National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

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Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

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

Executive Summary This submission outlines significant concerns regarding the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 (the Bill), particularly in relation to autistic participants and people with neurodevelopmental disability.

While acknowledging the importance of sustainability and integrity within the NDIS, this submission argues that several proposed reforms risk increasing barriers to support, transferring burden onto families and clinicians, reducing preventative intervention, and destabilising the allied health workforce. These proposed reforms undermine the Scheme’s core purpose by: • increasing barriers for people with significant disability • shifting costs and burden onto families and informal supports • worsening participant distress and disengagement • reducing access to preventative and capacity-building interventions • destabilising the allied health workforce supporting participants, and • incentivising crises-driven rather than capacity-strengthening support.

In practice, autistic participants often require highly individualised, relational, and long- term support approaches that cannot be adequately captured through narrow functional metrics alone. Disability impacts are frequently context-dependent, cumulative, invisible, fluctuating, and socially mediated. The proposed reforms risk creating a system that privileges administratively measurable deficits over genuine functional need and lived disability experience.

Recommendations focus on protecting preventative supports, improving autism-informed assessment practices, reducing administrative burden, safeguarding against inappropriate funding reductions, limiting automated decision-making, and ensuring genuine co-design with autistic people, families, and frontline clinicians.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

Professional Background This submission reflects the perspective of a Clinical Psychologist working extensively with autistic children, adolescents, and adults, as well as individuals with broader neurodevelopmental disability. I have extensive experience with diagnostic assessment, functional assessment, therapy and intervention, behavioural and emotional support, and trauma-informed care. My work includes caregiver support and burnout prevention, multidisciplinary consultation across education, health, and community systems, crises prevention and risk management, and NDIS-related reporting and advocacy.

The submission draws on common experiences reported by NDIS participants, families, carers, and psychologists working extensively within the Scheme. These experiences are sourced from private practice, community service partners, and advocacy services. Particular emphasis is placed on the realities of autism-related disability, including fluctuating functioning, masking, sensory impacts, executive functioning difficulties, autistic burnout, and dependence on environmental and relational supports.

The submission also incorporates common concerns raised across the psychology profession regarding administrative burden, workforce sustainability, repeated evidentiary demands, and the practical impact of NDIS processes on participant wellbeing.

General Position Regarding the Bill The NDIS requires sustainability and integrity safeguards. Fraud and exploitative practices must be addressed. However, the current Bill appears to disproportionately focus on cost containment and administrative control, with insufficient safeguards against unintended harms to participants.

The proposed reforms raise concerns regarding: • Narrowing access criteria and increasing evidentiary burden • Overreliance on functional capacity assessments • Restrictive interpretations of permanence and treatability • Broad ministerial powers to reduce support categories • Reduced flexibility for reassessment and plan review • Increased administrative burden on participants, families, and clinicians • Greater reliance on automated administrative processes, and • Reduced access to preventative and relational supports.

For autistic participants, these changes risk failing to capture the true nature of disability- related impairment. Autism often involves context-dependent functioning, masking, cumulative fatigue, sensory overload, emotional dysregulation, and reliance on environmental supports that are not adequately reflected through narrow task-based assessment models or medical frameworks for physical disability.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

A. Concern Regarding Functional Capacity Assessment Reforms The Bill proposes greater reliance on ‘functional capacity’ concepts and assessment mechanisms. Whilst functional assessment can be useful, there are serious risks if these processes are implemented without strong neurodevelopmental expertise.

Autism and Context-Dependent Functioning Autism functioning is rarely static. Many autistic individuals demonstrate:

variable functioning across settings
masking and compensatory strategies
delayed recovery from stress
cognitive exhaustion after social or vocational engagements
sensory overload not visible during brief assessments, and
significant dependence on environmental supports and containment.

Participants frequently appear ‘capable’ during structured assessment settings while experiencing severe functional impairment in everyday life. Often the fluctuation in capacity is unable to be captured in structured assessments, with the participant being able to complete the assessed behaviour but at varying degrees of cost to their other functional needs.

Examples commonly seen in practice include:

autistic adults able to attend a one-hour assessment but unable to independently maintain nutrition, hygiene, employment or social connection afterward for several days due to the load required to complete the assessment process
children who can present as coping at school but experience severe emotional dysregulation and shutdown at home, often experiencing autistic burnout due to cumulative impacts of masking, and
participants who communicate verbally but cannot independently navigate community participation or executive functioning demands, such as being able to understand a bus timetable and the mechanics of catching a bus differs from the significant executive functioning load of navigating the sensory stimulation, coping when the bus does not arrive on time, being alert to when the bus is approaching the desired stop, troubleshooting issues like the bus being crowded or payment not working.

A narrow interpretation of functional capacity risks systemically underestimating disability impacts for autistic participants.

Risks of Snapshot Assessments Participants and clinicians frequently report:

assessments conducted by professionals without sufficient autism expertise
reliance on brief observations rather than longitudinal and cross-contextual understanding

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

failure to account for cumulative fatigue
failure to consider sensory and relational environments, and
overemphasis on isolated skills rather than sustainable functioning.

