Submission 2823
NDIS Submission
When I say “bill”, I am referring to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
There is so many things I could say about the cruelty and unreasonableness of this NDIS “sustainability” bill. About legislation that allows for powers that cannot be questioned. And allowance to change rules at anytime. That has hollow shells of what will happen without any detail of how it will be implemented e.g. Thriving Kids and tools for reassessment. The government is asking us to trust it when it has never treated NDIS people very well. Never trusted experts in their field who know the person with a disability. Planners clearly rarely read the reports. The constant uncertainty of plan reviews every year is debilitating and now they’re legislating to even change plans without warning, not just at the end of a plan.
However, I do not have time to talk or research about so many of the changes proposed. So I will just talk about a few. And even then, I cannot possibly cover all the implications and concerns.
In 2018 the Bureau of Statistics reported that one in 6 people in Australia had a disability. They also found that one in three people with a disability had a severe or profound disability. So about 6% of the population have a severe disability and need daily help with everyday tasks or health care. The government cannot claim it didn’t know so many people would need the NDIS.
The original NDIS pillars were a human rights model of choice and control by the participants themselves, individualised support that emphasised inclusion, participation, rights, dignity and independence. This new direction by the government emphasises sustainability, eligibility restriction, standardisation and surveillance and shifts from paid supports to informal supports. The funding for supports outside of the NDIS is very small and doesn’t exist yet. The need for support does not disappear just because there is no support offered. Where is the research on how other services will be able to pick up and supply support? The hospitals, schools, Medicare and society are not ready yet. People will lose jobs, housing, have poorer mental health, physical health and must rely on unsafe people as supports. It is impossible for me to let you know the enormity of this. The productivity Commission said the NDIS would grow the economy while increasing the safety and autonomy of people with a disability. Dismantling people’s autonomy and access to services will have very negative flow on effects in society and economically.
Very concerning that the government commissioned and followed the findings of the Redbridge 2023 report on how to make cuts to the NDIS palatable to the Australian community. As a participant it is almost impossible to rort this system. Organised crime might be doing that. But a person with a disability is just hoping to get reasonable necessary assistance to live their lives. To get into the ndis a person with a disability has to prove a very high level of disability and permanence. It is disrespectful to keep expecting that that
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disability may have changed or significantly improved in a year. People with a disability have very little power to make money from the NDIS compared to providers.
Some challenging of providers charging NDIS participants much higher than the rate they charge other people should be stopped. My cleaner is paid half of what is charged to the plan. Admin are not working that hard making bookings and invoices. Most of that gap is profit. Hence the owner of the company has become a multimillionaire in just five years.
It concerns me greatly that public money, people’s taxes, are being transferred into large amounts of profit for providers. Before the NDIA most services were from government departments. This bill is clearly trying to return to institutions providing care but now many of the institutions are private for-profit providers.
The most expensive part of the NDIS is supported accommodation. And yet the new bill is not looking at that very much. It seems to leave all that alone except not letting participants out in the community as much. It is focussing on cutting out many participants who are not in this category.
Supported Accommodation is increasingly looking like and funded like the old system. This bill encourages segregated and provider controlled, institution like care by cutting the supports that let people live freely in the community. The bill is supporting the big business profitable providers. And not the small business providers that work with individuals. Residents are expected to fit what is offered even if the rules are not at all homelike.
It is clear to me that this supports the people who are making a great deal of money from running Supported Disability Accommodation and Supported Independent Living enterprises. Privatisation of government assets and services has been going on since the 1990s. Originally the NDIS was only part of this process because choice and control of where the money was spent and how It was spent was up to participants and their nominees. This bill is reducing choice and control by participants and returning power to for-profit organisations. There are clear moves to make supported accommodation controlled and highly standardised accommodation. To have rigid rules that meet the provider not the participants needs. Where the residents must fit in with the rules. It is not home if you cannot access your “home” to sleep after 11:00 PM. It is not home if you cannot choose who you live with. Or decorate the walls. Or have friends over. Or only eat at certain times and only what is offered.
People with a disability are not one class who can all live together; three people to a house. They are hugely varied just like everyone else plus they have a disability which makes them even more unique. Expecting that one type of accommodation will fit all is not going to work and is a return to institutional care in another expensive form That will make the owners and corporations rich. With a closed market net prices of supported accommodation can go up and up. There is no competition. The cost of the NDIS will rise from the supported accommodation sector alone. This is where big business Is already making big profits well reducing participants choice and control.
Users of supported accommodation should always be encouraged to have support workers from a different company then the one that supplies the lodging. If there are issues it is
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incredibly important and unsafe to lose your lodging and your support workers at the same time.
There are many people in supported accommodation who do not have a nominee or a guardian and are not able to speak for themselves to ask for a plan review. The proposed legislation would not allow any plan review if the person does not speak for themselves or have a nominee or guardian. This will lead to some people with a disability trapped in supported accommodation without review or true representation for the rest of their lives.
