National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2742
31.5.26
Committee Secretary Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs PO Box 6100 Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600
Email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Dear Senators of the Community Affairs Legislation Committee,
RE: Submission re National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
I am a registered NDIS Support Worker and have been working in the sector for five years, helping people to stay independent in their homes. I also have family and friends who depend on the NDIS to help them navigate life, be involved in their community and live with dignity.
Sustainability and targeting fraud
Firstly, I congratulate the Government’s more targeted measures to improve compliance in the draft Bill to crack down on fraud and waste and have suppliers register. NDIS participants and workers also want to get rid of fraud to help make the NDIS more sustainable, but not at the expense of legitimate participants losing their supports.
It was an administrative error by the federal government not to have included anti-fraud measures and a registration process for providers at the very beginning. The Government has already spent time consulting and assessing how to improve the NDIS, producing a Culture and Capabilities Report in 2023 which outlines various recommendations to deliver a safe and fairer way to contain costs. I implore the government to look at their own report and not punish participants by threatening to remove up to 260,000 people off the NDIS, because of poor system design and lack of foresight.
The NDIS was originally intended to support around 410,000 people with a disability. Today there are 760,000 people on the scheme. That happened because the government underestimated the number of disabled people in the community. They were hidden. Being cared for by families and institutions. The introduction of the NDIS shone a light on poor, unsafe and dangerous disability services and accommodation. The NDIS was designed to grow. Growth is not a failure; it is the scheme doing its job. Rates of disability in Australia are consistent with international comparisons- we are not an outlier.
Thriving Kids
The Bill plans to remove neurodivergent children, children with autism and ADHD from the NDIS.
The Bill must be understood in the context of the Thriving Kids Initiative (TKI), announced by Minister Butler at the National Press Club on 22 April 2026. Thriving Kids proposes to divert children aged 0 to 8 with autism or developmental delay from individualised NDIS early intervention under section 25 of the NDIS Act into pooled Foundational Supports delivered through schools and community settings. Proposed section 9B’s decontextualised functional capacity definition will determine which children access individualised NDIS plans and which are redirected. The parental responsibility provisions at proposed subsections 34(1G) to 34(1K) will determine how much support is attributed to informal
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2742
family care. The eligibility changes commencing 1 January 2028 will apply to existing participants being reassessed. These are the operative provisions through which Thriving Kids is implemented at scale for over 130,000 children” (Quote from the Submission from The Australian Neurodivergent Parents Association to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee 30.5.25)
This will affect children like my ten-year-old great nephew, he can experience dysregulation which has prevented him from attending school but with individual therapy, medication, a paediatrician, community support and very supportive parents, he is now attending a few hours of school every day.
Children like him will now be diverted to a Thriving Kids program to provide so called foundational supports. What this looks like is their funding goes to a venue for eg schools and preschools to provide parenting programs, playgroups, group-based behavioural programs and social skills training. The old block funding model. There are major concerns about the Thriving Kids program including teaching children how to mask their disability and no cultural supports for First Nations children, just to name a few. Thriving kids will provide no individual tailored supports and have no capacity to support children with complex needs.
The Australian Neurodivergent Parents Association (ANPA) have held roundtables with the disabled community on Thriving Kids, and they have highlighted many concerns and sent reports to government. They say yes provide foundational supports alongside but not sacrifice tailored individual supports.
Early intervention for children is enshrined in the NDIS Act, in Section 25. Neurodivergent children need to keep their individual supports to help them live safely and take part in everyday life. The states and territories are supposed to fund the Thriving Kids program. Already the NSW Premier The Hon. Chris Minns MP has said he will not be able to provide like with like services. Support will be less. Research shows that early intervention prevents harm. Investment at age 2-5years reduces the need for intensive supports at 15 to 45 years. Therefore, the short-term savings from these cuts will inevitably produce long term crisis in schools, healthcare, criminal justice and disability services.
