Submission 2487
NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 –
Senate Submission
Access and Eligibility
Proposed change (Bill What this could mean in real My experience / what I want the
section) life Senate to know
Functional capacity A standardised assessment may The use of a time-limited assessment
becomes a key not accurately capture raises concerns regarding its ability to
eligibility test (s9B). A fluctuating disability, masking, accurately reflect an individual's
functional capacity tool trauma, autism, fatigue, ongoing and daily functional capacity
will be used to behaviour support needs or the given the assessment conducted is
determine who can cumulative impact of multiple completed in few hours and may not
become a participant of disabilities. A child may appear adequately determine the ongoing
the scheme. capable during a short impact of disability/impairment. This
The assessment tool assessment but require includes but is not limited to
has not yet been significant support to function including the support required to
released and it is safely every day. complete routine activities, maintain
unclear who will Instead of clinical information independence, participate in the
administer it. from qualified allied health community, and manage daily livingprofessionals who know the tasks consistently. Functional participant, access decisions capacity is demonstrated over time may rely more heavily on a and many environments to obtain and standardised assessment which determine a person’s functional may involve automation. capacity and cannot be accurately assessed within such a limited assessment period.
There are also concerns regarding the availability of information, who will be authorised to complete the assessments and how consistency will be maintained.
Evidence will be Families may need to The requirements for participants to
required around the demonstrate that all reasonable provide evidence of the permanence
‘Permanence’ of a treatment options have been of their disability and demonstrate
person’s disability. attempted before accessing that they have exhausted all
There will be a supports. This may appropriate treatment options raises
requirement to exhaust disadvantage people where questions regarding implementation
'all appropriate treatments are unavailable, and accessibility.treatment’ before NDIS unaffordable, unsafe,
eligibility is confirmed. ineffective, culturally The term "all appropriate treatment"inappropriate or create requires more defined and precise significant side effects. To gain definition. Participants will be met access, participants may have to with uncertainty regarding what and undergo ‘treatment’ including how much evidence is required and surgeries, medication and how they are expected to demonstrate therapies that may be harmful. that all relevant treatment options It also raises difficult questions have been explored. about where the line sits
Submission 2487
between an “appropriate” Access to treatment and intervention treatment and a treatment a services is not always accessible to person does not wish to participants who are restricted to undertake. gaining access to support services without assistance and could include, Could a participant be required but is not limited to location, service to trial certain medications waitlists, financial impact, before accessing certain transportation barriers, and the supports? Could a family be availability of specialised/required expected to pursue surgery, providers. This could result in a intensive therapy or another participant’s inability to access a intervention they believe is treatment or intervention in a timely unsuitable, ineffective or carries or time required manner. unacceptable risks? It has not been transparently provided Where people have a rare to participants what will be expected condition or diagnosis, many to provide evidence that all experts don’t know what appropriate treatment options have treatment will be beneficial or been exhausted. Eligibility criteria effective. should recognise that access to Because the NDIA can no services varies significantly and that longer take into account a barriers to treatment may exist person’s environment (i.e. independently of a person’s disability. financial status) this may mean that if they cannot afford a specific treatment (to prove that it is not effective), they cannot access the NDIS. New eligibility People already receiving the framework from 2028 NDIS may need to demonstrate (s9B and related they continue to meet the new provisions) eligibility criteria. Existing and All current participants future participants face will need to be uncertainty about whether they reassessed under the will qualify under the new new functional access model, particularly capacity eligibility where support needs are framework from developmental, psychosocial, January 2028. fluctuating or difficult to Some may lose their measure using standardised access in this process. tools. Families are concerned children and young people who currently receive support could lose access despite no improvement in their disability or functional capacity. We don’t know what assessment tool will be used for this eligibility process, what evidence participants can provide and if there are any appeal rights. There doesn’t appear to be any other Foundational Supports in
Submission 2487
place for those who are exited from the NDIS. Functional capacity This bill seeks to assess a will be assessed with persons functional capacity reduced consideration without taking into account of environmental and environmental factors such as personal circumstances their financial circumstances, (s9B) their home environment or the assistive technology they use.
