National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3016
Submission on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
I am an able-bodied friend, daughter and colleague to disabled people, and a community justice sector worker committed to solidarity with disabled people in seeking justice, freedom and choice. I am also well aware that, like all able-bodied people, I could become disabled at any time. Justice for disabled people is therefore not an abstract ideal but a material necessity that benefits everyone. The NDIS Amendment Bill and the broader NDIS reforms associated with it are underpinned by an austerity approach that is fundamentally opposed to true inclusion and will cause real harm to people. I am deeply concerned with the changes proposed in the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment Bill, and ask that the Government withdraw it and instead engage in genuine, sincere consultation with disabled people about how to meet their needs.
My main concern about this Bill is that it will cause harm to both those on the NDIS currently, as well as the many people who need desperately need support but are not receiving it. People on the NDIS, and those who need support but have not yet been deemed eligible for it, are already facing extremely difficult circumstances. Any proposed amendment that represents an increased burden to them, or enables a withdrawal of existing supports, will cause additional harm.
Changes around administrative and compliance requirements that increase the burden on NDIS participants, such as
● higher expectations to respond to requests ● tighter timeframes for communication especially around non-contactability ● participant engagement rules ● more formal processes around managing plans and supports ● greater emphasis on compliance with administrative requirements
will cause harm to disabled people who are already stretched to their limits by the demands of participating in the NDIS and living with disability in a cost of living crisis.
Increased standardisation of decision making, including automated decision making and system-driven decision making, will also cause harm to disabled people. People’s experiences, lives, and needs are not standardised. Approaches which aim to standardise rather than understand individuals on their own terms will necessarily force people to try and fit into boxes that cannot safely contain them, and prevent the NDIS from being able to respond flexibly, compassionately and humanely to people’s circumstances.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3016
Other standardising changes proposed in this Amendment Bill to eligibility processes such as
● the use of an unreleased and non-specified functional capacity ‘tool’ to determine eligibility ● Review and re-assessment processes that are more restricted and structured, and less flexible and responsive ● Systems-level adjustment of funding levels for groups of supports, effecting whole categories of supports at once
will similarly cause harm to disabled people by denying access to disabled people who are not yet participants and lessening or removing necessary supports from existing participants. These changes will make it harder for the system and the workers tasked with implementing it to recognise and treat disabled people as individual and valuable human beings, and therefore make the NDIS worse at meeting their needs, causing real and measurable harm.
What I want the committee to understand is that, like me, you may be disabled or care about someone who is disabled. You or your loved ones could become disabled at any time. NDIS participants (and disabled people who desperately need support but have not yet gained access to the NDIS) are us. They deserve the freedom and choice that the NDIS was intended to deliver, not the harm that the proposed Amendment Bill will actively cause.
I am therefore opposed to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, and ask again that the Government withdraw it and instead engage in genuine, sincere consultation with disabled people about how to meet their needs.