National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2946
To the committee secretary,
I’m writing to make a submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. I am an access worker and somebody who has close and treasured relationships with many disabled people — some NDIS participants, some not.
In my experience of knowing and working with many, many disabled people, I have found them to know what they need in order to live dignified and independent lives, and to be averse to the idea and the practise of using more resources than are necessary. Many have benefitted greatly from what the NDIS has allowed them to participate in. I have! The scheme has unquestionably been a way to support many disabled people to have self-determination, and to offer their treasured skills to their chosen areas of interest and expertise. It has not been perfect, but I believe the community has been very grateful for it.
For some, self-determination translates to living meaningfully connected lives where they can afford to do more than the bare basics of survival; they have support to participate in the kinds of activities non-disabled people might take for granted, or access services that are otherwise too overwhelming or exclusionary or expensive for them. They can work. They can develop the kinds of skills and networks and confidence that leads to work. They contribute to society in ways that are specific and valuable, that bring their own experiences to the table. We need their perspectives and we benefit from their influence, as disability can and does affect so many of us at different times in our lives.
For others, though, self-determination does relate most meaningfully to the basics of survival. It has reduced their isolation. It has given them agency. And it has liberated many from group homes where they have been unable to choose their support staff and therefore to ensure their access needs are met during daily activities like showering and eating. Their dignity, once denied to them — through dismissive group home staff, disturbingly chaotic environments and patronising, ignorant assumptions about their abilities — has been restored in life-changing ways. These participants are the least able to advocate for themselves and are most important to acknowledge as the government proposes to change the terms of NDIS access.
The government purports to follow a disability strategy based on the social model of disability. This is not a revolutionary model; it simply acknowledges the obvious correlation between a person’s environment and the kinds of things it enables or disables in their lives. Key pillars of the government’s own strategy are very clearly at risk if it accepts all of the changes that have been proposed to the NDIS.
The proposed changes do not reflect how disability works. Disability is not always permanent, and nor should it be. This proposed change creates an adverse logic; it needlessly entrenches disabling factors. Standardised measures of functional capacity disregard the expertise of highly trained medical and allied health practitioners. ‘Human services’ cannot function ethically when bureaucracy usurps medical expertise.
There are many other problems with the proposed changes. Many of them amount to shifting agency from individual participants to service providers under the guise of value for money. If there is a cost argument for such changes, they are undermined by the prevalence of fraud amongst larger, corrupt commercial NDIS providers (who exploit disabled people and ‘milk’ their plans) — and, it must be said, by the government’s shocking and nearly simultaneous announcement of $53bn over the decade to defense spending, which feasibly creates more instability, more refugees, and more trauma and physical injury/dismemberment, increasing the global prevalence of disability in wars this money contributes to. Disabled people should not have to suffer for the greed and avarice of businesses that strategise to exploit — or create — them.
It should be noted that carers, family members and friends of disabled people will be forced to cover — as best they can manage — what the government takes away. This will compound the social and economic own-goal of these proposed changes.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2946
I have heard from community organisations that they expect more visitation from disabled clients once their plans have been revised to exclude personal supports (such as the highly valuable, job creating social and community participation supports) and may instead fund group programs. The reality is that many will simply not be able to attend outside engagements for the loss of these supports that literally enable them to leave the house, afford transport and be supported to participate. It is not hard to see how this will precipitate a mental health crisis already driven by housing scarcity, cost of living pressures, the compounding discrimination towards the poor (such as the ‘Robodebt’ debacle) and a growing strain of eugenics found in populist political campaigns like the resurgent One Nation.
Cost savings can be found elsewhere, and punitive policy changes should target those widely known to exploit the system — not disabled participants. Moreover, disabled people should be given more of a say in how the scheme and its costs could be improved; disabled expertise is crucial in informing a response that will not result in a broader social and economic disaster caused by short-sighted budget line savings.
Ill-considered policy changes will ruin the lives of disabled people. They will wreak great suffering on some of the most vulnerable members of our communities. I strongly and earnestly urge you to consider that there are better, kinder ways to govern.
Kind wishes,