Two children with the same diagnosis can have vastly different support needs depending on poverty, housing, transport, family supports, family violence, culture, geography and access to services. Ignoring context risks underestimating need. Functional capacity Some people have good days assessments may not and bad days. Others can adequately capture temporarily mask difficulties fluctuating or non- during assessments. Families apparent disabilities are concerned assessments may (s9B) capture what a person can do briefly rather than what they can safely and consistently sustain in daily life. One day snapshots do not take into account the cumulative effect of disability and carer roles. To be funded, support Families may be forced to prove needs must arise exactly which impairment ‘directly’ from an causes which support need. NDIS-eligible Supports that arise from the impairment combined effect of multiple (s34(1)(aa)) disabilities, medical conditions or life circumstances may become harder to justify.
In reality, disability is rarely that neat.
A child may have autism, intellectual disability, ADHD, epilepsy and anxiety. Is the need for supervision caused by the autism? The epilepsy? The intellectual disability? The anxiety? An unrelated early childhood trauma? Or the interaction between all of them?
A child with a rare genetic
Submission 2487
condition may experience a unique combination of physical, cognitive, behavioural and medical symptoms that do not fit neatly into diagnostic categories. The support need exists regardless, but determining exactly which diagnosis the support need ‘directly arises’ from may be next to impossible.
The question for families is whether support decisions should be based on the existence of a genuine support need, or on the ability to successfully attribute that need to a particular eligible diagnosis or impairment.
This creates a burden of evidence to prove a direct link between every support need and the disability / impairment.
Stronger focus on This section states that people moving people to should not be eligible to access alternative funding the NDIS if there are other systems. compensation or insurance schemes that could support them instead. This may include the TAC, workplace compensation schemes and potentially even the Aged Care System.
Stronger evidence will Families may need to be required around the demonstrate that all reasonable ‘Permanence’ of a treatment options have been person’s disability. A attempted before accessing requirement to exhaust supports. This may ‘all appropriate disadvantage people where treatment’ before NDIS treatments are unavailable, eligibility unaffordable, ineffective, culturally inappropriate or create significant side effects. To gain access, participants may have to undergo ‘treatment’ including surgeries, medication and therapies that may be harmful. It also raises difficult questions about where the line sits between an “appropriate”
Submission 2487
treatment and a treatment a person does not wish to undertake.
Could a participant be required to trial certain medications before accessing certain supports? Could a family be expected to pursue surgery, intensive therapy or another intervention they believe is unsuitable, ineffective or carries unacceptable risks?
Where people have a rare condition or diagnosis, many experts don’t know what treatment will be beneficial or effective. People may lose NDIS Families are concerned supports before participants could be found alternative systems are ineligible for the NDIS or have fully established supports reduced before replacement systems are available, accessible, adequately funded and capable of meeting need. There is no consensus on what Foundational Supports are yet and how they will be rolled out or available. We cannot cut supports and then design the systems later.
Planning and Funding
Proposed change (Bill section) What this could mean in real life My experience/ what I want the Senate to know The Minister can make support Funding for an entire category of support determinations (decisions) could potentially be reduced for large groups which allow broad reductions to of participants without individual assessment support categories (s34A) of need. This would not occur on a ‘plan by plan’ basis. Families may lose supports that are currently working well simply because they fall within a targeted category. Not individualized. Right now, the Government is proposing a 50 % cut to social, civic, and community participation funding, and a 10 % cut to some capacity building daily activity funding. This would start from 1 October 2026 as new plan reassessments are completed. But this could be applied at up to 99% to any support
Submission 2487
category in an NDIS plan. The only limit around these cuts is that the Minister needs to ‘have regard’ for the safety of participants.
