National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2472
I am writing this submission to express the profound devastation, stress, and anger that the proposed cuts to the NDIS will cause my family, my friends, and my community. These changes do not create a better system, nor will they save the government money in the long term. Instead, they take a system that is already notoriously difficult to navigate and make it intentionally inaccessible.
When you cut NDIS funding, you do not erase the need for support; you simply shift the crushing weight of that support onto exhausted families, overstretched hospital systems, and crisis services.
To understand the human cost of these decisions, you must look at what is happening to real people right now:
● Forcing productive citizens out of society: A close friend of mine is a quadruple amputee. She uses her NDIS funding to work, actively participate, and contribute to society. Following a recent review, her funding was halved without justification. Cutting funding for someone who relies on it to work is completely counterproductive. It strips away independence and forces people out of the workforce. ● Breaking families apart: My father-in-law requires 24/7 care. Because his NDIS plan has also been reduced, our family has been stretched to a breaking point. Private care is financially impossible for us to fund out-of-pocket. The responsibility has fallen entirely on family members who are already exhausted, working, and trying to cope.
Changing the Rules of “Permanence” is Dangerous and Unfair
The proposals to redefine “permanence” and require people to prove that “all available treatments” have been tried, are cruel, unreasonable, and deeply out of touch with reality.
● Financial and Geographic Barriers: Medical treatments are expensive, and navigating the healthcare system is a privilege. The most vulnerable and impoverished people in our society cannot afford to travel to specialists or pay for endless, experimental, or speculative treatments just to “prove” their disability is permanent. ● The Burden of Proof: Judging people based on treatments they cannot access or afford is a form of systemic discrimination. It penalizes people for being poor or living in regional areas, using their lack of resources as an excuse to deny them basic human rights.
I want to be entirely clear, these proposed changes to the NDIS bill will lead to people dying.
While decision-makers may argue there is no direct correlation, the reality on the ground is different. When you completely strip away support structures, carers break. More carers will reach a point of absolute despair and inability to cope, leading to catastrophic family breakdowns and preventable tragedies, as we’ve seen with recent murder/suicides of families with disabled children. And when you take away the freedom, dignity and care that disabled
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 2472
people have been able to access because of the NDIS more disabled people will feel that suicide is their only option rather than trying to exist with limited to no support again.
When a government does not place value on the lives of people living with disability, it sends a clear signal to the rest of society that their existence is a burden. These cuts actively devalue human beings. They enforce the message that disabled people do not matter.
I beg the government to please withdraw this bill.