National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2460

Dear Australian Parliament,

I am an occupational therapist working in the disability sector, with 12 years of experience supporting NDIS participants with a wide range of signiﬁcant and permanent physical, intellectual, developmental and psychosocial disabilities.

I am writing to express my concerns regarding the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, particularly the proposed reductions to capacity building and community participation supports, the increased reliance on standardised assessment tools and automation, restrictions on reassessment, and expanded ministerial powers to reduce categories of supports.

Capacity-building supports are fundamental to helping participants develop skills, increase independence, improve safety, participate in education and employment, and engage meaningfully in their communities. Occupational therapy is not simply a maintenance service; it is an evidence-based intervention that builds long-term functional capacity and reduces reliance on more intensive supports over time. Occupational Therapy can help people build the necessary skills to meaningfully engage in daily life and gain employment - from a ﬁnancial stand point this helps more people contribute towards the economy when they have successfully secured employment after building the necessary skills.

The proposed 10 per cent reduction to capacity building daily activity supports and 50 per cent reduction to social, civic and community participation supports are deeply concerning. In practice, these supports enable participants to learn daily living skills, maintain routines, build social connections, access their communities, and achieve goals that matter to them. Reducing these supports risks increased isolation, reduced independence, greater carer burden, and poorer long-term outcomes. Statistics show that informal caring responsibility heavily falls on women, meaning women will need to make sacriﬁces to their careers and lives to ﬁll the gap that reduction of support will cause across the board. Statistics also show that caring roles such as support work and therapies are a female dominated workforce, the proposed NDIS cuts and changes will affect women’s careers and female owned small businesses, further worsening the existing gender pay gap. Additionally, for every $1 of NDIS funding, $2.20 is generated in the economy by helping people engage with their community, access essential services, keeping informal carers in their jobs and helping people with disabilities gain employment. Also, many participants, their informal carers and people employed in the NDIS space pay tax, thus ultimately ﬁnancially contributing towards the Government and NDIS funding system.

I am also concerned about provisions that may allow decisions about participant supports to be increasingly driven by standardised tools, algorithms or rules-based frameworks. Functional capacity cannot be accurately understood through a purely standardised or automated process. This proposed process carries numerous and severe risks. Effective assessment requires clinical reasoning, professional judgement, and an understanding of the interaction between a person’s abilities, environment, supports and goals. As occupational therapists, we assess how disability impacts participation in real-world contexts and identify supports that are reasonable, necessary and tailored to the individual. This level of professional analysis cannot be replaced by a tick-box assessment or automated decision-making process. If this is changed to the proposed assessment process, there will be an increase in injury, ill harm and premature death of NDIS participants.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2460

The Bill’s restrictions on unscheduled reassessments to “exceptional circumstances” are also concerning. Disability-related needs can change due to developmental transitions, health deterioration, changing family circumstances, environmental barriers or emerging risks. Participants require access to timely reassessment when their circumstances change to ensure supports remain appropriate and effective.

I am further concerned that the proposed reforms may unintentionally narrow access to the Scheme for children, people with psychosocial disability, and individuals with complex or ﬂuctuating conditions. Early intervention and timely support are critical to improving long-term outcomes, reducing future support needs and maximising participation. Any changes that create barriers to access risk undermining these objectives.

Finally, I am concerned about the expansion of ministerial powers to impose broad funding reductions across categories of supports. Funding decisions should be based on individual needs, evidence-based assessment and transparent processes, rather than broad system-wide mechanisms that may reduce access to essential supports, including therapy services.

I respectfully ask Parliament to:

• Reverse the proposed reductions to capacity building and community participation supports. • Ensure occupational therapy and other allied health supports remain available based on individual participant need. • Require functional capacity and support needs assessments to be conducted by appropriately qualiﬁed allied health professionals, including occupational therapists. • Prohibit fully automated eligibility and funding decisions and require meaningful human oversight. • Retain accessible pathways for reassessment and review when participant needs change. • Ensure the Bill does not narrow access to the NDIS for children and people with complex, psychosocial or ﬂuctuating disabilities. • Limit ministerial powers that enable broad reductions to support categories without appropriate transparency and safeguards.

The sustainability of the NDIS is important. However, sustainability should not come at the expense of preventing people with disabilities from engaging in everyday activities or leaving their house to be included into society ultimately leading to wide spread isolation, loneliness and worsened mental and physical health outcomes. Notably, Norway has led the way in establishing over $2 trillion in their sovereign welfare fund due to managing the surplus proﬁts of the oil and gas sector. A 25% gas export tax in Australia is proposed to ensure that the country receives a fair return from its natural gas resources, potentially raising $17 billion annually to fund public services and alleviate the cost of living crisis. This could help secure the NDIS for those with signiﬁcant disabilities and ensure improved sustainability for generations to come.

Thank you for considering my submission.

Kind regards,

Occupational Therapist