National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2482
To the Committee,
I am a 23year old adult living with disability. I live in QLD & the NDIS support me every day of my life. I am sharing my lived experience & my thoughts on the NDIS bill changes being proposed. Firstly, my mum is typing this & has helped me write this, so you can hear what I think (she is also summarising my thoughts after explaining what this is about).
I have multiple disabilities which include, Autism, intellectual impairment, Atypical anorexia, Functional Neurological Disorder, Generalised anxiety disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Depressive disorder, ADHD, & also have a medical condition called Antiphospholipid syndrome. As I get older I am becoming more medically complex & this also has a big impact on my life.
I have many goals in my life, but the biggest one is to live independently. I also really want a job & want to earn my own money. Another goal is to get my licence & drive. I have a Guardian and a Trustee & I live in SIL (supported independent living) & support workers help me every day. My support workers are life my family & they are very very important to me.
I need help with routines, managing my medication, household tasks (I can mostly do them but I need help to remember when to do things), cooking meals & food preparation, going to my appointments & they take me shopping to buy my food & things I need. My support workers know me very well & they help with me so much more than those things. They help to keep me calm, they help me to manage my emotions, and they help keep my safe.
I have trouble managing my feelings sometimes. My support workers help to know when I am struggling. I have hurt myself many times & I have tried to take my own life many times & it’s a miracle that I am still alive. I have had many hospital admissions because I sometimes refuse to eat & drink or I have hurt myself in serious way.
I get very frustrated with myself because I know that my brain is different. I get mad at myself & upset because I know that other people can just do things without thinking & I can’t. I get mad at myself because I want to be smarter. My support workers make such a big difference & they help me in so many ways. I can learn things, but it takes me longer to learn. My support workers are also my friends, probably my only face to face friends, besides family.
Last year I completed a makeup course. My support workers helped me so much. They explained things, so that I could understand & do the work. I am told that I am talented in this area & I love doing makeup for people. It’s made me feel like I am more valuable & I can do something well. My family & my team want me to keep learning & they hope I can get a job doing this. I will need support to get a job, but when I feel safe I can learn & be trained.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2482
I am afraid that the NDIS want to reduce my support. If I don’t have the support I have now, I don’t know how I will get to appointments or to other places. I can’t get public transport & I don’t have the money for taxi or uber. I also get confused managing appointments & knowing when I must be somewhere. I would really struggle to understand having to reply to NDIS in a short time frame & without support I wouldn’t respond at all. I have trouble replying to formal texts or appointment letters & my team help me in this area. I have a lot of trouble using things like My Gov & I don’t understand how the NDIS works very well but I want them to understand that disability is complex & affects all areas of my life.
I am also worried that the NDIS don’t understand that I don’t have just one disability. I have a few & I can’t even explain how that affects me, but my mum can. I am a person & each person has different needs; the new bill doesn’t understand that at all & that is not fair.
I feel like when you have a disability you already feel like you are less. I hate that.
This bill will make me feel even worse. I want to feel like other adults. I want tochoose where I live, who I live with & who supports me. I want decision makers to know that having a disability shouldn’t mean I can’t have a choice. I don’t want to be left at home alone or forced to live with other people who I don’t know.
I also want to be as independent as I can & with the right kind of support & time to learn more I can live outside of SIL. I am important and I matter very much to my
family. I was born with a disability & that wasn’t my choice. I want to be able to haveas much say over my life as possible. My family & my team help make sure that I am ok. I totally disagree that when a plan is made, it isn’t personalised. That’s a dumb idea & the NDIS should be trying to understand each person & not assume things based on a diagnosis. It’s not simple like that.
I also want to say that when a plan is made, if my team think it’s not best for me, that they can tell the NDIS & have it reviewed. That is fairer. The people that know me best should be spoken to & they should have say in my funding and how that works.
I hope that you listen to what I have written because I am a person who these changes will affect. Getting accepted on the NDIS is already hard, then I must keep proving that I still need support, there are many rules & I don’t really understand them. Please listen to the people this bill will affect & not the people who don’t understand or know about disability. I don’t understand the government or politicians, but I hope you will read my letter & listen. Being disabled isn’t something I would choose but I am still an important person & I hope the government want to help me & people like me live a safe & good life. Please consider my lived experience & listen to the people who these changes affect the most.