NDIA Accountability Project

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Submission 2732 — Name Withheld — NDIS Future Generations Bill

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

Submission 2732

I am a parent of two adult children with a disability that leaves them permanently dependent on 24/7 care. They are unable to represent themselves.

The NDIS system has always had functional issues, but every review and change has seen these issues increase, not decrease.

I do not support a bill that seeks to further diminish the NDIS.

Social & Community Participation (S&CP) funding:

  • Individuals who need 24/7 care will still need support, regardless of what the funding category is called.
  • If S&CP is reduced, then there will need to be an equivalent increase to Daily Living funding.
  • This is not cost saving. It just means taking away access to supports outside the home and a likely decline in productivity and wellbeing, leading to increased support needs and medical care costs in the future.

Registration:

  • If independent support providers need to register, they will likely start charging max rates by default. Those cost savings will be gone.

Appeals:

  • This and other red tape decisions are only increasing the demand on reviews.
  • If plans were funded properly in the first place, this wouldn’t be happening. Not just in $ amount, but in how it is allocated for use and restricted for use.
  • It is important to remember that the NDIS is a system that supports one of the most vulnerable cohorts of people in Australia, many of whom are unable to represent themselves.
  • When plans are already difficult to implement, whether due to funds being restricted for purpose, by funding periods, by needing letters from therapists or further approvals, by taking away all flexibility to cater to the fluctuation of support needs, and to then take away the right to appeal what are often obvious errors that can render funding completely unuseable, is an abuse of power.
  • Participants should be supported in being able to best use their funding, not punished for trying to navigate a system that is continually shifting the rules and adding arbitrary goalposts.

Participant categories:

  • The idea of categorising participants into one type of disability and only funding them for that, suggests that the government forgets these are people.
  • People are not one thing only, and same goes for disability.
  • It is ludicrous that a person with an intellectual disability who also has a physical disability will only be able to be funded for one or the other.
  • Having a support worker is not going to replace a wheelchair if you can’t walk, nor will having a wheelchair replace having a support worker if you can’t care for yourself.

Real world & duty of care:

  • The NDIA needs to recognise the real world that people are navigating.
  • The NDIA sets the price that providers can charge.
  • The NDIA then refuses to fund these costs.
  • People with a disability and their families are stuck in between.
  • The NDIA does not provide case managers to support participants, instead relying on informal supports to navigate the system.
  • Informal supports are trying to set things in place for the future for participants to be looked after when the informal supports are no longer here, but the NDIA can take away funding at any time, potentially leaving a participant homeless, with no one to notice.
  • Add to that the proposal that if the NDIA hasn’t heard from a participant/nominee they will remove them from the NDIS! Not that they will investigate and check on their welfare? Clearly, no one has learned from the previous cases where participants have died due to no one having a duty of care to follow up when funding or supports ceased.

Early Intervention:

  • This no longer affects our family, but it needs to be pointed out that providing early intervention is the best cost saving measure if you want to reduce future support needs and costs.
  • Removing children and people with lower support needs from the NDIS without having an alternative system for providing early intervention and therapies is going to create a bigger demand on the NDIS in the future.

Summary:

  • I understand if cost saving measures are needed.
  • Within the disability community there has been plenty of discussion and suggestions of how the NDIS can be more efficient and make cost-saving measures, without causing harm to participants.
  • The government is not listening to them.

I am not sure that my points will directly address the provisions of the bill, but I have not had time to adequately prepare due to the level of support my children have needed. Please withhold my name and any identifying contact details.