09/07/2026
Attention:
To the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
I am writing to make a submission to the Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
Thank you for taking the time to read my submission.
I am a participant in the scheme and the issues I am raising in this letter impact me personally as well as many others like myself who suffer from severe and permanent disabilities.
I remain very concerned that the Bill, even with amendments and the extended inquiry process, could reduce access to essential supports, remove supports before suitable alternatives are in place, reduce choice and control, and create uncertainty and stress for people who rely on the NDIS.
Social and community participation cuts
The proposed reduction to social and community participation supports is particularly concerning. Many people access the NDIS because their disability significantly affects their ability to participate socially and in the community. Reducing support in this area risks discriminating against participants whose primary barriers are social and community participation. It also undermines the purpose of the NDIS, which is to support people with disability to participate fully in society and live ordinary lives.
Therapy and Capacity building cuts
I am concerned about restrictions around therapy supports within the Daily Living Capacity Building support category. For participants with severe impairments, regular therapy is not a luxury or choice, it’s a serious need. It is essential to prevent functional decline, maintain wellbeing, support participation, and to build capacity. Therapy is often the core support that allows psychosocial and intellectually disabled participants to build capacity, prevent functional decline, enable them to live with and manage their impairments, engage with daily activities, relationships, education, employment, and community supports.
So, while there are concerns about NDIS expenditure, the focus should be on provider compliance and inappropriate billing practices, rather than reducing access to extremely valuable therapies. I have seen and experienced situations where therapists charged excessive amounts for administrative tasks such as note-taking, short emails, or liaison activities. These practices should be addressed through clearer billing rules and stronger compliance measures.
I feel upset and alarmed about some of the allied health billing practices in relation to routine emails, text messages, and other brief communications. Where these communications are simply
part of coordinating care or responding to a participant, they should not routinely be billed in blocks as though they were separate therapeutic services or administrative support roles. These activities are generally part of the normal cost of running an allied health business, both in the public and private sectors. When allied health and therapists are billing routine communications in block amounts this creates a situation where they are charging in a manner more akin to legal or support coordination services, rather than their role as direct therapeutic care. This approach feels dehumanising for participants and absorbs significant amounts of NDIS funding that could otherwise be directed toward meaningful, in-person therapeutic support.
There is rightly a growing concern that some allied health businesses have become increasingly focused on billing for every communication related to a participant, including brief messages and emails. This reduces the value of funding directed toward direct therapeutic support and contributes to a decline in the overall quality and participant-centred focus of services. This concern does not include report writing and letters of recommendation, which obviously should remain billable.
Possible solutions include:
-
Allowing transport funding where it is necessary to access therapy and supports.
-
Maintaining necessary access to vital therapeutic support for participants.
-
Introducing reasonable limits on administrative billing, including excessive note-taking. Restrict charges for emails and text messages outside of appointments that are part of normal coordination and communication between participants and allied health providers, as is standard practice in both the public and private sectors.
-
Requiring agreements on report-writing hours and ensuring payment is linked to the completion of a report that meets the agreed purpose and quality standard.
-
Setting standards for report writing so that reports are targeted, relevant, evidence-based, and useful for planning decisions, letters of recommendations, Assistive Technology reports, etc.
Capacity building and Daily Living supports are core components of the scheme
Therapy is a significant Capacity Building and Daily Diving support. It is acknowledged and listed in the price guide as such. Cutting or limiting this undermines the intentions of the scheme and is counter intuitive. Cuts to therapy supports will directly affect people trying to engage with family, friends, employment, volunteering, community life and achieving the NDIS goals stated in their plans.
Therapy means that participants can safely addresses aspects of their impairments in a way that makes their NDIS goals achievable and sustainable. Support workers cannot replace the specialised role of therapists in many situations. Reducing these supports means preventing many participants from achieving the goals their plans are designed to support.
Therapy is also vital for ensuring maintenance of wellbeing and preventing functional decline. Without adequate “as needed” therapy, many people with disabilities will experience worsening
dysfunction and end up needing higher levels of supports. Therapy is a baseline staple support for people with severe impairments. Just like water and vegetables is to the body’s survival and wellbeing, if you take those important things away, or restrict them, things will not go well.
Therapy reports in the planning process
Therapy reports play a vital role in planning meetings by identifying support needs and gaps that often cannot be captured through assessment tools alone, and these reports should remain part of the planning process. However, reports should be required to meet basic standards, be focused on the agreed purpose, and written by providers who properly understand NDIS requirements, and the disability the client is living with. Currently the market is saturated by therapists who do not meet these basic requirements.
Focus on improving provider compliance and standards to address blowouts
Standards for too many providers needs great improvement. The role of the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission should be strengthened to address poor-quality services and provider misconduct. This would be a more effective and targeted way to reduce waste and protect participants than broad reductions to support categories. I strongly support a greater focus on provider compliance and quality of service. Too often, participants receive inadequate or unsafe supports while funding is spent on services that do not meet their needs. Stronger and more frequent non compliance consequences are needed to ensure providers deliver acceptable service.
