National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2980
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for
Future Generations) Bill 2026
25 May 2026
I write to object to the NDIS Future Generations Bill 2026 in its current form.
While I support measures that ensure long-term scheme sustainability, this Bill introduces significant structural changes that risk undermining participant safety, procedural fairness, individualised decision-making, and the foundational principles of choice and control.
My primary concerns are as follows:
- Expanded Ministerial Powers and Reduced Oversight The Bill allows funding reductions, support caps, and operational rule changes to be made through legislative instruments with limited parliamentary scrutiny and restricted review rights.
Any decisions that are made about participants funding need to be individually assessed to the participants circumstances. A one fit all approach is dangerous and will only cause serious harm to many.
-
Narrowing of Reasonable and Necessary Supports The proposed amendments introduce a more restrictive interpretation of disability-related need, including the insertion of “directly” into the reasonable and necessary test and an increased reliance on financial sustainability as a dominant decision-making factor. This risks excluding legitimate support needs arising from interacting disabilities and complex functional presentations.
-
Risk to Participants with High and Complex Support Needs Percentage-based reductions to social and community participation funding fail to recognise that for many participants this funding is essential for safety, supervision, behavioural support, communication assistance, and prevention of hospitalisation or carer breakdown.
If my clients do not have the appropriate social and community participation funding they will face isolation, environmental restrictions and their mental health will decline. I see a major improvement in overall health when participants have more access to social outings therefore keeping them off the Medicare system.
- Disproportionate Burden on Self-Managers and Nominees Reduced claim windows, strict record-keeping penalties, and automatic debt provisions create unreasonable administrative risk for participants and families who self-manage in good faith.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 2980
I respectfully call on the Committee to recommend amendments that:
- Preserve participant merits-review rights
- Remove or amend restrictive eligibility and treatment provisions
- Retain the whole-of-person reasonable and necessary test
- Maintain timely reassessment pathways, including emergency review mechanisms
- Require genuine disability-sector co-design and consultation
- Limit automated decision-making until enforceable safeguards are in place
- Ensure financial sustainability does not override individual assessed need
- Protect participants with complex support needs from blanket funding reductions
- Saving money If the Government wants to save money in the system they could start with the below
Stop repetitive report requirements for ongoing long-term disabilities Create a more efficient system for approving assistive technology supports without requiring excessive reports. Less reviews for ongoing long term disabilities Lower the tax rate of disability business to allow more investment in better programs to get more people in group, based programs that meet there needs
The NDIS must remain a rights-based insurance scheme grounded in individualised support, not a fiscally constrained administrative system that shifts risk onto people with disability and their families.
The proposed Bill requires substantial amendment before passage to ensure sustainability is achieved without compromising participant safety, dignity, and access to necessary supports