Therefore Schedule 1, Part 6, item 66 be deleted, and section 31 and Division 1 of Part 2 of Chapter 3 of the NDIS Act need to be retained. Participant plans must remain individualised, participant-directed wherever possible, grounded in choice and control, and responsive to the participant’s goals, circumstances, communication needs, family context and disability support needs.
Consultation
Australia has committed, under Article 4(3) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to closely consult with and actively involve Disabled people, including Disabled children, through their representative organisations about decisions that affect them. Co-design with the disabled community for any new programs is a legal requirement and not discretionary. So far, the government has not consulted the disabled community widely on these proposed cuts and changes to the NDIS. I urge the government to do so to meet their UN commitments.
Loss of community supports
Another area of the NDIS to be cut are community supports as per the “reasonable and necessary supports” in Section 34A. Minister Butler has publicly stated that social and community participation funding is intended to be reduced by 30%. My concern is that the new
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2742
The framework proposed in section 34A provides part of that mechanism to implement these cuts. This section is part of the broader support-needs budgeting and Rules framework that reduce community and social supports.
I have clients who rely on community supports to live independent, healthy and dignified lives. Like my clients:
- Wendy, hearing impaired with a learning delay, needs me to go with her to attend in-person meetings with Centrelink officers and arrange ID documentations from various government agencies because she cannot understand or hear people’s voices.
- Ann, blind and using a white cane, needs to hold onto my arm so she can walk around her community, buy groceries, get out of the house and exercise.
- Larry, with Parkinsons, needs me to walk with him to go to the bank in case he falls. His impaired ability to walk means I need to buy groceries and cook for him as he has no family supports.
These clients without community supports will be isolated in their homes, unable to get outside or do everyday activities like everyone else—shut in and forgotten like the bad old days.
Women will lose jobs
Most support workers in the NDIS are women. Many of us will lose our jobs or have reduced hours. Advocates and union reps from Professionals Australia have said that up to 200,000 jobs are under threat—mostly jobs for women in rural and regional areas.
Loss of an appeal
Another major problem with this Bill is it gives the Minister power to cut participants’ plans without any consultation, reason, regard to individuals’ circumstances, and with no advisory structure requirements or avenues for appeal as per Section 34A, 50A. This is unfair, unjust and unreasonable.
Senators, you can become disabled
Every one of us can become disabled during our lives, whether from an inherited condition like my husband who inherited optic atrophy from his father, only has 30% vision but with technology he still works full-time. Or by having an accident or contracting a disease like cancer, someone like my young son , who lost half of his leg to bone cancer and has a permanent internal prosthetic. He has a small NDIS plan for physiotherapy which helps reduce muscle pain so he can walk. This is an important support, and we are grateful for his NDIS plan.
Cuts don’t stop need
When NDIS supports are cut, the need doesn’t go away. It just lands somewhere else. Families, health, justice and child protection systems and charities—picking up the pieces. It is mostly families filling the gap, mostly unpaid women who are forced to give up their paid work, time, and in many cases their health.
Like my friend J, who has a 22-year-old autistic son with mental health issues. She has given up her work to care for him 24/7. J, who is in her 60s, worries about what will happen to him when she and his father die; there are no more family supports.
Like my cousin A, born with cerebral palsy, she has been in a wheelchair all her life, cannot work, uses a computer to communicate, and was looked after by her parents D and
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2742
P for 40 years because back then there was no NDIS. You can see how providing 24/7 care for that long has had a great toll on their health now that they are in their 80s. With the NDIS A can live independently with supports, she has completed some studies and has support workers to get her around. Can you imagine D and P’s relief, knowing that when they are gone, their daughter will have support to live a meaningful, dignified and safe life. This is now what’s under threat by this new Bill. Imagine taking community supports away from A – back again, isolated at home and hidden, except her parents are too old and disabled to look after her anymore.
Conclusion
We all want a disability system that works and lasts. But it must work for people. The disabled community needs to be involved in co-designing major changes, cuts need to be thoughtful and not hurt the most vulnerable people in our society.
We need to get the balance right. Supporting people, protecting jobs, and keeping our communities strong.
I look forward to the senate committee considering these concerns and wish you all the best with your important work.
With kind regards