National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2465 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: 30/05/2026
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 appreciate the extension granted by the committee
for submissions, as I would have been unable to respond under the previous deadline.
I am a parent and carer of an NDIS participant with a complex and permanent disability, with
both physical and neurological dimensions. We have been an NDIS participant for five years
and are self-managed, with my wife and I managing therapy and the NDIS plan. The NDIS
has been a “life saver”, as we had been paying for therapies out-of-pocket for 16 years prior,
and had quite simply run out of money. The money we used up was for our retirement, thus
we now cannot afford to stop working, and have no spare money for therapies. My son’s NDIS
plan is not suitable for him as he has had a significant change of circumstances having left
school, however, we have little confidence that a reassessment will result in an appropriate
level of support and the plan has rolled over. The plan is not indexed, thus we have lost about
15-20% of the plan value to inflation since commencement.
The NDIS plan has allowed us to engage therapies my son needs, and support him in a
modest way to have some normality in going out into the community (only during the week),
interacting with people and learning new skills. It has allowed my wife and I to work
somewhat, although we have both had to turn down additional responsibilities and
experienced stalled careers and underparticipation in the workforce as a consequence. Our
ability to support our son has reduced due to our inability to pursue increased income through
career progression, a common feature in many carers’ lives. We do not have holidays, do not
own property other than our home, and should we wish to go away, we will need to take our
son with us. The NDIS is not an “ATM” to us, it is a means of obtaining support for our
disabled child, that would otherwise simply not be available to us.
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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2465
Submission from Carer – SA in Perth
I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. The Bill
contains provisions that will marginalise people with disabilities, reduce their supports to the
point where they are supports in name only, and alienate people with disabilities from their
communities. It is an expression of a lack of care and interest on the part of government, and
contravenes the philosophy and spirit of the NDIS.
The Bill requires further scrutiny and substantial amendment before it proceeds.
Thank you for receiving my submission.
Summary
My lived experience of participation in the NDIS may be useful to Senators in reviewing this
regressive legislation, and improving it for the benefit of participants and the scheme overall.
In summary, the main points I wish to draw the committee’s attention to are:
Inadequate Scrutiny. The timetable set for consideration of the Bill does not allow for
adequate scrutiny or oversight. There needs to be much greater scrutiny of the
changes, and regressive, inequitable, and inefficient changes removed. A reliance on Ministerial diktat rather than legislation. Schedule 1 parts 4, 8 and 9
give the Minister the power to make determinations on participation and funding,
without giving reasons, and without review. This introduces substantial risks of
inconsistency in decision-making, politicises the NDIS through allowing the Minister to
effectively transfer NDIS funding to other political priorities without explanation or
challenge. This cannot be allowed to stand. Removal of the right of review. The Bill removes the right of review from many
decisions which affect participants through Schedule 1 parts 1 and 8. This is
dangerous, as no system is without fault. Removing effective oversight of decisions will
not improve decision quality or consistency, but encourage Ministerial capriciousness.
It carries the risk of damaging the standing of the NDIS through poor decision quality. Unreviewable Ministerial power to cut funding. The Bill gives the Minister an
unreviewable power to arbitrarily (without explanation) cut funding to any group or class
of participants in whichever way he or she desires. This power generates the risk of
damaging the standing of and confidence in the NDIS through effectively using NDIS
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funding for political purposes. All Ministerial or bureaucratic decisions should be
reviewable. Unreviewable decision-making is contrary to the principles of open and
accountable government and should be rejected. Move away from a whole person to a single disability model. This is a simplistic
view of disability with many disabilities being co-morbid and interacting to reduce
functional ability. While it might work for some, it definitely will not work for all, but is
being applied as a “one-size fits all” approach. A whole person approach needs to be
retained. Reliance on a non-validated functional capacity assessment tool. The I-CAN tool
has not been proven as a reliable and valid assessment tool across the entire spectrum
of disability. The tool can only be used by certified assessors, and has not been
validated against a population of the size required to justify validity. It relies on a three-
hour interview, which can easily be seen as unsuitable for many classes of disabilities. Supports cut before replacement system implemented. The government’s
replacement scheme for community access will not be available for the best part of a
year after supports will be removed, leaving disabled people again without support.