Minister may impose support Funding limits or caps can be placed on caps, including for cohorts support categories or cohorts of participants (s33(2EA)) and may be based on category averages rather than individual circumstances. This would allow the Minister to set an upper limit for a particular support. For example, people with Intellectual Disability cannot receive more than 12 hours of psychology funding per year, or children under 9 years of age can only receive up to 3 hours of allied health support per week.
Families caring for children with complex disability may be unable to access support levels that genuinely reflect their needs. Move toward more standardised Plans may increasingly reflect what the NDIS planning and assessment-driven funding model or assessment tool / report budgets generates rather than what is actually required for safety, participation and family sustainability. We still don’t know how the
Functional Capacity Assessment In the New
Planning Framework will be administered and how that report will translate into a Participant Statement of Supports. Less individualized support provision. Changes to the Reasonable and The threshold for what counts as “reasonable Necessary Criteria. and necessary” is being rewritten. The Bill changes the tests The Bill increases the amount of support the planners must apply when NDIA can expect families, carers and deciding whether a support is informal supports to provide before funding funded. Cost, informal supports supports. For children, greater emphasis is and parental responsibility may placed on parental responsibility, including play a larger role in funding supervision, personal care, emotional support, decisions. transport and behavioural support. Supports may be harder to fund where they primarily reduce parental workload, improve household efficiency or replace care the NDIA believes families should provide. There will be a hierarchy of evidence, giving greater weight to published and peer-reviewed research than a participant’s personal experience with a support. Where research evidence is limited, the NDIA may still decide not to fund a support, even if the participant reports that it is beneficial. Repeal of section 31 – Section 31 currently contains principles Principles relating to plans recognising participants as individuals with (Schedule 1, Item 66) unique goals, aspirations and support needs. The Bill repeals most of these principles.
Submission 2487
While government states relevant principles are being relocated elsewhere, many advocates believe important protections supporting genuinely individualised planning have been weakened or lost. These principals help the NDIA and the courts to understand how to implement and protect the intention of the scheme. Proposed reduction of social Supports used for community access, social and community participation connection, volunteering, recreation, skill funding through support development and participation may be determinations (s34A). substantially reduced. Families are concerned The creates a reduction of children and adults could become more supports that prevent isolation isolated, segregated and disconnected from and maintain community community life. inclusion Supports that appear ‘non-essential’ on paper may actually be what allows a person to maintain friendships, participate in community activities, learn life skills, develop independence and avoid social isolation. Right now the Government is proposing a 50 % cut to social, civic, and community participation funding, and a 10 % cut to some capacity building daily activity funding. This would start from 1 October 2026 as new plan reassessments are completed. Right now, we don’t know if this will apply to
Core: Social and Community Participation,
and Capacity Building: Increased Social and
Community Participation. Children and young people may become more reliant on parents and carers for transport, community access, social activities, employment preparation and daily participation. Greater emphasis on lower-cost Previous planning criteria required alternatives when funding consideration of whether a lower-cost option supports would achieve the same or substantially similar outcome. This bill changes the terminology so that when planners are considering cheaper alternatives, they no longer need to consider whether those alternatives would deliver the same or similar outcomes. Therefore, the cost of the support becomes the major determining factor rather than if they are effective or not. For example, a cheaper support worker arrangement, therapy approach or piece of equipment may be available, but it may not deliver the same level of independence, safety or participation. Families may wish to explain the risks that exist where a cheaper support that is less effective is funded.
Submission 2487
Disproportionate impact on Government modelling suggests some certain disability cohorts disability groups may lose a larger proportion of their current supports because a greater share of their plans is allocated to social and community participation. Will this affect children more than adults? Right now children may have funding for ‘Social and Community Participation’ where that funding is actually provided so that a parent can take them to the supermarket or to a doctor’s appointment. Those outings are not focused around social and community participation and should not be subject to funding reductions simply because they occur outside the home. When it comes to children and young people, how does the Agency intend to distinguish between Assistance with Daily Life and Social and Community Participation? What will the gender impact be in situations where women disproportionately absorb unpaid caring burden? Support caps and funding Families are concerned that funding restrictions may push restrictions could make individualised participants into more group- supports harder to access and increase based support arrangements pressure toward shared or group-based service models which don’t meet the participants needs and therefore are less effective or less safe. These may also increase the need for Restrictive Practices. Claims must be made within 90 Self-managing families and small providers days (currently 2 years). may lose funding or payment because Commencing 1st December paperwork was delayed during illness, crisis,
-
hospitalisation or caring responsibilities.
