National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2913
Submission on the NDIS Amendment Bill – 1 June 2026
I request that my name is withheld from the published submission.
I am a:
Disabled person who is an NDIS participant. I have also been a carer for my partner who is an NDIS participant.
My concerns about this Bill:
I have a number of concerns with this Bill, however due to the incredibly short consultation time and the nature of living with a disability that severely affects my functional capacity, I cannot fully address all of these concerns.
Cuts to participant numbers: Arbitrary reductions in numbers of participants before the fully effective implementation of other programs (such as Thriving Kids and ‘Foundational Supports’) do not result in holistic budget savings. These needs don’t disappear and the costs emerge in other places including (but not limited to):
o public health system o mental health o criminal justice o child protection o homelessness o carer burnout o family breakdown
Autism rates and support needs: The NDIS must address the elephant in the room when it comes to ‘Autism’ and ‘low to moderate support needs’, that their own data is unrepresentative of the true scale of disability.
o Many of the participants accepted for autism have had their access for other disabilities declined or insufficiently recognised. Local Area Coordinators (LACs) regularly advise participants that they must list Autism as their ‘primary disability’ or even discourage applicants from listing other disabilities at all.
o Via online support groups, I have witnessed the stories of 100s of people who are bed and wheelchair bound with conditions such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS), Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) and other related conditions. These people are some of the most functionally impaired people I know, requiring assistance with the basics of toileting, eating and mobility. However, they have only been accepted for Autism and receive severely insufficient funding to support daily living
Impairments: The bill’s attempts to pigeonhole supports to only impairments that meet access doesn’t reflect the reality of life for multiply disabled people where environment and personal circumstances also impact support needs
o The idea of ‘primary disability’ which NDIA enacts in practice is a made-up concept. In real life, people have often have multiple disabilities, whose impairments impact them in intersectional ways. It is a practical impossibility to separate the impacts of impairments, and it is generally the case that people with co-morbidities experience more complexity and increased overall impairment and need. The whole person must be considered.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2913
Cutting support categories: Broad powers to cut support categories without consideration of individual need represent a high risk to people’s safety and rights to inclusion in social and community life.
o In my own case, I receive 5 hours a week of community access. On average it takes 3 hours for an ‘outing’ for me. If my funding is cut by 50%, I am likely to be unable to leave the house more than once a week.
o I use this support to access vital services like my health appointments. I have already experienced several ‘emergency’ health issues that only occurred due to my reduced capacity to attend to routine health issues in a timely manner. The proposed reduction means more risk to me (and costs to the health system) for emergency hospital visits.
o After 4 years of being predominantly housebound, I have recently been taking tentative steps towards participating in some community activities. Without an appropriately trained support worker to assist with my mobility impairments (including using a wheelchair), I am unable to leave the house. The proposed reduction means I can’t attend a social activity and an appointment in the same week, creating a further risk to my already severe social isolation.
Plan reassessment: Legislating limits on when participants can request a reassessment of their plan creates a risk when participants have not been funded appropriately in the first place or were not reviewed when their plan was due.
o In my own case, I recently received a letter from NDIA stating they would continue my plan without a review as they ‘can see my plan is working for me’. o I am approaching the end of my first year on the scheme. My first plan was significantly underfunded as the planner determined my Occupational Therapist report was too old (18 months) to assess my support needs. I was provided funding for a new functional capacity assessment and instructed to lodge a change of circumstances request when I received it. o No one from NDIA has contacted me since the day my plan was issued. If they had, they would know that it has taken 8 months on a wait list to see a suitably experienced OT for my disability and we are still finalising the report. That I was underutilising my funding for the first 7 months as it took time find the right support workers. That I didn’t use all of my capacity building therapy because I was too exhausted with trying to recruit and train new support workers. o My plan will rollover shortly and when NDIA eventually get around to reviewing my reports, I will be considered an unscheduled reassessment, even though I should have been reviewed when my plan was due and there has been no change in my circumstances of the kind that has been suggested as a reason as part of the bill. o Under the proposed changes I would be excluded from requesting a reassessment.
Concluding statement:
I urge the committee to recommend against passing the bill in its current form and request that the government commits to:
genuine co-design with disabled people a proper risk assessment of any proposed changes and a full economic assessment that considers cost across systems and government levels.