National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2548 Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Date: 1st of June. I am an NDIS participant accessing the scheme due to ASD and other disabilities and having been a trained independent service provider since 2023. Since accessing the NDIS it has and continues to open opportunities that I would have been deprived off due to my disabilities. These benefits have greatly improved my life and moved me closer to equality with people in my age bracket in many places such as: The Home: NDIS has given opportunities in home due to increasing my confidence, independence and capacity as a result improving my mental health. Community:The NDIS has decreased my isolation and supported me to build on peer friendships, as well as giving me opportunities to nurture new friendships in the community. It has also helped me to feel safe in community spaces increasing my independence to achieve daily living needs like other people my age. Employment: The NDIS has continued to support me with executive functioning challenges to gain a qualification and be employed as well as maintain employment. This has increased my independence and sense of self worth by allowing me to contribute as a paid worker within my rural community
Some of the deprivations and harmful effects that will directly result from the Bill passing are as follows;
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The proposed major reduction and or elimination of person centered supports that I rely on to meet my needs will be diminished due to funding reductions and or not be covered through foundational support as I am unsure and fearful that changes will remove me from the scheme and if I can stay on the scheme how much of my funding will be cut by the Bill.
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The uncertainty and proposed funding cuts will put more strain on my family’s support. My sole non-NDIS funded carer that I rely on for my day to day survival is my mother who is 63. Although my mother is currently in good health, she will one day be unable to care for me and when that happens I will need support to live independently. I have been using this time to build capacity but these changes will severely limit this and or prevent this.
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The Bill’s reduction and minimising of the importance of community and social participation in the proposed changes in the Bill will have a major effect on me forming and maintaining peer friendships that the NDIS has enabled me to make due to it supporting me with my fluctuating capacity. This will have a major impact on my mental health as I will find myself isolated, unable to connect socially and feel safe out in the community. This ultimately will reduce my capacity and my ability to work further alienating me from the community. This will drop my mental health which will also majorly impact my functional capacity.
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I have been employed since 2024 as a qualified NDIS worker providing effective person centred community service. With the overall reduction of funding proposed in the Bill as well as the proposed foundational supports not covering the type of person centred support that I have always provided many of my participants will be unable to continue with my businesses disability supports. This combined with the reduction of my capacity due to the proposed decrease in my support I will not be able to continue working. Being able to stay employed for the first time in my life has been one of the biggest benefits of the my NDIS support
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As I work mostly with teanagers and young people who also access the NDIS due to ASD and other disabilities they will be affected by many of the discriminatory proposals in the Bill that affect me. This is due to the sweeping one size fits all approach of the Bill that runs against the core tenants of person centred care.
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My rural community is a services hub for the larger region and the Bills proposed changes to the NDIS will gut large swaths of jobs in my community. Recommended changes to the proposed Bill: Recommendation 1: Expand the timeline, scope and inclusivity of the inquiry. The amount of time the public has had has severely limited the ability to fully understand the massive impact of proposed changes. The short timeline for the inquiry is discriminatory with even disability advocacy groups finding it prohibitive to educate people on the scope and effects of the Bill as well as write their own submissions. Writing a letter by the deadline has had a large personal cost to my mental health and capacity that I could have used for my work. Recommendation 2: Not arbitrarily cut funding that has already been proven to be reasonable and necessary. Much of this funding is relied on for the survival of NDIS participants and the rigid percentile cuts as proposed will result in terrible outcomes and deaths.. Recommendation 3: Not give the Disability minister the arbitrary ability to reduce approved funding that disabled people across the country rely on for their very survival. This will effectively remove any existing safeguards. Recommendation 4: Not cut participants from the NDIS on the proviso that they will be supported by unfunded and yet to be built “foundational supports”. The foundational support system was inadequate for many disabled people who will not be eligible for NDIS under the proposed changes. The deep flaws of the foundational support system was one of the very reasons the NDIS was established. Returning to foundational support is a clear and intentional return to what Bill Shorten called the “Pity Olympics“ as well as kicks costs down the road that are yet to be accounted for. Recommendation 5: Implement more of the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability’s recommendations. Recommendation 6: Develop legislation in conjunction with NDIS participants, their stakeholders, and careers as well as disability advocacy groups Recommendations 7: Not erode established safety systems such as for change circumstances and the reasonable and necessary criteria Recommendation 8: Not suspend funding to NDIS participants if they fail to respond to the NDIS. This will disproportionately affect the most reliant on the NDIS and result in life sustaining funding being totally cut. Recommendation 9: Improve communication and employ a more person centered approach to the NDIS reforms. The one size fits all funding reforms are based more on budgetary concerns over participant wellbeing. Recommendation 10: Not require participants to take “all appropriate treatments” to access the NDIS this is coercive and will force prospective participants to take treatment options that are cost prohibitive, unwanted, violates their bodily autonomy, of dubious veracity and or outright harmful. This will lead to further institutional trauma, and lock low income households out of the NDIS. Recommendation 11: Not require participants to keep receipts for an excessive amount of time and punish them financially if or when they fail to do so.
Conclusion
In conclusion the Bill in its current state is removing too many safeguards at once, proposing too many overlapping changes, and the changes whose effects are clear range from harmful and shortsighted to potentially lethal. The cost saving intentions of the Bill are clear but there is little in it that was built with participant welfare in mind. I implore that the Bill not be passed and a new Bill be built with participant welfare in mind.
No generative AI was used in this letter.