National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2791
Dear Community Affairs Legislation Committee,
I am writing as somebody deeply concerned about the proposed NDIS legislative changes currently before Parliament. I am specifically writing about concerns about the functional capacity test especially for those with fluctuating and psychosocial disabilities; assumptions about informal supports being able to fill the gap and intersectionality of various disabilities interacting. I believe this bill needs further consideration else it is sending to a message to the wider Australian society that people with disability don’t deserve careful consideration for policy relating to them and the fact that many people with a disability already face multiple barriers in education, employment and for wider participation in society.
I am also concerned from a political standpoint about the scapegoating of people with a disability (new “dole bludgers”, migrants and assylum seekers in politics) and society’s current treatment and beliefs associated with disabled people that we don’t strive to get well or to make a contribution to society and that of others who do not want to deal with us in a work situation preferably.
As a person with a disabilities which fluctuates in impact at times; I am rather concerned about how this functional capacity test will impact those in particular with psychosocial disabilities as different specialists can have different opinions and there is no quantitative test; just lens of various different criterion which can be interpreted depending on clinicians’ relative weighting of certain facts or presentation on a particular day.
Any automation of assessing people’s needs and in creating NDIS plans is incredibly worrying; from my understanding of machine learning/AI any such automation is only good as the data used to trained the model; using statistics and “black boxes” which cannot be queried regarding which statistics or activation functions using which particular data points are put together. Everyone is unique so are we saying disabled people just fall into “cookie cutter” categories and the concept of intersectionality is just disregarded.
I am very concerned about the assumption about there being capacity from family or friends to pick up the short fall. For instance, my parents are in their 70s interstate and my only sibling has a 7 month old baby so I’m certainly not his priority at the moment. I feel like people with disability are becoming the new “dole bludgers”, migrants, refugees and other marginalised groups which have been blamed throughout history for political purposes because it’s an easy target.
I would also add that several years back I was incredibly disheartened with people advertising gaming groups, art therapy and all these “fun” activities for NDIS. As someone who had reduced courseloads and missed semesters at University due to depression flareups at various times; I just wanted to talk to someone about academic things which is outside the domain of the NDIS. When I contacted tutors and I said I was currently not enrolled in any subjects at University but enrolled in a program but no upcoming assignments or exams the most common response was “What’s the Assignment?” Like I must have an assignment because that’s all what tutoring is for - just getting good marks. So I don’t think you can expect alternatives to spring up for disabled people when ordinary people don’t get why someone would what to talk about academic topics unless in the context of immediate assessment.
I would also add that my experiences working at a place that develops policy for “safer, healthier and more productive workplaces” say that people don’t want disabled people in “their backyard” and they don’t need to listen to anything a disabled person say as we are “somewhat stupid” and they attempted disability discrimination by giving an earlier deadline despite all other employees having one 5 months later. This is despite mentioning a family member without a disability works in the relevant disability section of a particular Jurisdiction on several occasions and in a 2025 email specifiying my attendance at an event about the Attorney General Department’s Review of the 1992 Disability Discrimination Act. Disabled people are not necessarily stupid.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2791
In regard to disabled people not necessarily being stupid - for the record; I did get a prestigious Undergraduate Scholarship to one of the Group of Eight Universities when I completed Year 12 (which I lost due to my disability increasing in impact). Unfortunately, in the January I started Year 12; a friend and her younger sister (who I also knew) died in a roadworks highway accident which also with other predisposing factors contributing to my developing of a psychosocial disability. This disability cannot be treated with the usual medications due to a 1 in 1000 adverse reaction to that class of medications. One also cannot control factors such as genetics or epigenetics which may contribute to risk of developing certain medical conditions which are complex traits as termed in statistical genetics.
I am also concerned about only a primary disability being counted in the NDIS bill. Intersectionality of various parts of one’s identify means that the sum of the parts is greater than the sum of the individual parts. For instance, I believe that I may not have developed a psychosocial disability if I had not had Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 as I wouldn’t have been less likely to retreat into myself regarding the triggering event of unexpected grief and would have had stronger interpersonal communication skills as at the time I rarely initiated conversations (in-person or real-time online). However, this is a really mild trivial example.
Finally, I had viral encephalitis when I was 2 years 4 months old, I also had autistic traits (which did not meet Aspergers Syndrome then but now meet the current criteria of Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1) and a developmental delay. I was incredibly fortunate that I had university-educated, baby boomer (One of which went to Uni before Gough Whitlam brought in Free Education on Scholarships from the State Government for a particular vocation) parents in their late thirties/early forties who had already paid off their home in the outer suburbs of a capital city; probably developed great saving habits due to their parents living through the great depression.
My mother who didn’t not work until I entered Grade 3 devoted her time to me but that was because the State Education Department brought in a 7 years no questions asked non paid leave (when I was a baby ) so they could employ new Teaching graduates as demographics showed an increased need for teachers in around 7 years time. The State Education Department needed to be able to employ new teachers so they would have future teaching capacity so my mother had job security.
My parents paid for speech therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy and other various activities to remedy my low muscle tone, coordination problems such as not being able to walk through a door straight; my brain not recognising signals from the lower part of my body hence delayed toilet training et cetera not even looking to try to get any governmental assistance at that time probably due to the attitudes of their generation. Not everyone is so fortunate to have these situations so I am not sure the Thriving Kids initiative to pull people from the NDIS is the right policy decision for all kids and we are creating a society with “haves and have-nots”.
I didn’t make the decision to apply for NDIS; it was the clinicians from the State Health (I don’t think the State Health would do this to every person that passed through their doors) made it a “fait accompli” and made me sign the forms for them to submit the documentation; my parents did not instigated it and didn’t want to get any government support for me as that is not what my family does.
I ask the Community Affairs Legislation Committee to consider my lived experience (despite coming from a privileged background [though with working class grandparents] due to my parents’ economic situation when growing up) and the points I raised in this letter when reviewing this Bill as well as the implications that the Australian taxpayers will make about disabled people’s role in society.
Kind regards, C W