National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2898
I am a woman in my mid 40s who lives with severe mental illness. I have been an NDIS participant since 2016. I self-manage my supports and direct employ most of those workers. I work 12 hours/week as a support worker for people with complex communication needs. I volunteer leading a community group – this is my main access to community connection. The only family I have access to for support is my mother, 77.
Before I received support under the NDIS I was very isolated from the community and at high risk of suicide. I was only able to work (two days a week) and survive. It was difficult to leave the house. Weeks would go by where nobody other than my mother would ask me how I was. I had dealt with mental illness from age 18 as an intermittent condition. From 2008 this became severe and declined into permanent disability. As I became more unwell, my peers stopped including me; they were busy with their work and families. You become invisible.
When I was able to access NDIS support, I was able to gradually build a foundation for a new life. The support enabled me to see friends without being desperate and unstable, to join in on some community activities, and slowly to improve my quality of life. I felt like I was a citizen and that my country cared for me and believed that I had something to offer. Even with the support, it has been hard work to make progress. There are many barriers and challenges, but the support has enabled me to get past crisises, to stabilise and sometimes to grow.
I oppose this Bill. It is deeply flawed and will harm disabled people through the cuts to funding, Ministerial power grabs, faulty assessment processes and mass exclusions based on redefinitions that seek to erase certain types of severe and permanent disability from government responsibility. It will harm carers. If you remove our support to access the world you effectively take away our citizenship.
I am so saddened that, in the changes proposed to the NDIS, the government has given up on people with disability and decided that we are not worth having in public spaces and public groups and is reneging on the rights-based framework that originally underpinned the NDIS.
The Bill and its development undermine the rights and wellbeing of people with disability in Australia. We have been excluded from shaping the policies and decisions made about us. Also, the government has actively pursued communications and media strategies that insinuate that people with disability are fraudulent and undeserving. This is gaslighting, abuse and violence against us. Meanwhile – we are the people with the knowledge about how to make disability policy and services work. We know what works and how it could be more efficiently. We are the experts in inclusion, adaptation and resilience. Your policies will fail and it will cost this country enormously, and some people their lives.
Under this Bill, my plan will be slashed or I might find myself reassessed out of the NDIS. This would have huge implications for my wellbeing and my participation in the community. It is likely that losing supports means I can’t work anymore. Work is very important to mental health. I will have to withdraw from the community group that provides my main point of community connection. So instead of a citizen who is contributing through work and community services, you get an unwell person stuck in their home, with an increased suicide risk and an increased cost for hospital admission, and the burden of other chronic health concerns that come with isolation and inactivity.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2898
The cuts to support and reneging on a rights-based approach to disability have already impacted on how I feel and I am finding it hard not to retreat from relationships and activities, knowing the government and parts of the community see me as a burden and a waste of money.
I think that this is a crucial point for elected government representatives to stop and re examine their humanity and turn away from this destructive and dishonest path. Many lives hang in the balance. The things I and others have to offer our community as people with disability who are well supported matter and are of value.