National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2875
I am a 39-year-old female who has been an NDIS participant since 2024, accepted for ASD 2.
There is so much wrong with the proposed legislation.
One which would affect me is the proposal to suspend participants who are “uncontactable” and then remove them from the Scheme. I have experienced at least twice, receiving an email from the NDIS saying that they tried to contact me, when I have in fact been holding my phone in my hand for the last hour at least, and there was no such contact made - they simply lied. Not only that, but I have expressed my need for written communication on multiple occasions, which is not accommodated. They do this to participants who are on the Scheme for total deafness, or who are non-verbal, and a host of other issues which makes phone calls difficult. They also spring phone calls on you at any time - and when you say you need a support person present, tell you, oh you don’t need that. And then they ask leading questions to try to trick you into answering so they can justify cutting your funding. Just like police used to get away with - telling people they don’t need a lawyer and then manipulating them into confessing to something they didn’t do. So a lot of people are told by their supports to never answer the phone when it is the NDIS. This proposal is basically forcing participants to allow the NDIS to cruelly manipulate and trick them and not be able to protect themselves. And not to mention, disabled people are often in hospital - what if they are simply not able to answer the phone because they’re barely conscious and having repeated surgeries? If this proposal was allowed to happen, I could easily end up suspended or removed because I want to have a support person present as a witness and to help make sure I am not tricked, and they may call at a time when this is not available.
Another is that we have to maintain invoices for several years. This was OK for me when I was self managed, as I received the invoices and paid them, and uploaded them to the portal to get reimbursed. But they forced me to be plan managed, and now I never even see the invoices. Why am I expected to maintain documentation that I never had in the first place? Also, if a participant is agency managed, a provider could submit all the fake invoices they want and drain their funding. Now several years later they get asked where are these invoices - of course the participant doesn’t have them as they never received them. So the participant has to pay for the provider fraud? How is that fair? For me, as I am plan managed I don’t have the invoices so what am I meant to do in several years when I get asked about them? You should only have to maintain documentation if you yourself as the participant are self managed and uploaded the invoices yourself to the portal.
Another is they are reducing the powers of the tribunal. So limiting oversight of an external body allowing them to do whatever they want. Where have we seen this before? Dictators don’t like having oversight. I am at ART right now. It is ridiculous that the only powers the tribunal would be able to have with this legislation is telling the bench to apply the same bad assessment process again.
Another is that finances and geographic location is no longer a reason a treatment is not available. So it’s OK that someone might have no access to treatment, and now they can’t get NDIS support, so they are expected to just …..die? There could at least be a provision that the available treatment
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
has to be Medicare subsidised to be consideredSubmissionavailable2875 (if removing the financial aspect - so at least the safety net will apply), and there should be a payment available to pension recipients which could help them with travel and accommodation for treatments which are not available where they live. If they choose to not take advantage of that, that’s one thing, but if they literally no actual way to get this treatment, and that is the reason they are denied access - that is horrific and cruel. There is a reason Medicare is available to everybody - all human being deserve the right to access medical care. And support to live when they are disabled. But this proposal means some will no longer be able to.
And the automated assessments - so bad!!! We need actual professional allied health to determine our support needs. In my own case, my OT spent 6 months having various appointments with me to write her report. We did one in the community and the rest I traveled to her office (I am not going to pay for travel if I am able to travel to her). Only when we did an updated one for a reassessment request (as I was not given what I needed), and she had one appointment at my house, did a whole bunch of my needs come out, because she observed me in my environment and talked to my partner. I simply lacked insight into my own difficulties and didn’t even know they were things I should mention, and interpreted all her past questions as those things not being relevant. I am gifted intellectually, university educated, had the motivation to have all my needs captured so I could get the supports I needed, and the OT was on my side wanting the same thing, and I STILL wasn’t able to communicate a huge chunk of my needs! How is a random APS4 public servant with zero allied health training, following a script, going to be able to capture that? They’re not.
There is so much more but I don’t want to miss the deadline. I put this off until the last minute because this whole subject is so triggering and upsetting. I can’t believe it is a Labor government who is doing this. I voted based on believing they look after the vulnerable and are progressive etc, then they turn around and betray me. This sort of legislation should only be able to be proposed after an election where they have told the Australian public what they intend to do, so we can vote accordingly. I did not vote for this.