Submission 2535
Submission to the Senate Inquiry: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Impact on Participants, Carers and Scheme Integrity
I make this submission as a disability ally, advocate and a family member who has spent decades loving and supporting relatives with disability. I write this in consultation with my sister, who is the full-time carer for her much-loved adult son, my nephew, who lives with Level 3 Autism, Intellectual Disability and complex support needs. My sister would ideally make her own submission, but unfortunately her caring responsibilities leave her little time to do so.
Our family’s experience of disability care extends across generations. Our oldest sister lived with Intellectual Disability and passed away at 64 years of age. Until she passed away in 2024, she lived with our parents (supported by my sisters and myself), including during the years when my father was also caring for my mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. These experiences have given our family a deep understanding of lifelong care, carer burnout, the fragility of formal support systems, and the serious consequences when those systems fail. It has also given us a strong understanding of the NDIS: the opportunities it can create when it works well, and the barriers, uncertainty and stress it can impose when systems are unclear, under-resourced or difficult to navigate.
In my assessment as an advocate and ally, the Bill in its current form, poses significant risks to people with complex needs, including my adult nephew, and places unsustainable pressure on carers like my sister. While reforms to address fraud are essential, they must be separated from measures that reduce supports, weaken review rights, or expand ministerial powers
Areas of concern:
Cuts to Supported Capacity and Capability Program (SCCP): SCCP is not an optional extra or discretionary support for people with disability; for many participants with complex needs, it is an essential safeguard that enables safety, stability, daily functioning, skill maintenance, and participation in family and community life. It funds high-intensity daily-living assistance, skill maintenance, crisis-prevention interventions, structured routines and environmental
Submission 2535
supports. It enables people with disability to live with a level of agency and independence, which is a human right that most people take for granted.
Australia has recognised, through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, that people with disability have the right to dignity, autonomy, inclusion, independent living and full participation in the community. For participants with complex needs, these rights are not realised through principle alone; they require practical supports that make safety, communication, daily living, choice and community access possible. SCCP supports therefore have a human rights dimension. Removing or reducing them risks pushing people with disability further from ordinary life, increasing dependence on exhausted carers, and undermining the equal participation that the NDIS was established to advance.
For people like my nephew, SCCP supports are the difference between safety and elopement risk, stability and behavioural crisis, community access and isolation, and home-based care and hospitalisation or institutionalisation. A 50 per cent cut to SCCP would remove the very supports that keep him and other participants safe and stable.
Process integrity & due diligence: Interestingly, recent updates to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing (DoHDA) Impact Analysis significantly changed the proportion of participants shown to rely on SCCP supports. These updates substantially increase the number of people affected by proposed SCCP cuts, raising concerns about equity, transparency and integrity. These changes suggest that some disability cohorts may be disproportionately affected, that the original impact analysis understated the reach of cuts, and that policy decisions may have been made before updated data was publicly available. This undermines confidence in the reform process and highlights the need for full reconciliation and consultation before participant-impacting reforms proceed.
Reviewable decisions: The proposed planning model shifts decision-making to assessment and budget methodologies. Without explicit protections, people with disabilities or their carers may be unable to challenge cuts to specific supports, even when those supports are essential for safety, stability and crisis prevention.
Expanded Ministerial Powers: The Bill increases ministerial discretion over rules and funding parameters. Without strong safeguards, this creates a risk of rapid changes without sufficient
Submission 2535
parliamentary oversight, cuts driven by budget pressure rather than participant need, and reduced transparency and accountability.
Lack of adequate consultation: people with disability, carers and specialist providers have not been given sufficient time to respond to reforms of this scale. This increases the likelihood of unintended harm and poor implementation. A reform process that affects complex-needs participants must be consultative, staged and grounded in accurate evidence.
‘Tackling Fraud’ narrative used to influence public support: Undoubtedly, fraud must be addressed. However, fraud measures could be implemented separately from reforms that reduce participant supports, weaken review rights or expand ministerial powers. This approach is consistent with evidence-aligned arguments made across the disability advocacy sector: integrity measures can and should be targeted at misconduct without destabilising essential supports for participants who rely on them in good faith.
While not exhaustive, my recommendations are:
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Separate anti-fraud reforms into a standalone, immediate phase.
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Amend SCCP proposals to protect lifelong, complex-needs participants from arbitrary percentage cuts.
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Guarantee meaningful reviewability of plan decisions affecting specific supports.
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Limit ministerial powers to ensure transparency and parliamentary oversight.
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Require DoHDA to publish a full reconciliation of impact-analysis changes and re- consult affected cohorts.
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Mandate carer impact assessments before any funding changes proceed. My sister and I have talked at length about the NDIS over many years, and we have often been struck by the lack of understanding, and at times the ableism, reflected in political debate about disability support. Disability is not remote from any of us. Any person, at any time, can acquire a permanent and significant disability and need the kind of support the NDIS was created to provide. That reality should bring greater humility, care and responsibility to decisions about the Scheme’s future.
Submission 2535
We support reforms that strengthen integrity and reduce fraud. But reforms must not come at the expense of people with the highest needs, those least able to advocate for themselves, or the carers who hold the system together.
We have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to ensure the NDIS remains safe, fair and sustainable for the people it was created to support. In its current form, this Bill does not meet that responsibility. Instead, it risks causing real harm to people with disability who are already among the most vulnerable members of our community, as well as to the families and carers who support them.
A responsible reform process must be phased carefully, protect SCCP supports, preserve meaningful review rights, limit unchecked ministerial discretion, and ensure full transparency. Most importantly, reforms of this scale must be shaped through genuine consultation with people with disability, families, carers, advocates and specialist providers before any participant-impacting measures proceed.
Thank you for taking the time to consider this submission. I urge the Committee to ensure that any reforms to the NDIS protect, rather than diminish, the rights, safety and dignity of people with disability and the carers who support them.