Unspent funds removed at plan Many NDIS plans are currently being renewal (s50A) ‘continued’ or extended. In the future, even when a plan is rolled over or not reassessed (because the participant is considered to have ‘stable support needs’) their plan will be ‘renewed’ meaning they will receive the same NDIS plan again with a new start date. Unused funding will no longer be carried over into the new plan which will contain the same supports and budget (less any one-off items like Assistive Technology). That ‘renewed’ plan is not a reviewable decision because no new decision has been made. Therefore, the application for an S100 or Internal Review of a new NDIS plan will become more important. How will this affect families who have fluctuating needs?
Submission 2487
Reviews, Appeals and Participant Rights
Proposed change (Bill section) What this could mean in real life My experience/ what I want the Senate to know Restrictions on reassessments Families may struggle to access timely (s48A) plan changes when circumstances The ability to request an deteriorate, informal supports collapse, unscheduled plan reassessment equipment fails or a child’s needs increase (Change of Circumstances) will unexpectedly. become far more difficult to When almost all NDIS plans are continued request. (Must be unanticipated, or rolled over, how does a participant significant an ongoing). COC request a plan reassessment if they haven’t requests may be processed only in had one for many years? For adults who extenuating circumstances. have stable needs this is more reasonable, Functional change must however children may require plan substantially reduce daily activity. reassessments simply because they have grown older and the level of typical parental responsibility for their age may have changed. We would expect the core budget for a 6-year-old child to be very different to a 12-year-old child or a 16 year-old child. Future support needs assessments Government has indicated future support may have more limited appeal needs assessments may be reviewable, but outcomes tribunals may have reduced ability to substitute their own assessment. Right now, the Tribunal can review funded supports on a line-by-line basis. In the future, a Support Needs Assessment may generate a report via an algorithm that states what supports should be funded (called the Participant Statement of
Supports). However, the Participant
Statement of Supports cannot be appealed, the Tribunal can simply direct the Agency to complete another Support Needs Assessment, which will then generate another report resulting in another Participant Statement of Supports. Only the participant, plan nominee Will this cause any risks for your family? or child representative will be able to request reassessment (as opposed to your plan manager or support coordinator). Timeframe for the NDIA to decide Will this cause any risks for your family? whether to complete a plan reassessment will extend from 21 days to 90 days.
