Submission to the National Disability Insurance
Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for
Future Generations) Bill 2026
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
Submitted by portal and email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Date: 1st June 2026
I welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee
on Community Affairs about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
I am a family member and nominee of multiple NDIS participants in my family.
I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. This Bill is too far-reaching to pass as it stands. I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds.
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 not allowing sufficient time to really consider all areas of the bill and its impacts in depth.
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
- 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.
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How this affects participants: This directly affects my family because we have several children and young people with disability who rely on stable and predictable NDIS decisions, including children in kinship care, out-of-home care, early intervention and family care arrangements. If eligibility and support rules can be changed by ministerial instrument, families like mine may not know whether children with FASD, autism, global developmental delay, ADHD, trauma-related needs or complex developmental concerns will continue to receive the supports they need until their plans are already affected.
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 would affect my family because several children in our family already rely on NDIS supports or are trying to access them, including a child in kinship care with FASD, a child in out-of-home care with ASD Level 2, ADHD, trauma-related needs and other possible medical and developmental conditions, and a young child with global developmental delay whose family is now under pressure to pursue an autism diagnosis but didn’t have to before these proposed changes. If existing participants are reassessed under narrower criteria and funding reductions are harder to challenge, children with complex needs may lose supports even when their disability-related needs have not reduced.
Recommendation: Require a “no harm” safeguard ensuring no current participant loses access to supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent
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review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.
Unreviewable ministerial power to cut funding across all support categories
The issue: 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: This would affect my family because children with disability often need funding across multiple support categories, including early intervention, therapy, capacity building, community access, behaviour support and family/carer support. If funding can be reduced by a set percentage without review rights, children in my family could lose essential supports not because their needs have changed, but because a broad funding cut has been applied across the Scheme.
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: This would affect my family because many children with disability have complex, lifelong or developmental conditions that cannot be “treated away”, including FASD, autism, global developmental delay, ADHD, trauma related disability and suspected neurological or genetic conditions. Requiring families to exhaust treatment options before NDIS eligibility would create unfair barriers,
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especially where diagnoses take time, treatment is expensive or unavailable, or the child still needs disability supports regardless of medical treatment.
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: Appropriate assessment matters for my family because several children have complex and overlapping needs that may not be captured in a single point-in-time assessment, particularly children with trauma histories, communication difficulties, developmental delay, behavioural needs, possible epilepsy, FASD, autism or other suspected conditions. A tool that does not properly capture fluctuating, environmental or whole-of-child needs could undercount the support required and leave families, kinship carers and out-of-home care placements carrying risks the NDIS plan does not recognise.
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.
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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: This would affect my family because social, civic and community participation supports and capacity building supports are often what keep children with disability connected, regulated, included and progressing. Cutting these supports before Foundational Supports are actually operating would place more pressure on parents, kinship carers, foster carers and extended family, and could leave children with FASD, autism, developmental delay, trauma-related needs or early intervention needs without the supports that prevent isolation, regression and crisis.
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.
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