Submission 2687
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au Date: 31/05/2026 I welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
I would like to ask that my personal details remain hidden from public view. I am a carer, a mother and grandmother for three children with disabilities, two of whom have ndis plans, one being my grandson, whom has been placed with me through child safety, I am also recently diagnosed disabled. The NDIS plans that two of the children in my care have, are already underfunded, I have thousands of dollars of reports from specialists, that example that the plans are underfunded, and the toll on my health, for the plans being underfunded has been that my health is fast deteriorating, whereas before I worked multiple jobs I have now had to give up as the kids care needs are too high, and previously had a high fitness level, I now have borderline dangerously high blood pressure, and chronic constant agonising pain, my itness has suffered, because I am not able to get enough time in a day to even eat regularly or shower, let alone actually exercise. Which has caused me to lean on other systems to try to bandaid the harm to me, the kids plans being underfunded, are causing. This is already happening, before the cuts, this will get wildly worse. One of the things proposed is to extend parental responsibilities to encompass more, I am already pushed beyond what one human body can endure, and my physical human body is failing concernedly fast, these cuts and changes will result in deaths. The costs cut are at peoples expenses, and cutting basic essential needs, Rather than finding ways to provide those essential services at an affordable cost, for instance building the public infrastructure, first, then it becoming a natural place for participants and jobs for those proposed job cuts, to go to. currently there is nowhere for people to go, either the participants, for essential care, or the thousands this will make jobless. We are talking about people. We aren’t talking about cuts. Saving money shouldn’t come at the cost of peoples lives, or just transferring costs to other services, homelessness services, and job losses will transfer costs, as well as medicare, child safety, I could list more. This wont save money, it will cause extreme harm to disabled people and society, and cutting things in this way will explode costs in other areas, and will cost more.
I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. This Bill is too far-reaching to pass as it stands. I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds.
Parliamentary Scrutiny and Transparency
The consultation period for the Amendment Bill is two weeks, which is insufficient to allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and communication needs. The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis says consultation should occur for a minimum of 30 days where possible.
The short timeline impacts me immensely, I am using a template to write this to you, because the ndis plans for the kids in my care are incredibly underfunded, to the extent that I struggle to be able to eat in a day, I am lucky if I can get a shower every second day, I can’t go in to shops, or access the community at all, I’m on the go from the time I wake up till the time I drop, of an evening, so being able to have time to read a whole bill, within that short a time frame, is not within my reach, similarly, I could imagine, a huge percentage of the disabled community. Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30 days.
Submission 2687
Key decisions left to ministerial instruments, not law
The issue: The Bill allows Ministers to change who gets NDIS support (Schedule 1 Parts 8 and 9) and how much funding people receive (Schedule 1 Part 4; Schedule 3) by signing an instrument, without going back to Parliament. The rules that will determine critical eligibility thresholds (Schedule 1 Parts 1, 8 and 9) have not yet been written. How this affects participants: The decisions that shape the lives of participants, whether they qualify for the NDIS and what supports they can access, could be changed without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny. Participants may not know supports or eligibility rules have changed until their plan is affected. This is a sledge hammer to a community that is already ravaged by cuts. It is already a tremendous fight to get access to the services you need to be able to exist in a world built for abled bodied people. It’s easy to see when a person needs a ramp to access a building that only has stairs, what about the invisible disabilities, you might look able bodied, but you can’t function, exist or access the community, in the same way that someone who is able bodied can. It’s so easy, when you don’t have any expertise, or lived experience, in the area, to see someone who looks able bodied, and dismiss their requests as flippant, when they might be dire and essential for survival. To add cuts that aren’t even fleshed out yet, relies on more empathy and expertise than might exist, in whomever decides that a certain therapy, that employs a person who then pays tax, that is vital, just isn’t. These cuts are dehumanising, to an existence that is already taxed at every turn. We aren’t provided with lavishness, we have to fight just to get just some, not all, of our basic essential needs met, on the ndis, as a disabled person. There are places to make cuts, services to participants, isn’t it. This is cruel, heartless and thoughtless. None of you, I bet, see how hard it already is living without even your basic essential needs met, not wants, needs. How incredibly devestating that phone call is, if it is a phone call, lately, it’s been a letter with no explanation, and you have to make your world a little smaller, and load more onto carers that are already horrendously overburdened. How much are those health costs going to add up to, I can tell you, for myself, I was fit, I was running marathons and working multiple jobs and, attending university, now, I have gained 20kg, I am in constant agonising pain, I get frequent migraines, and have just recently learned my blood pressure is hitting dangerous levels. This decline has come over the last two years, alone, and it is directly because the kids I care for, have horrendously underfunded plans. So I take all the burden. I do the work of a team of people. And I’m breaking, I will be gong to the emergency room frequently. If this continues it will drastically shorten my life. If you think that is in any way a dramatisation, I invite you to arrange an appointment to call me for further details.