This creates substantial risk of inaccurate decisions and discriminatory application of participation in the Scheme.

Recommendation Functional capacity assessments should:

be multidisciplinary
incorporate longitudinal and cross-contextual evidence
include participant and family narrative evidence
explicitly account for masking, burnout, sensory impacts, and executive functioning
avoid reliance on single-session observations
involve clinicians with neurodevelopmental expertise

B. Concerns Regarding “Treatability” and Permanence The Bill proposed stronger emphasis on whether impairments may be treated or alleviated. This creates serious concern for autistic participants. Autism is lifelong. However:

support need fluctuate
capacity may improve with support, and
distress may reduce with intervention.

Improvement should not be interpreted as absence of disability. If this occurs, there is substantial risk that:

adaptive functioning gains become grounds for funding reductions
participants are penalised for successful intervention
capacity-building supports are reframed as evidence that disability is ‘treatable’.

This creates a perverse incentive structure where:

participants may feel pressured to demonstrate incapacity
preventative intervention becomes devalued, and
long-term outcomes worsen.

C. Concerns Regarding Restrictions on Reassessments and Support Flexibility The proposed limitations on unscheduled reassessments may disproportionately harm autistic participants whose needs fluctuate significantly across developmental stages or life transitions.

Common examples include:

transition from primary to high school

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

school refusal
autistic burnout
transition post-secondary schooling into vocational or higher education
transition into adulthood
loss of informal supports
housing breakdown
co-occurring mental health deterioration
systemic ableism and co-occurring social vulnerabilities

In practice, participants often require timely plan adjustments to prevent:

hospitalisation
family breakdown
homelessness
restrictive practices
risk of permanent physical harm
emergency service involvement
contact with judicial services

Rigid reassessment barriers risk increasing long-term system costs and not having a fit- for-needs plan that is effective for each participant.

D. Concerns Regarding Funding Determination and Ministerial Powers The Bill proposes powers enabling broad reductions to support categories. This is highly concerning. Supports categorised as:

social participation
daily living capacity building
relational support
emotional regulation intervention, and
community integration are often essential preventative supports for autistic participants.

These supports:

reduce isolation
improve regulation
sustain education and employment participation
reduce mental health crises, and
prevent carer collapse.

Across clinical practice, it is common to see participants deteriorate significantly after loss of community and relational supports. The framing of these supports as ‘optional’ misunderstands autism-related disability.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

E. Impact on Families and Informal Supports The Bill insufficiently acknowledges the hidden labour performed by families and carers. Families and carers commonly report:

severe burnout
financial strain
reduced workforce participation
chronic stress
trauma exposure, and
social isolation

Many autistic participants remain functionally dependent on informal supports far beyond what is visible in formal assessments. When NDIS supports are reduced:

families absorb the burden
maternal workforce participation declines
sibling wellbeing deteriorates, and
family relationships destabilise.

These impacts are substantial but often invisible within funding models.

F. Concerns Raised by Psychologists and Allied Health Clinicians Psychologists supporting NDIS participants frequently report :

excessive unpaid administrative labour
repeated report writing demands
adversarial interactions with NDIA processes
unclear evidentiary standards that frequently change
pricing arrangements that do not reflect complexity, and
emotional exhaustion and workforce burnout.

Many clinicians spend significant unpaid time:

justifying established disabilities repeatedly
responding to review requests
attending planning meetings, and
translating complex neurodevelopmental presentations into simplified bureaucratic language.

This reduces:

participant-facing clinical time
workforce retention
accessibility to experienced clinicians.

Some professionals are increasingly withdrawing from NDIS work due to unsustainable administrative burden. This creates downstream effects:

longer waitlists
reduced participant choice

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

reduced access to experienced autism-informed clinicians with suitable skills to meet participant needs

G. Risks of Automated Decision-Making The Bill’s governance reforms include increased capacity for automated administrative action. Autistic disability presentations are nuanced and highly individual. Automated systems risk:

oversimplifying complexity
privileging quantifiable deficits
excluding contextual and relational evidence, and
reinforcing systemic bias.

No automated process should determine access, funding adequacy, or support reduction without meaningful human review from qualified persons who understand the nature and presentation variability of the disability they are assessing.

H. Preventative Supports are Cost-Effective Relatively modest psychological supports frequently prevent:

family breakdown
school disengagement
justice involvement
homelessness
restrictive practices
suicidality

Examples include:

emotional regulation therapy
parent coaching
community participation supports
sensory regulation supports
executive functioning intervention
social safety intervention
relationship-based supports.

Reducing these supports may create short-term savings while substantially increasing long-term social and economic costs.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Remove or Significantly Limit Broad Ministerial Powers to Restrict Support Categories

The legislation should not permit broad discretionary powers enabling future governments or Ministers to redefine, restrict, or exclude categories of supports without full parliamentary scrutiny and disability-sector consultation.

