Submission about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for
Future Generations) Bill 2026
I am writing my submission from two different lenses. Firstly, I am writing as a Speech Pathologist who has spent many years working with clients and families of clients with complex disability, sometimes funded under NDIS and sometimes privately funded. Secondly, I am writing as someone who experiences disability themselves, and who furthermore has several close personal connections with people with disability, including several NDIS participants.
I will be using templates that exist to support people with disability to express our thoughts on this bill in a manner that engages with some of the legal terminology relevant to the review. Everything within this submission matches my personal concerns regarding the bill, regardless of whether I have used others’ wording to help me express it.
I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. Unquestionably this Bill is too far-reaching to pass as it stands. At bare minimum I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds. However, I further believe that the entire perspective from which the bill attempts to address genuine issues of concern runs counter to the intent and function of the NDIS as something intended to provide support via “choice and control”.
This bill will seriously harm the NDIS as a program. It will impact participants negatively, it runs counter to NDIS’s stated intent to provide people with disability “choice and control” over their supports, and it will lead to yet more high-quality practitioners leaving the healthcare system due to compassion fatigue and workload stress. Several of its proposed changes directly contradict best practice in multiple healthcare fields.
Parliamentary Scrutiny and Transparency
The consultation period for the Amendment Bill is two weeks, which is insufficient to allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and communication needs. The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis says consultation should occur for a minimum of 30 days where possible.
The short timeline impacts me by forcing me to write this submission hastily, and without enough time to get all the thoughts I have about it down in a coherent way.
The short timeline also means many people who this issue affects have not had time to hear about it, formulate their responses, and provide a submission.
Furthermore, any NDIS participant with communication difficulties will need extra time to compose and create a response.
Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30 days.
Key decisions left to ministerial instruments, not law
The issue: The Bill allows Ministers to change who gets NDIS support (Schedule 1 Parts 8 and 9) and how much funding people receive (Schedule 1 Part 4; Schedule 3) by signing an instrument, without going back to Parliament. The rules that will determine critical eligibility thresholds (Schedule 1 Parts 1, 8 and 9) have not yet been written.
How this affects participants: The decisions that shape the lives of participants, whether they qualify for the NDIS and what supports they can access, could be changed without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny. Participants may not know supports or eligibility rules have changed until their plan is affected.
Decisions that directly affect participants’ lives and practitioners’ livelihoods will be made by ministers with no guarantee of adequate consultation with key stakeholders.
This affects me because I do not think I can bear to return to working as a Speech Pathologist again if clients and practitioners are going to constantly be screwed around by changes made by politicians who have either no understanding of or no compassion for the knock-on effects of their decisions. The helpless despair I have seen in clients whenever changes come though without proper community consultation cannot be understated, and is always mirrored by a helpless rage in those of us who are putting all of our efforts into supporting them. You will lose more professionals if this change goes through, and the ones you lose will be the ones who genuinely care about best practice.
The bare minimum of our democratic system is to ensure proper oversight and checks-and-balances for ministerial decisions. This change wants to take that away, and with it take away any hope for certainty, stability, or input from anyone who relies upon the NDIS.
Recommendation: Require that all decisions affecting NDIS eligibility and funding levels be made through primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, with mandatory advance notice to affected participants before any changes take effect.
Existing participants face narrower criteria and fewer rights to challenge decisions
The issue: The Bill changes the rules for existing NDIS participants and makes it harder to challenge some decisions about supports and funding. It also restricts when you can request a reassessment, removes review rights for automatic plan renewals, and makes funding reductions unreviewable (Schedule 1 Parts 1 and 8). Combined with restrictions on reassessment requests (Part 2), automatic plan renewals without review rights (Part 5), and unreviewable funding reductions (Part 4), existing participants face narrower criteria with significantly fewer avenues to challenge decisions about their supports.
How this affects participants: This does not protect participants already on the NDIS, who could be reassessed under stricter rules. If someone’s funding is reduced or their plan renewed automatically, they may have limited or no ability to challenge that decision. This could make it harder for people to get extra support when their circumstances or disability change.
This happened to a client of mine under a previous round of NDIS changes, and it was one of the most harrowing experiences of my career.
The client’s profile involved severe challenges with mental health (related to the client’s other disabilities), and their key necessary support in the opinion of every professional involved was psychology, without which there was the potential for serious danger. Review reports were written in which all professionals involved recommended an increase in psychology support and new funding for a support coordinator.
When the time came for the plan review, NDIS not only rejected the application for new funding, they utilised recent policy changes to drastically cut my client’s psychology funding. My client was
left with less support than before the review. My client and the family subsequently suffered harm as a direct result of the reduction of support.
Recommendation: Require a “no harm” safeguard ensuring no current participant loses access to supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.
Unreviewable ministerial power to cut funding across all support categories
The Minister can reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specified percentage through an instrument that cannot be challenged (Schedule 1 Part 4). This applies across all budget categories. Unspent funds will no longer carry over at plan renewal (Schedule 1 Part 5).
How this affects participants: A participant’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding could be cut without warning and without any right to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across plan periods for high-cost items will lose that ability entirely.
This affects me because whenever a right to review is taken away, the right for an individual’s circumstances to be taken into account is stripped away. Every client’s situation is different, and every client has different needs. This is why “choice and control” was the original intent behind NDIS in the first place. Without the opportunity to review decisions, the minister is liable to make many, many devastating mistakes of judgement without ever knowing the harm they have done – and without any opportunity to rectify or reverse it. On a personal level, being prevented by ministerial decisions from adequately supporting our clients or following best-practice guidelines feels devastating. Having no avenue for review feels hopeless. Clinicians who feel hopeless and devastated on a regular basis are clinicians who are liable to burn out or seek a career change.