Recommendation: Require that all decisions affecting NDIS eligibility and funding levels be made through primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, with mandatory advance notice to affected participants before any changes take effect. Existing participants face narrower criteria and fewer rights to challenge decisions
The issue: The Bill changes the rules for existing NDIS participants and makes it harder to challenge some decisions about supports and funding. It also restricts when you can request a reassessment, removes review rights for automatic plan renewals, and makes funding reductions unreviewable (Schedule 1 Parts 1 and 8). Combined with restrictions on reassessment requests (Part 2), automatic plan renewals without review rights (Part 5), and unreviewable funding reductions (Part 4), existing participants face narrower criteria with significantly fewer avenues to challenge decisions about their supports. How this affects participants: This does not protect participants already on the NDIS, who could be reassessed under stricter rules. If someone’s funding is reduced or their plan renewed
Submission 2687
automatically, they may have limited or no ability to challenge that decision. This could make it harder for people to get extra support when their circumstances or disability change. I am already in such a dire situation, my children are already horrendously underfunded, if people are already receiving supports and they are removed, this will be catastrophic and deadly. Being disabled is so incredibly isolating and desolate, you have to have ten times the gumption, just to make it through a day with so many insurmountable odds against you. Imagine you have to go about your day, but your legs feel like they are in quicksand and you feel like you haven’t slept for three days, except that’s every day, so you can’t just put things off till tomorrow, now mentally walk through your day and imagine how quickly you might break down, then imagine people tell you the vital things you need to be able to get to a job, or study to improve aren’t necessary, even though you can’t exist without them, and there’s no one to even explain, that actually, you do really need this to keep going. Because you are just seen as a cost, a burden, you don’t deserve the inclusions to live like anyone else does. What do you do, you just sit in your home, I you’re lucky enough to have one, and stare at the walls, with those sentiments echoing around in your head, and no hope for things to ever get better. That’s what those cuts will do. Let me give you an example, I tried to vacuum my house a week ago, it took me three hours, agonising pain the whole time. But what kept me together, was that help will eventually come, as I am currently trying to get recognition for how hard things are on me, and the kids. This bill kills every tiny spark of hope. Why? Because I already interface with the ndis, I already have to fight for years, so far, for vital inclusions, with expert support and reports to back it up, and I don’t yet have that support. I get a report that says it’s desperately needed, from the correct and approved specialist, and it just gets denied. This will make a service that is already so harrowing and dehumanising to interface with, even more desolate. This will effect me, this will hit hard. So much time and money is spent jumping through hoops to fill words on hundred page documents, to appease the ndis gods, that are never happy these cuts don’t address the elephant in the room. The more hurdles you put for people, the more time and money has to be spent spinning wheels of bureaucracy, rather than just utilising the supports for yourself, you have to enlist them to serve the overlords that deny the reports. Rather than just get therapy and just have a modicum of a better life. It feels very much like choosing between eating or paying the rent, do you use the therapy but lose it because you have to keep proving you need it, or do you get the therapist to write a report, and go without support until the funding rolls over. That is my current reality, that’s now, right now BEFORE THE CUTS PROPOSED. Once the cuts go through, there’s no money to eat or pay the rent. Is there.
Recommendation: Require a “no harm” safeguard ensuring no current participant loses access to supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.
Unreviewable ministerial power to cut funding across all support categories
The Minister can reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specified percentage through an instrument that cannot be challenged (Schedule 1 Part 4). This applies across all budget categories. Unspent funds will no longer carry over at plan renewal (Schedule 1 Part 5). How this affects participants: A participant’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding could be cut without warning and without any right to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across plan periods for high-cost items will lose that ability entirely.
Do you know how long it takes to find a specialist? I’ve waited 18 months to find someone, I am still unable to fill all the specialists I have been allocated funding for. This will mean you get
Submission 2687
approved for a specialist, you have to go on a wait list, then by the time you get to the front of the cue, too bad you have no funding. This is either pure cruelty, or pure stupidity. How do you talk, or tell someone you need help or are hurt and need medical attention, when your attistive technology, that is the only way you can speak, isn’t funded, and you can’t talk to someone to explain how vital it is. It’s just gone. This proposal will take away my grandsons ability to speak or communicate.
