National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2638
To whom it may concern,
I have been a NDIS support worker for over 3 years to NDIS participants with conditions such as MS, Retinitis Pigmentosa, Severe Social Anxiety, Autism, Partial& Complete Deafness as well as an array of Physical Disabilities.
I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds because if it stays as is many lives will be lost and quality of life will be severely diminished.
Firstly the consultation period of two weeks for the Amendment Bill is insufficient to allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and communication needs of participants as well and those involved in their care. The short timeline impacts myself and clients by not allowing reasonable capacity to submit to this bill. Majority of NDIS carers and participants don’t have the physical, mental and emotional capacity to participate.
The entire Bill is a call for concern however these are the things that I have seen already caused concern and distress within my clients and their loved ones.
The eligibility threshold (“functional capacity”) will be set outside the bill. The rules can be tightened without Parliament’s involvement. Supports will only be funded for the one “impairment” that got the participant approved. Any co-occurring conditions will no longer be considered relevant — even though they shape peoples daily reality and support needs. My clients have multiple conditions that all affect each other so treating one condition does not make the effect of the others irrelevant.
The Minister will be able to reduce or remove entire categories of support — including the community, social and capacity-building supports that make independent life possible. A large part of my job is building social relationships and support systems for clients that don’t have the capacity to do that for themselves. Without services like community access and social inclusion you leave participants that
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2638
require transport to appointments and spiritual, mental and emotional health events at risk.
Unspent plan funds will disappear at renewal. This will punish self-managers, people too unwell to spend on time, and anyone stuck on a provider waitlist.
“Reasonable and necessary” will now include “Scheme sustainability.” This shifts a needs-based test into a budget-based one. It gives the NDIA legal cover to refuse supports on cost grounds alone — the exact thing the original Act was written to prevent.
Plans can be suspended and revoked after 90 days of “reasonable attempts to contact.” The people most likely to be cut off are the ones who are hospitalised, in mental health care, escaping violence, homeless, or too unwell to manage correspondence. People will lose their support without ever knowing it was at risk. I have personally seen this happen far too often when an individuals capacity is stretched and administrative tasks get left behind.
“All appropriate treatment must be undertaken” before access. This is a coercive treatment clause. It risks forcing people into treatment that is contraindicated, traumatic, unaffordable, unavailable, or that they have the right to refuse. A diagnosis is hard enough to achieve let alone the correct one. A treatment is also not a cure. Most conditions are lifelong management that progress if unmanaged or mismanaged.
Administrative decisions can be automated, with no required human review and no published algorithm. The humans in the position to currently review plans and conditions don’t know what they’re doing so how will an automated system set up by those same people be any better.
A Bill that does not take into consideration the effect and impact on its participants simply cannot go through in good conscious.
Thank you for your time.