This is unacceptable, even if you accept that the replacement scheme is adequate (it is
not). A 90-day limit on claims is unfair and discriminatory. The Bill calls for a time limit
for claims to be submitted to the NDIS of 90 days post service delivery. This is grossly
unfair to those with neurological disabilities, and far more onerous than limits applied to
able-bodied people in analogous schemes. It will prevent people auditing their claims
and submitting overlooked claims, which is simply petty and punitive. Given the
substantial difference between the limit proposed and that of Medicare, it is
discriminatory and should be changed to 90 days post plan termination or rollover. A need for a focus on efficiency. The Bill is deficient in that it does not provide for or
encourage the government to pursue efficiency other than a vague mention of decision-
automation. A real focus on efficiency in the operation of the scheme is required, and
the government should stop nickel and diming participants instead.
More detail of the above summary points is given below.
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- Inadequate Parliamentary ScruƟny and Transparency
The consultation period for the Amendment Bill has been set as two weeks, which is grossly
insufficient to allow for appropriate consultation, considering the complexity of the changes,
the far-reaching implications, accessibility, and communication needs of people with
disabilities. The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis prescribes a
consultation period of minimum of 30 days where possible. With such a short period of
consultation, it is clear to me that the government is not interested in meaningful consultation.
It also suggests that there are implications that the government does not want to be
uncovered. Either way, the absence of meaningful scrutiny runs counter to the principle of
open and accountable government, and should be comprehensively repudiated.
The short timeline impacts me in particular, by not providing sufficient time to:
access the materials (such as the bill, explanatory memorandum, second reading
speeches, and amendments); digest the implications of the changes; discuss the implications of the changes with my son, his therapy providers, and the rest
of our family who are all involved with supporting him in addition to supports funded by
the NDIS; and consult with other affected parties to determine the real impact of these changes.
Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30 days,
however, a period of 90 days or more would be more reasonable given the scope and
complexity of the changes.
- Key decisions leŌ 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.
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No other government scheme operates in this way. When compared to systems operated for
the benefit of able-bodied people such as Medicare, to substantially limit access through
opaque and largely non-reviewable mechanisms designed to avoid Parliamentary scrutiny, the
NDIS will cease to be a scheme operated for the benefit of vulnerable Australians, instead
becoming a scheme where funding decisions are made for administrative convenience and
political benefit.
As the operation of the scheme will be so different from those affecting mainstream Australia, it
effectively discriminates against people with disabilities, thus is inconsistent with the
Discrimination Law. As such, it should not be possible to legislate to create an operating
philosophy or procedures which differ from mainstream systems, applying more onerous
access conditions or processes than apply to able-bodied people.
If not illegal, it is certainly shameful, and blatantly discriminatory.
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.
- ParƟcipants 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: When 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.
Placing the decisions of the minister or the NDIS bureaucracy beyond review is an appalling
and unfair act. The NDIS and indeed other government agencies have been shown time and
time again to generate grossly unfair outcomes (e.g. Robodebt). The inequity of these
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decisions would have remained unremedied if not for the avenue/s of review, and with the
NDIS’ record being somewhere between 70% to 90% of reviewed decisions being overturned,
the removal of review will only compound the inequities perpetrated on Australia’s most
vulnerable and disadvantaged people. To attempt to “fix” the NDIS by giving more power to
the Minister and bureaucracy to act capriciously is immature and lazy, and introduces moral
hazard into the NDIS system. No bureaucratic assessment or decision should be beyond
review.
The focus of NDIS improvement should be on consistency and compliance, and the
elimination of fraud.
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. All decisions of the Minister and the NDIS bureaucracy need to be reviewable.
- 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, s34A). 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.
Schedule 1 part 4 appears to make the NDIS a political funding source. Given the power to
arbitrarily and without review, reduce the funding of any part of a class of participants’ plans by
any percentage that the Minister desires, the Minister could easily decide to plug a hole in the
budget by extracting money in this way from the NDIS. Such money can easily be seen to be
a political tool. The NDIS was established to exactly NOT work in this way, applying funding in
a consistent and equitable manner to support people with disabilities according to established
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and understood principles. These changes simply turn it into the Minister’s (or government of
the day’s) slush fund.
This is a dangerous change, also running explicitly counter to a founding principle of the NDIS
and cannot be allowed to stand.