It would be beneficial for the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission and consumer protection agencies to work together to address these concerns, and for this coordinated approach to be clearly supported in legislation.
I have heard delegates express reluctance to challenge providers because of concerns that providers may leave the Scheme. While provider availability is important, this should not come at the expense of participant safety, dignity, and quality support. Poor practices should not be allowed to continue without appropriate consequences.
People with disability should not be expected to confront or manage providers whose practices are inappropriate, inadequate, or not aligned with participants’ best interests. Stronger oversight and clearer provider accountability are needed to ensure safe, ethical, and high-quality supports.
The legislation should also provide a simple process for participants to seek remedy or have funding returned to their plans when supports are not delivered appropriately. This would help address provider-related cost blowouts while protecting participants from being disadvantaged by poor-quality services.
Transitional rules and ill considered legislative changes
I am also concerned about transitional rule-making powers that could allow significant changes to supports without adequate consultation. Any changes to support categories or funding rules
should require genuine consultation with people with disability and the broader disability community. Decisions that affect vulnerable communities should not be made without transparency, evidence, and co-design.
The Bill should not allow essential support categories to be reduced in ways that undermine participants’ ability to pursue their goals. The NDIS is a goals-based scheme, and cuts to therapy, participation, and capacity-building supports will inevitably affect people’s ability to achieve social, economic, and personal outcomes.
Importantly, legislation should protect the rights of people with disability regardless of future governments or policy changes. The NDIS should be safeguarded against decisions that treat disability supports as a burden rather than a matter of human rights, inclusion, and equal participation.
I support the concerns raised by Every Australian Counts, including the need to:
- Stop cuts to essential supports.
- Ensure no support is removed before suitable alternatives exist.
- Protect participation and inclusion supports.
- Maintain participants’ right to choose their support providers.
- Ensure review rights remain fair, accessible, and effective.
- Embed genuine co-design with people with disability.
- Improve transparency by making legislative changes available for community scrutiny before they are introduced to Parliament.
The original intentions of the legislative changes has gone astray
I support a return to changes where there is a flexible approach to funding use to help solve the cost blowout problem. When a participant has an approved funding amount and appropriate evidence, they should be able to use their funding flexibly for supports that meet their disability-related needs and goals. Restrictive categories and narrow interpretations often prevent practical, cost-effective solutions from being approved, even when they are clearly beneficial. This is what was originally promised by the NDIA and the government when they announced legislative changes, but never occurred and was never given a chance.
Institutional betrayal
Both the NDIA and the Government have approached recent NDIS changes in a way that has felt adversarial to many members of the already traumatised disability community. As a result, many people with disability feel betrayed and have experienced this process as institutionally harmful.
This has created significant hurt and distrust between the disability community, the NDIA, and the Government. Many participants are seeking repair and healing from the impact of these processes. The disability community wants to work collaboratively with the NDIA and the
Government, but many of us do not feel that honesty, transparency, inclusion, and fairness have been demonstrated in a meaningful way.
For many people with disability, trust in these institutions has been seriously affected, and many no longer feel safe or confident engaging with them. One way to begin repairing this fractured relationship would be to refocus the Scheme on being fit for purpose from the perspective of participants. This includes allowing plans to be used more flexibly to meet individual needs, rather than relying primarily on additional restrictions and cuts. This is a good start because this is what the NDIA and government originally told the disability community these changes were about.
Conclusion
I urge the Committee to ensure that the NDIS remains a scheme that supports independence, participation, wellbeing, and choice for people with disability, rather than one that reduces support and shifts pressure onto families, carers, and crisis services.
The scheme needs to start focusing on streamlining its communication and planning processes, making communication with the NDIA more accessible and effective in resolving funding issues and concerns in a non-combative, non-stonewalling manner.
The scheme should fund supports when there is evidence that it is genuinely reasonable and necessary, with a focus on person-centred support rather than restrictive lists and inflexible budget limitations. The disability community has left very clear feedback stating that allowing greater flexibility within budgets, while enforcing stronger provider standards and compliance, would greatly reduce costs and budget spending.
It would be extremely valuable for the Committee and our government to fully understand this, because people with disabilities are experiencing the impact personally. We are trying very hard to communicate this. We acknowledge that cost blowouts within the NDIS are a genuine concern. However, participants know that a lot of these costs are driven by restrictive funding rules and by system settings that often create financial incentives for providers that are not aligned with the best interests of participants, taxpayers, the government, or the sustainability of the Scheme.
We all desire to address the cause of these issues, and to make sure this incredible scheme is fit for purpose and sustainable into the future.
Thank you for considering my submission.
Yours sincerely,