The planned cut to all social and community participation budgets hurts every person with a disability who has social and community participation in their budget. and seems to be a direct attack to make them not seen and not heard as we often were before the NDIS. Some groups of disabilities will suffer more than others. Persons with a disability who need support to run a small business or a micro enterprise will have to shut their businesses. Blind People and people with low vision will also lose more than other groups by reducing community access. There is value to all of society in being inclusive and showing that everyone belongs and are seen in the community.
It is incredibly dishonouring of professional expertise to assume that functional capacity assessments from a professional who knows the person with a disability should somehow be discounted when making a new plan. Many if not most participants experience that expensive allied health reports from practitioners who know the person are not used by planners and not even read. This distrust by the NDIS of expertise of allied health is also reflected in the plan to create new Framework Planning by assessors who have only been trained for six weeks and meet the participant for a short time. Many participants can present well for short time. Society and schools and parents have worked very hard to encourage good presentation for short times. Participants also want to present well even if they cannot sustain it. Trained allied health practitioners who know the participant are the most useful in clarifying what participants need for support.
Robodebt was a disaster for its participants. We need safeguards around automated decision making of plans and assessments.
The plan for thriving kids shows a complete misunderstanding of the nature of autism. Autism is primarily differences in being able to socialise and communicate as well as other things. Each autistic person is very unique. If you know one person with autism you know one person with autism. Requiring these kids to access supports in places where they have to communicate and socialise will not work. People without autism like to communicate and socialise to solve problems. People with autism learn better when not overwhelmed by social demands. There are many young people with autism even in junior primary who cannot attend school or childcare centres because of their behavioural differences. If the family is not already engaged with childcare or schooling they will not be able to access Thriving Kids. The whole Thriving Kids plan will also mean more kids end up in foster care. There are many parents who cannot learn and change how they parent. Thriving kids assumes a parent wants advice and can apply it. It also ignores that many children, parents and families are already stretched with the enormous pressures to go to work, pay the rent, keep kids in school and
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having lives. They may have issues like domestic violence or be carers to their own parents. They may not be motivated to learn new things. They may be abusing drugs and alcohol. Schools and teachers already have too many responsibilities. This also is the complete opposite of what the original NDIS was built on. Early intervention was considered essential to reduce the need for supports later.
Having advice support and intervention from an expert in the field directly relevant to the disability of the person is invaluable. This is a primary positive difference from the old system. Thriving Kids takes this away.
Also many people could not possibly pay any copayments if co-payments are required with Thriving Kids. When they brought in 20 subsidised Medicare sessions with a psychologist for children diagnosed with autism, I could not afford to make the copayments because I was on parenting payment single and needed to feed my children.
Historically women did the wrap around care for family members so they would present well in the world. This was unpaid and largely unrecognised. And in the past, it was possible to manage a family on a single income. Also, many people with a disability were largely hidden within the family or in institutions.
Please note most of the workers in the NDIS are women. Many of them in casual or part-time work. This change in direction back to more restriction and invisibility of disabled people will also impact women’s employment. Traditionally and even in current practise women are more likely to do the unpaid labour of care and be unable to work because of it. The withdrawal of women from the economy to do the unpaid labour is a great loss to society as well.
Also many professionals in allied health are women and my leave the sector if they have to work for nonprofit organisations which may have less flexibility around work hours then the women had as sole providers. So much expertise could be lost from the sector.
About what should occur at the end of a plan it is essential that any one-off grants particularly for equipment be allowed to carry over to the new plan. For example, if a wheelchair has been ordered and money was put aside for it, that money should be carried over into the new plan to cover the purchase. Even things like money to help people transition out of school into work may need to crossover several plans.
The proposed NDIS power under s 34A allows the minister to cut funding from any support category by legislative instrument with no review rights. To have such huge power without consultation or review is extreme and unwarranted.
Many people cannot afford to exhaust all medical options before they access the NDIS. A clerk should not be saying you should try this medical option or surgery if the person’s doctor is not recommending it. Do not allow the NDIS to only be accessed by the rich.
Sustainability could be an issue for other government departments like Defence. Maybe big business and the companies extracting gas could be asked to be sustainable and pay a fairer
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share of taxes. The NDIS employs approximately 350,000 Australians directly or indirectly. Any cuts to the NDIS will also reduce the taxes paid by those employed by it.
There must remain a right of appeal. That the NDIA lose so many cases at the ART shows how poorly they are treating participants currently even within the present rules. No government department should ever run unchecked and unaccountable, particularly when working with vulnerable people.
Constantly shifting the the rules and requirements of the ndis for providers and participants is exhausting and terrible for our mental and physical health. No wonder good providers leave. Many people do not have the time energy or capacity to challenge a decision. That is bureaucratic abuse.
People with a disability will suffer some of the biggest cuts on record while the wealthiest in society lose some tax breaks.
This bill will have very cruel consequences. Outrageous government would choose to effectively bully its vulnerable people. People with a disability are generally easy to bully. Participants are not numbers on a spreadsheet. They are human beings, real people. Choice and control and community access should never be part of budget cuts and will lead to isolation, unemployment and some deaths.
Good governance is built on transparency, procedural fairness, accountability and the rule of law. I ask all senators to uphold these principles when they consider how they vote for this bill or any changes to it.