Re: unspent funds: Some items or support require more funding than is made available in the gradual funding releases NDIS has been favouring. These high-cost items often represent overall value for money and huge impact in a client’s quality of life. If NDIS places barriers that prevent clients from saving for these items it will impact NDIS negatively overall, and bar clients from essential supports.
Recommendation: Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights before any funding reduction takes effect.
Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility
The issue: A person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, replaced by single eligible impairment consideration (Schedule 1 Part 3). The note that previously acknowledged environmental factors and other ineligible impairments could affect support needs will be removed (Schedule 1 Part 3).
How this affects participants: People with disability will need to prove their impairment cannot be treated before they access the NDIS. Once in the scheme, their supports will only be assessed against a single eligible impairment rather than their whole experience. A person’s individual circumstances will not be considered, including ability to pay for treatment, where they live or whether treatment is actually available to them.
This is the change that goes 100% against all healthcare best-practice recommendations.
As healthcare professionals, we are explicitly taught as part of our qualifications and regulatory standards that:
a) Disability is multifaceted and complex. b) It is necessary to take a person’s entire context into account in all treatment recommendations and decision making.
My most complex clients have always been the clients whose multiple less-individually-severe conditions combine to create severe functional disability. These clients almost never have one easy to-point-to cause for their difficulties. Instead, they have a cluster of related (or sometimes unrelated) conditions that combine to mean that their support needs are often greater than those of someone with a more easily identifiable (and NDIS-list approved) condition. Under this change, the clients who I know from practical professional experience require the most support would not meet NDIS criteria.
On a practical level, in terms of engaging with NDIS criteria for assessment purposes, this also presents an impossible dilemma when trying to capture a client’s profile in a report. How can I choose one disability to represent the whole of this client’s needs and circumstances? How can I do this knowing that my decision will go on to define how this client is assessed forever, even if one of their other conditions becomes more relevant as their circumstances change or fluctuate?
Furthermore, requiring clients to have “exhausted all other avenues” is draconian policy when individual circumstances are not taken into account. Here are some examples of what will happen if these changes go through:
-
A client has had a traumatic experience with a particular service or service provider in the past, and returning to that service would re-traumatise them. They are forced to return that service and prove it does not work if they wish to qualify for NDIS support.
-
A client has identified an NDIS-funded support that would be perfect for their needs. They must spend months and a lot of money trying alternatives they know will not work for them simply to tick NDIS’s boxes.
-
A client has tried other supports and is ready to go on NDIS. An assessment is done and an application is presented. NDIS denies them based on this bill’s change, despite the client having tried other supports. This decision cannot be appealed, as there is no oversight around what is considered “enough” other supports to have tried.
-
A client has not tried other supports as there are none available in their area. They apply to NDIS. The application is rejected because they cannot prove definitively that there is nothing available to them. They do not receive any support.
-
A client has identified a non-NDIS support that would be ideal. The service has a 1-2year waitlist. In the meantime they have no access to NDIS supports that would still be lifechanging, while they wait for the ideal service to be available.
-
A client cannot afford to pay privately for a service not offered on NDIS. NDIS services are also appropriate for the client. Due to this change, the client is left in limbo. The client receives no care at all.
-
A client has reason to believe that an available treatment will do them harm. NDIS requires them to attempt this treatment in order to qualify for NDIS support. Without NDIS support the client is unable to live independently/recover/maintain function. The
client is forced by NDIS to engage in a treatment that causes them harm, or else be denied access to supports they need to live with dignity.
Recommendation: Do not proceed with a requirement to exhaust “appropriate treatment” options – there are no safeguarding measures around participant harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity to access treatments.
Unvalidated functional capacity assessment tool risks misidentifying need
The issue: The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment.
The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disability, including those whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a point-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
How this affects participants: If the assessment tool does not accurately capture the full extent of a person’s disability, including needs that fluctuate or vary over time, a participant may be found ineligible or have their supports undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual experience.
Appropriate assessment is essential. On a personal level as someone with a fluctuating disability, some days I can do everything I want to do, and some days I am bed-bound. If the proposed I-CAN was done on one of my good days I would not qualify for NDIS. If the proposed assessment was done on one of my bad days I likely would. It would be impossible to tell my genuine eligibility without a different assessment process.
There is a requirement of health professionals to use validated assessments. This requirement should extend to NDIS as well.
Recommendation: Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disability, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
Supports cut before replacement system is ready
The issue: From 1 October 2026, the government has announced funding for social, civic and community participation supports will be cut by 50 per cent and capacity building daily activities by 10 per cent for all participants, reductions that will be implemented through the ministerial instrument power in Schedule 1 Part 4. The Foundational Supports system intended to fill that gap has no confirmed implementation date and is not yet operational.
How this affects participants: Supports that help participants connect with their community, build skills and maintain independence may be cut before anything exists to replace them, leaving carers
and families with greater responsibilities and no additional support. These supports are often what help people stay visible, connected and safe.
This matters to me on a personal level because how can I cut a client off from support they need if there is nothing there to replace me? All the progress they’ve made, the work we’ve done together, the changes they’ve made in their lives – gone.
Having gotten your life back and then having the carpet ripped from under you is the most devastating experiences you can have.
On a further practitioner level, this will devastate the allied health industry. If there aren’t jobs to replace the current NDIS-focussed industry, job opportunities will dry up and healthcare professionals will be forced to change careers. There will be an overall reduction in services available to anyone if adequate infrastructure is not in place.
Recommendation: Require that no reductions to community participation or capacity building supports take effect until Foundational Supports are fully operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those who will lose NDIS supports.