Autistic participants frequently rely on supports such as social participation, emotional regulation intervention, executive functioning support, mentoring, sensory regulation, and community participation. While these supports may appear non-essential through narrow administrative frameworks, they are often highly preventative in practice and reduce crisis escalation, mental health deterioration, and family breakdown.

The legislation should require parliamentary approval for substantial restrictions to support categories and mandate transparent consultation and independent impact assessment processes.

Recommendation 2: Embed Neurodevelopmentally-Informed Functional Assessment Standards

Functional assessment frameworks must explicitly recognise the unique and fluctuating nature of neurodevelopmental disability.

Autistic participants commonly demonstrate: • context-dependent functioning • masking and compensatory strategies • significant sensory and executive functioning challenges • delayed recovery following social and cognitive demands, and • functional decline under stress or environmental overload.

Assessments should: • be conducted by clinicians with neurodevelopmental expertise • include longitudinal and contextual evidence • incorporate participant and caregiver reports • recognise masking, autistic burnout, sensory impacts, and environmental dependence, and • avoid sole reliance on brief observational assessments or standardised tools lacking autism-specific validity.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

Recommendation 3: Protect Preventative and Capacity-Building Supports

The legislation should explicitly protect access to preventative supports aimed at sustaining long-term functioning and reducing crisis presentations.

Preventative supports should be recognised as cost-effective and central to long-term sustainability rather than viewed as optional or discretionary.

Recommendation 4: Ensure Functional Improvements Do Not Become Grounds for Funding Reduction

Improvements achieved through supports should not be interpreted as evidence that disability has resolved or that supports are no longer required.

Autistic participants often maintain stability because of: • therapeutic intervention • structured support environments • environmental accommodations, and • ongoing emotional and executive functioning support.

The legislation should distinguish between supported functioning and independent functioning and prohibit inappropriate funding reductions based solely on temporary or support-dependent improvement.

Recommendation 5: Establish Strong Safeguards Around Automated Decision- Making

Automated systems should never independently determine eligibility, funding adequacy, or support reduction.

Autistic disability presentations are nuanced, contextual, and often poorly represented through simplified administrative systems. Automated processes risk overlooking invisible disability impacts, masking, and cumulative functional fatigue.

The legislation should guarantee meaningful human review, transparency in decision- making processes, and independent auditing of algorithmic systems.

Recommendation 6: Reduce Administrative Burden on Participants, Families, and Clinicians

Participants, families, and clinicians frequently report excessive administrative burden within the NDIS, including repeated evidence requests, unclear reporting requirements, and adversarial review processes.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

Many psychologists spend substantial unpaid time completing reports, responding to NDIA requests, attending planning meetings, and repeatedly justifying lifelong disabilities.

The NDIA should: • reduce duplication of evidence requests • accept longer-term evidence for lifelong disabilities • fund report-writing appropriately • simplify review and appeal processes, and • standardise reporting requirements nationally.

Recommendation 7: Recognise and Measure Informal Support Burden

Autistic participants often rely heavily on informal supports provided by parents, siblings, partners, and extended family members.

The legislation and planning processes should formally recognise caregiver sustainability and avoid assumptions of unlimited family capacity.

Recommendation 8: Improve Consultation and Co-Design Processes

Meaningful reform requires genuine co-design with autistic people, families, disability advocates, and frontline clinicians.

The Government should establish ongoing neurodevelopmental advisory groups and ensure that reforms are informed by operational realities and lived experience rather than purely actuarial or administrative priorities.

Recommendation 9: Protect Relational and Human Rights-Based Practice

Disability support is fundamentally relational and person-centred.

Autistic participants often require: • consistent therapeutic relationships • psychologically safe engagement • trust-based support • gradual and relational capacity building.

Overly transactional systems risk retraumatisation, disengagement, and poorer long- term outcomes.

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National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 253

Recommendation 10: Commission Independent Longitudinal Outcome Research

The Government should commission independent research examining the long-term impacts of proposed reforms on participant wellbeing, family sustainability, workforce retention, crisis presentations, and broader social and economic outcomes.

Evaluation should include autistic participants, culturally diverse communities, rural participants, and participants with co-occurring psychosocial disability.

Conclusion The NDIS remains one of Australia’s most important social reforms. Sustainability and integrity are essential goals; however, reforms must not unintentionally exclude, destabilise, or retraumatise people with significant disability.

Autistic participants frequently require support systems that are flexible, preventative, relational, and individualised. Narrow functional models risk failing to capture the realities of neurodevelopmental disability and may inadvertently increase long-term social and economic costs.

This submission urges the Committee to ensure that efforts to secure the future of the NDIS remain grounded in disability rights, clinical evidence, participant wellbeing, and genuine co-design.

Sincerely,

Ms Reyelle McKeever, BA(Psych)(Hons), MPsych, MAPPi Registered Psychologist (Clinical Endorsement)

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