Recommendation: Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights before any funding reduction takes effect. Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility The issue: A person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, replaced by single eligible impairment consideration (Schedule 1 Part 3). The note that previously acknowledged environmental factors and other ineligible impairments could affect support needs will be removed (Schedule 1 Part 3). How this affects participants: People with disability will need to prove their impairment cannot be treated before they access the NDIS. Once in the scheme, their supports will only be assessed against a single eligible impairment rather than their whole experience. A person’s individual circumstances will not be considered,
including ability to pay for treatment, where they live or whether treatment is actually available to them.
I mean this takes the ladder away entirely, doesn’t it. This will completely exclude some people from having care. Is that the world you want to live in? We get a chance to build a world that offers everyone a chance to participate, and this will be an absolute impossible hurdle. How do you prove a negative, number one. Number two, who decides what the treatments that have to be exhausted, will be? Will it be as barbaric and dehumanising as this bill? It would be so easy to make it absolutely impossible for whole swathes of people to access help and support, to be able to function in society, to be able to work, house themselves. This is an absolutely vile inclusion.
Recommendation: Do not proceed with a requirement to exhaust “appropriate treatment” options – there are no safeguarding measures around participant harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity to access treatments. Unvalidated functional capacity assessment tool risks misidentifying need
The issue: The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment. The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I-CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disability, including those whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a point-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability. How this affects participants: If the assessment tool does not accurately capture the full extent of a person’s disability, including needs that fluctuate or vary over time, a participant may be found ineligible or have their supports undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual experience. My child has tried to commit suicide, multiple times, but under their current funding supports, they’re only approved for autism, which apparently never needs a psychologist, (even
Submission 2687
though every autistic person has trauma, and anxiety just from being forced to exist in a world not built for them) so I pay for a psychologist out of pocket, and leaning on medicare, whilst trying to support four people on a carers pension, seeing as my grandson, who was placed with me through child safety, has such high needs I have had to quit working, and my health has gone into sharp decline. Again, THIS IS BEFORE THIS BILL PASSES. Without proper assessment of the whole person, and all their needs, even when they don’t fit into a neat factory line cookie cutter shape, which is the usual way we all present, you will end up throwing money at one part, without supporting the other, at all. That would look like giving someone a prosthetic arm, but not a prosthetic leg, to help them walk up stairs, because only the arm was recognised. That is already happening. I am also having to access psychologist support, because of how harrowing and dire my situation is, passing that cost onto medicare, which could have been a cheaper cost, entirely, if the whole person were just assessed. This will cost more money, and waste the money you do spend, effectively causing it to be ineffective. Again, this is already an issue, worsening it by passing these restrictions, shows you have no understanding of disability and how it presents in a person. There is never just one picture perfect structured presentation. And how your disability effects you, shows up in wildly different aspects of your life.
Recommendation: Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disability, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability. Supports cut before replacement system is ready
The issue: From 1 October 2026, the government has announced funding for social, civic and community participation supports will be cut by 50 per cent and capacity building daily activities by 10 per cent for all participants, reductions that will be implemented through the ministerial instrument power in Schedule 1 Part 4. The Foundational Supports system intended to fill that gap has no confirmed implementation date and is not yet operational. How this affects participants: Supports that help participants connect with their community, build skills and maintain independence may be cut before anything exists to replace them, leaving carers and families with greater responsibilities and no additional support. These supports are often what help people stay visible, connected and safe. My son couldn’t even leave the house, couldn’t go to school, or go to shops, stayed entirely in his bedroom. Now he can. Now he can get a job, he wants to be a veterinarian. This would entirely decimate that dream. It very much feels like you don’t want to see disabled people, in society. This effectively shutters the only bus that takes us there.
Recommendation: Require that no reductions to community participation or capacity building supports take effect until Foundational Supports are fully operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those who will lose NDIS supports.
I thank you greatly for taking the time to listen. It can be a very lonely and isolating place, being disabled. It limits your ability to easily interact with the world. Although this bill proposed feels hugely devastating, it feels aimed at saying we are a burden and not worth the time our essential needs cost, you listening greatly balances the impact that premise has on us. So thank you for taking the time to read our lived experiences. Thank you for helping us be seen.