Recommendation:
Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants saving for high-
cost items. Eliminate Ministerial power of arbitrary class of funding reduction. Allow independent review of any funding decision.
- Requirement to exhaust treatment opƟons and move to a single disability assessment.
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.
Single impairment (Schedule 1 part 3). This is one of the most cynical and pernicious changes
in this Bill, and obviously drawn up by able-bodied people. Many disabilities are comprised of
multiple dimensions which can interact and create further functional impairment. Having to
select one impairment when a person is impacted by a series of complex interactions between
multiple disabilities is simply not possible. It is a childish simplification of how a person’s life is
impacted by disability – in some cases where the aetiology is unknown. While it may be
possible to catalogue physical impairment in this way, any form of neurological impairment will
resist such a singularity and cause anxiety for someone already vulnerable, and significant
inequity in the outcome.
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My son has a complex range of disabilities, all of which interact and affect his functional
capacity. Having to select one as the “primary” diagnosis is a meaningless process and
medically invalid. This will only lead to more inequity and shifting MORE of the pressure of
support to families on top of the existing pressure. It will ruin lives.
It appears to me that the approach selected here is deliberately obtuse, with the premeditated
outcome of denying the plain and observable impacts of the disability of the whole person.
Individual circumstances (Schedule 1 part 3). Lord Bowen’s notion of “reasonableness” has
been a part of Common Law and indeed many Statutes since the early twentieth century.
These changes remove this fundamental notion from the NDIS. If a treatment is not
“reasonably” available to a person, then it is “not available”. Our experience of this concept
was financial – when we were granted access to the NDIS, we had exhausted our financial
resources providing therapies for our son. Expensive medication or treatments were not
options for us – even fundamental treatments were becoming unavailable due to having spent
all our reserves to that point. To have some comfortable bureaucrat in a back room in
Canberra decree that a treatment was available (say in America where healthcare costs are
multiples of those in Australia), therefore available to us, would simply be laughable.
Any decree of available treatments must be tempered by “reasonableness”, not simply an
unreviewable decree by an absolutist bureaucrat insulated from reality.
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. Assessment must remain as the whole person’s disability – do not proceed with the
requirement to select a single impairment to be supported by the NDIS.
- Unvalidated funcƟonal capacity assessment tool risks misidenƟfying 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,
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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.
The tool must be flexible enough to assess a vast spectrum of disabilities, and I doubt it can.
The tool must have been demonstrated as deriving reliable and valid results, prior to being
adopted as the mainstay of the NDIS assessment process. I am not aware that this has been
demonstrated to the required level to be a safe basis for classification.
Furthermore, the pretext that any disability can be decomposed to a “primary” disability with
“secondary” and presumably “tertiary” impairments is ludicrous. While perhaps a physical
disability may, any neurological condition which is typically a series of impairments with
complex interactions will resist typecasting with this tool.
This will affect us by understating the level of impairment (thus support) required by my son,
now an adult, and supposedly independent. This will simply mean a greater impost on my
family, with the pressure causing a reduction in my (and my wife’s) lifespan. This will mean
that my son will be without support earlier in his life than is otherwise possible, and will be the
government’s problem.
I am appalled that this cynical and obviously cost-cutting measure made it into the legislation.
It will simply result in systemic underfunding, and a transfer of MORE OF the burden of
support to families, with the obvious results of such increased pressure apparent in the near
future.
Recommendation:
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Retain a whole person view of disability, and reject the “single impairment” approach as
incapable of equitably describing or documenting necessary and reasonable support
needs. Reject I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool until and unless it has been
demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disability, including those
with episodic or fluctuating disability, and appropriate to Australian conditions.
- 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 (s34A). 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 will be cut before anything exists to replace them,
leaving carers and families with greater responsibilities/costs and no additional support. These
supports are often what help people stay visible, connected and safe. In many cases it is all
that keeps them alive.
The Ministerial diktat power under Schedule 1 part 4 (s34A) is also dangerous and introduces
moral hazard due to its broad scope and absence of review. It should be removed, and every
decision should be able to be reviewed. NDIS Plans are based on each individual’s
reasonable and necessary requirements – removing Social and Community Engagement
funds from plans simply creates more disadvantage, invalidates the notion of plans matching a
requirement, and will keep disabled people out of their communities. Keeping disabled people
only able to mix with other disabled people may be what the government wants to minimise
costs, but it will cause societal issues and waste societal capital by preventing people with
disabilities from contributing to their communities. Australia will be weaker and less inclusive
as a result.