Compliance, Administration and Safeguards
Proposed change (Bill What this could mean in real life My experiencesection) / what I want
Submission 2487
the Senate to know Plan suspension and If the NDIA requests information related to revocation for non-contact planning and a participant does not respond, the (s40A / s30(1A)) Agency could suspend their plan. If there is still no contact after 90 days, participant status could potentially be revoked. Families may wish to consider what could happen if letters are missed, contact details are outdated, English is not a first language, or a participant is experiencing illness, hospitalisation, homelessness, family violence or another crisis. Expansion of mandatory Participants may lose access to trusted workers or provider registration experience workforce shortages, particularly in regional areas. People who directly employ their support workers (Service for One) may not be able to continue working with their trusted supports. A sole trader or contractor may be considered a ‘provider’ and need to undergo NDIS Registration to be able to continue to provide support – this may be a costly and difficult process. What would happen if you were forced to use only NDIS registered providers? There will be a focus on mandatory registration for providers delivering “high risk supports”. For participants who are children, parents are often heavily involved in recruiting, training, supervising and monitoring support workers. Families may wish to consider whether mandatory registration provides additional safeguards or simply reduces the pool of available providers. We also don’t have a clear definition of ‘High Risk Supports’ yet. Increased record-keeping Families may face financial penalties if records obligations and debt are incomplete, misunderstood or lost during recovery powers periods of stress, illness or crisis. Stronger NDIA compliance The NDIA would gain stronger powers to and enforcement powers investigate how NDIS funding is being used, request information and documents, and issue fines where it believes NDIS rules have been broken. Families may wish to consider what protections exist if an honest mistake is made and how easy it would be to challenge a decision. Expanded NDIA The Agency can require participants, nominees, information gathering providers and others to provide documents, powers answer questions or attend a meeting with the Agency within 14 days’ notice. Failure to comply may result in legal consequences. Families may wish to consider whether appropriate safeguards exist and whether people will understand their rights and obligations when responding to these requests. Automation of Automated processes may improve efficiency but
Submission 2487
administrative decisions. also create risks where errors occur, particularly The NDIA could use for participants with complex circumstances or computer systems to carry where incorrect data is on file with the Agency. out some administrative Some decisions currently made by humans would tasks and decisions that are be made by an algorithm or automated process. currently performed by These decisions would still have the current staff. appeal rights. We don’t know what kinds Humans make mistakes. Computers make of tasks, decisions and mistakes too. The difference is scale. If a delegate actions would be makes a flawed decision, one participant may be automated. affected. If an algorithm gets it wrong, thousands of participants could receive the same incorrect outcome before anyone realises there’s a problem.
Children and Young People
Proposed change (Bill section) What this could mean in real life My experience/ what I want the Senate to know Children increasingly directed Families may be redirected away from toward Foundational Supports / NDIS supports into systems that are not yet Thriving Kids pathways fully established. Increased reliance on parental The NDIS cannot fund support that reduce responsibility arguments. There is the carer burden on parents below what is a change to the Reasonable and typical for children of the same age. This Necessary criteria stating the takes into account transport, personal care, NDIA must remember parents are emotional support, behaviour support and responsible for providing a supervision. substantial amount of support The NDIA must look at whether funding for their children. support like support workers would expose the participant or someone else to risk of harm Families may be expected to absorb additional caring responsibilities regardless of work commitments, health, finances or sustainability. The NDIA would also be prevented from funding supports simply because they make family life easier, reduce the amount of time parents spend caring, or because a parent would prefer not to provide that support themselves. How much unpaid care should parents, siblings, grandparents and other informal supports be expected to provide before disability support becomes the responsibility of the NDIS? What risks exist if this paid or unpaid support breaks down?
Governance and Ministerial Powers
Proposed change (Bill What this could mean in real life My experience /section) what I want the
Submission 2487
Senate to know Greater reliance on Significant decisions about eligibility, legislative instruments and budgets, support categories and planning delegated rules could potentially be changed through instruments and rules rather than through the full Parliamentary process. Minister may temporarily The Bill allows the Minister to temporarily modify how parts of the Act change how certain parts of the NDIS Act operate (Schedule 5 operate without having to pass a new Act of transitional powers) Parliament first or uses the usual parliamentary process. Families may wish to consider whether important changes should always be debated and approved by Parliament. Minister has greater While the NDIS Review recommended an influence over pricing independent organisation should set pricing arrangements (such as IHACPA) this bill transfers pricing power directly to the NDIS Minister with advice from the Agency. Self-Managers would still be able to pay above the Pricing Caps. Different pricing caps can also be set for different providers (i.e. registered and unregistered). What conflict of interest exists when the Minister responsible for controlling (and right now reducing) NDIS expenditure is also given the power to set the prices the Scheme will pay?
Informal Supports and Carers
Proposed change What this could mean in real life My experience /(Bill section) what I want the Senate to know Increased reliance When formal supports are reduced, the work does not on informal disappear. It is often transferred to parents, supports and unpaid grandparents, siblings and other family members, carers disproportionately impacting women. How will this impact women with disability in coercive control situations? How will this impact women in paid employment?