Please publish this without my name.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill
2026
My Background
I am a Grandchild of Deaf Adults (GODA). I have grown up within and around the Deaf community since birth, and Auslan was my first language. I have benefitted greatly from my immersion in the Deaf community and my identity within it forms a pillar of my ‘self’.
As a professional, I have completed an Honours in Psychological Science, where my thesis focused on the intersectional experiences of Deaf and Queer people. I have been a NAATI qualified Auslan Interpreter since 2024. I have worked for a Deaf business where it was my role for 4 years to plan and manage social events for the Deaf community in Adelaide.
I have worked in schools with Deaf children for the last 3 years and am now studying to become a teacher with the aim of working with Deaf children.
My opposition to the proposed bill
I am extremely concerned and personally opposed to cuts to the NDIS. I have seen the overwhelming benefits of the NDIS to change my families lives. My grandmother now has access to Auslan interpreters for all of her appointments. My partner uses Auslan interpreters to have access to their grandmother, who doesn’t sign. Having access to adequate NDIS funding is vital for a physically and psychologically safe life.
I have read the submission written by Deaf Australia and I would like to reiterate and provide additional personal context to some of their points:
➢ Changes to Functional Capacity Assessment in that they explicitly disregard environmental and personal circumstances
As outlined by Deaf Australia, deafness is primarily a disability in the environmental and social sense, where existing in a primarily hearing world is isolating without support and community. The extent to which a person needs support in this domain varies and I see this within my own family. My godmother requires extensive support to read and understand basic English, whereas my grandmother uses Auslan Interpreters for accessing face to face specialist appointments, not requiring support with written English.
➢ Limiting unscheduled plan reassessments
This point scares me, as a partner of a Deaf person. We are planning to have children in the future, and having an unscheduled plan reassessment could be the difference between having an interpreter at every appointment, or not. II worry that if the NDIS limits unscheduled plan reassessments, this could genuinely be deadly for participants and their children.
➢ Reasonable and necessary supports
I second Deaf Australia’s demand for Auslan Interpreting to be continually upheld by the NDIS. I have seen myself in the school system, where there are zero fluency requirements for Educational Interpreters, the educational neglect that can happen when unqualified people are used as interpreters for Deaf children. Further, I would like to tell a story about my family. My mum is the only hearing person in her family. Before the NDIS, my grandparents had to rely on her heavily for interpreting as in this time, there weren’t even any captions on TV. I have seen firsthand the profound impact this has had on her identity, psyche, and schemas around love and support. She is an amazing person, but also a people pleaser to her core. She puts herself last, always, and struggles with setting boundaries. This impact has then flowed on to me and my siblings. When the family members and loved ones of Deaf people must “step up” due to the failure of the system, it produces lifelong and even inter generational impacts on the family, and also complicates familial relationships. In a sense, it massively conflates professional and personal relationships. I know of many situations where children of Deaf adults have had parentification experiences because of this. The NDIS now gives Deaf people the choice and control to have professional relationships with Auslan interpreters who are not their family. Giving Deaf people the right to this service and the dignity of privacy (perhaps you don’t want your child knowing everything that goes on in your doctors appointment!) is incredibly important.
➢ Plan suspensions
I worry about the bill in its current form, especially where it raises the possibility of a Deaf persons plan being cancelled because they don’t answer the phone.
We know that systems fail, and that Deaf people receive phone calls from government services all the time, even when they know they are Deaf. I recently heard of a Hearing Australia branch who moved to a new software service and all their data about which clients were Deaf and preferred SMS was carelessly deleted.
Just two days ago I listened as another Deaf person told me they were called 52 times by police over the span of 6 weeks (using an Unknown number so he had no way to call back using the NRS) for a non-urgent matter.
Last night I heard another story of a hospital calling a Deaf mother about her son – also on repeat. Her hearing daughter answered and they went to the hospital. On a big whiteboard was “mother is Deaf”. If the staff knew, why repeatedly call?
I have also heard countless stories of the NDIS calling Deaf participants, even where the their plan specifically stipulates this is inappropriate. The NDIS clearly does not have a working system to discern when their phone call is not going to be the correct approach to contact participants. I worry that this systemic failure will result in Deaf people having their funding cut, due to no fault of their own – just because they can’t answer a phone call.
➢ Permanence
I worry about the NDIS requiring participants to have all treatments before funding is given. As outlined in Deaf Australia’s submission, this has extreme risk of inducing language deprivation in Deaf children. As someone who works in schools, I have seen the effects of language deprivation first hand. I see children arriving at high school with English proficiency less than that of a Foundation student. Having access to Auslan as a first language should be the right of every Deaf baby, and ensures their success. Even if they end up using spoken English later in life, having the
right to an accessible language is paramount to their ability to learn written and/or spoken English later.
I have also seen firsthand the effects of language deprivation in adulthood. I mentioned earlier my godmother who struggles to understand basic written English. My grandfather, too, also needs help understanding letters he receives and navigating commonplace applications or processes for simple things.
I worry that If you must try every treatment before receiving NDIS funding, this will look like medical interventions (hearing aids, cochlears, speech pathology, etc). All which, if provided in isolation, denies the child access to Auslan. The consequences of this, as outlined above, are devastating and isolating – not to mention then requiring additional support due to a lack of English proficiency, reducing independence which is supposedly the goal of the NDIS.
Thank you for taking the time to read my submission.