Submission 2981 — Barbel Winter — NDIS Future Generations Bill | External submission

futures UPFRONT

PO Box 882 Marrickville NSW 1475

ABN 92 105 980 924

Committee Secretary

Senate Standing Committees on Community Affairs

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future

Generations) Bill 2026

community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au

31 May 2026

Dear Committee members,

Thank you for the opportunity to provide a submission to this inquiry.

It is difficult to know where to start. There are so many elements in this Bill that are simply wrong. They are either based on no or little understanding about the lives of people with disability in Australia, or are based on false understandings on how the NDIA works for people with disability.

Yet, I want to limit my submission to 3 points

I want to speak to the erosion of the social consensus that was once shared around the NDIS. Over especially the last few years the current Government and the right-wing media have done their utmost to undermine and destroy this consensus. The focus on fraud and the constant reference to either people with disability or, mostly independent, providers being fraudsters has now settled into the consciousness and the everyday understanding of many Australians. This campaign has led to those groups being largely blamed for the failures of the NDIA.

I understand people with disabilities now experience regular abuse in public from people who see them as fraudsters- simply receiving supports to do the things that every other Australian takes for granted is now perceived the be fraudulent.

The responsibility for this abuse sits clearly with the Labor government. Minister Bulter and others must be held to account for the erosion of the social contract around the NDIA. Please do not pretend that this was anything other than a diversion from a focus on system that failed to deliver the intended outcomes for people with disability. instead of looking at the causes of the budget blowout, it is now people with disability who are blamed for the failure of the NDIS and it is people with disability who are asked to pay the price.

I am extremely concerned about the powers given to the Minister in this legislation. Removing oversight by Parliament, removing external review mechanisms and other undermining elements, makes the NDIS and ultimately people with disability vulnerable to the whims not only of this Minister and this government, but future governments and future ministers, this budget cycle and the next one, this scare campaign and the next one.
The dangers of a Minister having too much power is already playing out in the proposal to reduce funding allocations for social and community participation. This move will further isolate and marginalise already isolated and marginalised people. I have been working in the NDIS and in the disability sector for a very long time and I do not know of any scheme that has contributed more to the isolation and marginalisation of people with disability in their day to day life then the implementation of the rules and guidelines around funding for social and community participation by the NDIS.

I know of so many people who used to access and participate in ordinary community events and community activities. The implementation of strict rules and guidelines so that funding can only be used only for disability specific services and supports has trapped people in day programs and other specific programs for people with disability when previously they were accessing local choirs, local yoga classes, local community colleges.

Instead of fostering inclusion, the NDIS has contributed to further social isolation and marginalisation. And now, without really looking at how social community participation funding could be utilised more effectively, the funding will be cut. Those who have the least resources, no family, no community outside their group home, day program or other segregated setting will be further marginalised and trapped in their segregated home. This is retrograde and takes us back many, many years and in the long term it will cost more money because, as all the evidence shows, further marginalisation and segregation ultimately add only to the costs.

All I can see is that this bill is taking us back many, many years. To dangle a carrot for 10 years in front of people with disability saying you are a valuable member of the community, saying your human rights are important, your quality-of-life matters and you’re valuable and then withdrawing the carrot is unbelievably cruel and simply unconscionable.

Many people will make submissions. They will focus on the detail and how that detail impacts people. I don’t believe I can add anything to the expertise shared in those submissions. I urge you, the committee members, to take the stories of people with lived experience and their families as testimony to how wrong this bill is and why it cannot become Law.

Thank you for the opportunity and may your deliberations lead to a more just, equitable and fairer Australia.