National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2875 - Supplementary Submission
Dear committee,
I understand submissions are closed but I was wondering if the committee could consider this question, as I don’t think I have seen anyone raise it.
Assuming these three points:
- Access will be based on a standardised test of capacity rather than whether a potential participant’s diagnosis appears on a certain list 2. A potential participant has to exhaust all treatments that could remedy/alleviate their health condition that gives rise to their impairments 3. A participant can only be funded for impairments which arise directly from the disability they met access requirements for
What happens when a potential participant has no health or disability diagnoses? Either because they haven’t been able to access the right medical care, or they have chosen to have no assessments done which would result in a diagnosis added to their health record, or they have asked their doctors to not officially record any diagnosis? Participants and potential participants who are alive currently will likely have most of their diagnoses discovered by now, and on their health record. However, if there is an incentive to not record diagnoses, then participants who have not yet been born (or who are currently very young) might not have anything recorded when they attempt to gain access to the Scheme.
Would point 2 mean that they can avoid being required to complete treatments they can’t access (due to financial or geographical barriers) because there is no medical diagnosis the Agency can point to which they have to attempt to finish treating first? Would the Agency require the potential participant to be assessed for medical conditions before they could meet access, and if so, what would happen if that requirement were to be disputed at the ART?
What would the SOP and budget look like if the Agency were to grant access to a participant with no diagnoses? Would the support needs assessment produce a budget and the SOP would not allow it to be spent on anything? Would the budget be zero? Or would the participant get a general disability recorded, like self-care or mobility, and would get a SOP based on that?
It seems strange that on the one hand the bill is claiming to make access fairer, because it will be based on a standardised test of capacity, rather than who can access expensive assessments. But on the other, you do have to have those assessments completed before you can gain access, because you need a disability to determine if you have exhausted appropriate treatments, and you need the assessments completed to be allowed to spend your budget on supports.
Also, Senator Steele-John was incredible throughout the entire thing. Smart as a whip, fierce as a tiger, not letting anyone get away with any BS, yet always polite and kind. What an absolute bloody hero (understatement of the century). If only the entire government could be full of Steele-Johns! I used to have little to no interest in politics, and always voted Labor, believing that they protected the vulnerable and weren’t influenced by big business. What a wake-up call this last 12 months has been. I did not even know they were not allowed to cross the floor - what is the point of voting for the individual candidate in your own electorate? It will be Greens and Independents from here on in, fully informed as to how every candidate has ever voted on anything.
I would have liked him to ask the Department at the end, what happens if the person with disability, who has managed to get themselves to and from the interview, gets the job and needs to ask for a reassessment from the Agency to get employment funding in their social & community participation
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2875 - Supplementary Submission
budget to allow them to actually work in the job? Is that going to be able to happen immediately, within a few days’ turnaround? I can’t imagine many employers are going to be content holding a position open for 90 days or more while they wait to find out if the person they chose for the job is going to ever be able to actually turn up.
Thanks for all your hard work,
(current NDIS participant)