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

Date: 01/06/2026

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 carer of an NDIS participant.

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 as I have very little time between working, looking after my children, one of who is disabled and takes up much of my time.

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.

It is already difficult enough to navigate the system as a parent with a disabled child without things like eligibility and funding changes being made without us knowing. We start planning for our next plan, getting reports and other documents together months in advance of our plan ending. It would be extremely difficult to manage if the goal posts keep changing and it will probably lead to my son not receiving the support he needs because we don’t have the correct documentation together.

I also don’t feel comfortable that changes to such important legislation can be made without the input of all stakeholders. I feel this could lead decisions being made that are not in the best interests of disabled people and their families and instead be made solely for financial reasons (for example).

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.

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

dispute 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.

My son’s disability is fluctuating in nature and there will be many reasons that we

may need to re-assess his plan. Restrictions on when we can ask for a

reassessment will likely lead to my son not having the supports he requires when he

requires them.

I spent months fighting for the funding my son required for his last plan, we went

through the ART process and ended up being given most of what we asked for

because it was determined that the planner got it wrong when she denied those

supports and my son actually did require them and was eligible to receive them. Of

the more than 6000 decision reviews that went to the ART from July last year, 65%

were changed by the ART. That means that the planners get plans wrong extremely

often, and to have no way to appeal those decisions or get them checked is going to

put participants at a big disadvantage and reduce the integrity of the NDIA.

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.

3

Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the

NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

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.

We fought hard to get my son the funding that he currently has because he NEEDS it! If any of his supports were just suddenly taken away it would very much affect the quality of his life. It would not only halt the progress he has been making but would cause him to regress. The support team my son currently has have taken months to build relationships with my son to get him to the point where he feels safe enough to participate in therapies and engage with a support worker. If we lost funding suddenly then all that relationship building would have to happen again before my son could re-engage in the future.

If this power is granted to the minister without any checks and balances in place, then it opens the NDIA up to corruption and its integrity will be ruined.

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, heir 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.

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

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.

My son’s disability for access to the NDIS is Autism, but he also been diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety and many of these symptoms overlap and/or can make his autism symptoms worse. I don’t think any automated tool is going to be able to determine whether his reduced functional capacity is coming from ADHD or anxiety and which solely are a result of his autism and the risk for error is extremely high. Autism causes fluctuating capacity, which will not be able to be captured by this automated system and so it will be likely that my son will not receive the support he needs during times of low capacity.

A similar tool used in the aged care sector has recently been suspended due to it not working to accurately determine the needs of the elderly. If any such tool is going to be used it will need to be thoroughly tested with independent reviews and the capacity to appeal the decisions it makes. Don’t forget about the harm that ROBO Debt inflicted on vulnerable people in our community!!

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

Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility

• 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.

My son has just started to be able to gain some independence and access the community safely due to receiving funding for social, civic and community participation supports in his latest plan (which I had to fight hard to get for him). The amount he receives is already the bare minimum he needs and it is still not enough to be able to access the community on the same basis as his non-disabled peers.

Any reductions are going to absolutely negatively affect his quality of life. Arbitrarily cutting the support across the board does not take into consideration individual needs, some people may be able to replace 1:1 support worker support with other supports, but some (like my son) will not. I don’t see any replacement “foundational” supports being able to replace the support he receives from a 1:1 support worker.

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.

7

Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility