my friend, her husband, and their two adult sons. However, I am equally conscious that their story is not unique. There are countless families across Australia facing similar circumstances, navigating lifelong disability, complex support needs, and an uncertain future. Their voices deserve to be heard through a consultation process that is accessible, transparent, inclusive, and genuinely responsive to the people whose lives will be most affected by these decisions.
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Submission 2439
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
- 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.
My friend is the primary carer for her husband, who lives with an acquired brain injury, and their two adult sons, both of whom are autistic, non-speaking, and have additional co-morbid conditions. The level of care, advocacy, coordination, and emotional labour required to support three family members with lifelong disabilities is immense.
For this family, the NDIS is not a luxury, nor is it a source of discretionary funding. It is the mechanism through which they can access reasonable and necessary supports that enable participation in everyday life. These supports are fundamental to maintaining independence, wellbeing, safety, and connection to the broader community.
When changes are introduced without adequate consultation, transparency, or consideration of their real-world consequences, the impact is immediate and profound. Decisions made at a policy level directly affect this family’s ability to do the ordinary things many people take for granted: leaving the house for a walk, shopping for groceries, attending work, pursuing education, communicating with others, and participating in community life.
The supports currently available do not create dependence; they create opportunity. They allow family members to contribute, connect, learn, work, and live with dignity. Removing or restricting these supports risks undoing years of progress and replacing participation with isolation, independence with dependency, and wellbeing with crisis.
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Submission 2439
Recommendation: Require that all decisions affecting NDIS eligibility and funding
levels be made through primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, with
mandatory advance notice to affected participants before any changes take effect.
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 could make it harder for people to get extra support when their
circumstances or disability change.
Removing these supports would result in a complete loss of independence and deep isolation for all four family members. This isn’t just a matter of convenience—it directly affects their ability to sleep, eat, co-regulate, shower, communicate, leave the house, and live safely.
The proposed changes create a model that actively induces harm. Both boys currently have support workers who enable meaningful engagement in employment—one through courier work, the other through dog walking. These roles provide purpose, skill-building, and social connection. Stripping away access to reviews, rights, and funding would reverse these gains, returning the family to a state of dependency and placing their health and wellbeing at serious risk.
Supports in this context are not luxury—they are essential lifelines. The system should protect and enhance independence, not undermine it.
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Submission 2439
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).
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.
Cutting supports for this family places the entire burden on my friend, making her the sole person her family depends upon. This is not only untenable—it also compounds the disproportionate load of unpaid care work that women already bear in society.
Loss of funding for community participation and assistive technology is not a minor inconvenience; it strips the boys of their ability to communicate with the world, even with their own family members. For vulnerable young adults, this is devastating. Technology changes rapidly, and removing access to essential tools means denying them participation in daily life, community engagement, and personal independence. Supports like these are not optional extras—they are fundamental to their ability to live meaningful, connected lives.
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.
Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Submission 2439
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
(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.
My friend’s family consists of four people, three of whom live with lifelong disabilities. These are not conditions that will simply disappear with age, nor are they waiting for a miracle cure or breakthrough therapy. Despite both boys having diagnoses of autism, intellectual disability, and developmental language disorder, they are individuals with distinct strengths, challenges, and support needs. They cannot be reduced to a single category or accommodated through a simplistic “tick-a-box” approach.
One son also lives with epilepsy, while the other experiences obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). These additional conditions significantly shape their daily lives and require different supports, interventions, and expertise. Their needs are complex, layered, and unique.
How many years should a family be expected to wait for access to essential early intervention services—particularly when decades of empirical evidence demonstrate that early support delivers the greatest benefits and creates the strongest foundation for long-term outcomes? How much deterioration, distress, or crisis must occur before support is deemed necessary enough to qualify for funding?
For this family, waiting to “prove” that NDIS support is required is not a realistic option. The financial cost alone would be overwhelming. The physical and emotional burden of navigating assessments, collecting evidence, attending appointments, and attempting to coordinate multiple services without adequate support would be immense. Expecting families to shoulder these responsibilities while simultaneously caring for children with significant and lifelong disabilities places them in an impossible position.
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Submission 2439
The consequences extend beyond the individual participants. The impact on the entire family unit would be nothing short of catastrophic. Parents already carrying the weight of advocacy, caregiving, and planning for an uncertain future risk burnout, financial hardship, declining health, and social isolation. A system intended to support people with disability should not require families to reach breaking point before help becomes available.
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 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 needs that fluctuate or vary over time,
a participant may be found ineligible or have their supports undercounted, with no
guarantee the result reflects their actual experience.
AS ABOVE
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Submission 2439
Recommendation: Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity
assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of
all people with disability, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and
demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
Supports cut before replacement system is ready
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
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.
I worry about my friend and her husband, who are aging parents. Who will care for their boys if they can no longer do so? Who will advocate for them? Who will provide the connections and experiences that are vital for a full life?
The current system, designed to defend and advance the rights of people with disabilities, often falls short. When funding fails to support capacity building or sustainable alternatives, families are caught in a cycle of crisis. This leaves carers exhausted and desperate, sometimes facing the unimaginable pressure of feeling like a burden to their communities—a situation that can tragically lead to considerations of ending their lives.
The solution is not to place further scrutiny or obstacles on the people living with disabilities. They deserve the dignity and right to live meaningful lives without having to prove repeatedly that they fit a narrowly defined “ideal” of disability. Instead, the focus must be on addressing systemic failings—tackling fraud and inefficiencies in the provider sector, and building supports that genuinely sustain families and carers. Only then can we break the cycle and create a system that truly enables life, connection, and independence for all involved.
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PWDA Template: Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Submission 2439
Recommendation: Require that no reductions to community participation or
capacity building supports take effect until Foundational Supports are fully
operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those
who will lose NDIS supports.
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