National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2970
Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberrandis.joint@aph.gov.auACT 2600
29 May 2026
Submission to the
Joint Standing Committee on the National Disability Insurance Scheme
I am not a current client of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but I am a resident of New South Wales who uses the public health system. I am concerned that cutting funds for disability care will have an adverse impact on the health system in general, as people living with disability require more acute care as a result of inadequate care in their day-to-day lives. There is already a problem in New South Wales where, as a result of a shockingly complex and slow-moving application process, people with disabilities have no option but to remain in hospital while they wait for essential care to be approved. This situation will only further deteriorate as people find themselves unable to access care through the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Like most people, I have friends and colleagues who are clients of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, or who help to provide care, as paid or unpaid workers, for people with disabilities. It has been very painful and upsetting to see people around me facing the unbearable stress of the threat of cuts to the care they rely on. People with disabilities and those who care for them deserve our care and respect. Any change to the National Disability Insurance Scheme should be co-designed with people with disabilities and people performing paid and unpaid care work. This has not happened.
It is particularly painful for me as a parent to witness the distress of other parents who are facing the threat of an increased, indeed in many cases impossible, unpaid care burden. This aspect of the proposed changes is deeply distressing. The intolerable suffering of families that will occur should support for families be reduced is entirely foreseeable. We all deserve good lives, with time for work, time for care, and time to pursue enjoyment. The parents of children with disabilities deserve these things just as much as I do.
Funds to the National Disability Insurance Scheme should not be cut. Any reforms to the scheme should be co-designed with people who disabled, their paid and unpaid frontline carers, and with health workers who are currently excluded from the approval process. This is the best way to avoid profiteering by unscrupulous businesses, and to ensure that people with disabilities can live good lives.