Personal Impact: Our son uses community participation funding to support him attending
TAFE to learn new skills, but his funding is insufficient to cover all his attendances. My wife
and I further support him by taking time off (unpaid), meaning that a lack of NDIS funding
directly reduces our income and our ability to support our son further. Reductions in our
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income mean less tax revenue, less discretionary expenditure, and less security for our son in
time. As we are of retirement age, the more this happens, the sooner we will need to access
the age pension, having already spent our savings on support and therapy prior to joining the
NDIS.
In this way, such arbitrary reductions will simply shift the cost of support to families,
communities, aged care and the health systems.
The Ministerial diktat power will make the NDIS just another political slush fund, where funds
can be effectively transferred from disabled people to political projects at Ministerial whim. I
am disgusted that this was ever suggested.
Recommendation:
Require that no reductions to community participation or capacity building supports be
allowed as proposed. Remove the ability of the Minister to make funding reduction decisions affecting broad
classes of NDIS participants (the Ministerial diktat power under Schedule 1 part 4). Ensure that any Ministerial decision be subject to review.
- 90-day limit on claims is discriminatory.
The issue: Schedule 2 part 5 (s45A) will reduce the time to claim from the current statutory
limit of 2 years, to 90 days. S45A(6) will allow the CEO to accept claims older than this if the
CEO is satisfied that “exceptional circumstances” apply, although is silent on any time limits to
the CEO’s discretion. Participants with limited organisational capability will not be able to
claim “exceptional circumstances” as this is their normality, and as a consequence may be
unable to claim in time or keep appropriate records. It is clear that such people will be
unreasonably disadvantaged by this change. That it is completely out of step with other
government programs suggests parsimony rather than fraud prevention.
This change discriminates against participants with neurological conditions (which are often
comorbid with other disabilities), regardless of whether the NDIS recognises/funds them or
not. Furthermore, requiring disabled people to claim in 90 days, whereas able-bodied people
under Medicare enjoy much longer claim periods, is simply discriminatory. It will also prevent
neurotypical people auditing their own accounts for completeness of claims, as I and many
other people do for our tax and other purposes.
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Personal impact: This change will prevent me from submitting valid claims that we may have
simply overlooked as we are under pressure from working as full-time as possible, supporting
our other children, and supporting our disabled son more and more. It will prevent me from
conducting an audit of accounts – a reasonable and common right. I feel that it is
administrative trickery, simply designed to shift more costs onto my family – on top of the
extreme direct and indirect costs my whole family has already incurred. If it was genuine fraud
prevention, then other government programs would have reduced claim times to this level
many years ago.
Recommendation:
Require that claim time limits NOT be shortened to 90 days, but set to 90 days after a
plan finishes. Require that claim time limits be aligned with other government programs and not
discriminate against disabled people. In the case of the NDIS, the benchmarked
program would be Medicare. Where any claiming time limit varies from similar
programs, the variation be justified by the Minister and set in legislation.
- Insufficient focus on efficiency in the Bill.
The issue: The Bill on the whole appears to focus on removing supports from people
requiring support as a primary objective. Schedule 2 deals with reducing fraud, which appears
to be a secondary focus. This is wrong – the first priority should be identifying and reducing
fraud. The second priority should be driving efficiency within the NDIS bureaucracy. Nothing
in this Bill except for the vague permitting of automated decision-making demonstrates a
desire for efficiency. The government has instead increased the bureaucracy by creating a
new police force within the NDIS. At no stage has the government identified the costs of
administering the NDIS and benchmarked them against analogous schemes such as
Medicare, and subsequently taken action to drive efficiency.
Once the fraud has been eliminated and bureaucratic efficiency improved, the focus should
turn to participant eligibility.
Recommendation:
Split the Bill into parts, prioritising measures to counter fraud in the first instance,
particular provider fraud.
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Focus on generating efficiency in the scheme as part 2. Focus on adjusting scheme participation as part 3.
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