National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3106
Concerned Participant
Queensland
8 July 2026
Committee Secretary
Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Re: Submission Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Dear Committee Secretary,
Please do not change the NDIS, and remember why it was introduced in the first place.
On 5 March 1995, I became a quadriplegic after a fall from a horse in Queensland. My two daughters, aged 7 and 12, were taken to Western Australia five days later. I spent five months in the Royal Brisbane Hospital, four of those in a coma. I then spent seven months at the Princess Alexandra Hospital’s brain surgery rehabilitation unit, followed by a further eighteen months at the Prince Charles Hospital rehabilitation unit. I finally came home full-time in mid-1997.
I was still fairly fragile and dependent on physical help, which fell on my children’s shoulders. My girls were effectively absent from my life for twelve months. I was not the mother they knew any longer I had become a stranger to them: unable to speak, vision impaired, depressed, quadriplegic, and very angry about my new life situation.
For 22 years, I received four hours of support each week through Home and Community Care (HACC). I had to organise my doctors’ and lawyers’ appointments, food shopping, and housework within those four hours, and whatever was not completed was added on to the following week.
The reason for this long preamble is to set the scene, so the Committee can understand how much my life changed for the better in 2019, with the introduction of the NDIS.
It took me a few years to stop cramming my life into four hours. I finally could relax into a measured day with proper support. I was able to modify my home to suit my new reality. I began to feel useful again, and that I could contribute to society and my community.
I used to volunteer around 60 hours a week on several community organisation boards President for 8 years, Treasurer for 6 years and I was also involved in my local community through the Brisbane City Council and my local member. I eventually became injured, physically and mentally, from all this volunteering, and I became aware that I was doing it all for nothing, while the CEOs of these organisations were being paid substantial salaries.
To have everything reduced in our plans now is pure cruelty. I have been blessed to have the NDIS for the past seven years. It has allowed me to live an ordinary life, for which I am grateful, and I have no desire to go back to my life before the NDIS was introduced.
Ask any NDIS participant where fraudulent behaviour is happening within the scheme, and the answer is clear: it is NOT the participants rorting the scheme. It is the suppliers who, on hearing the ce of equipment. Genuine people with
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3106
disability spend their money within Australia, supporting small businesses and helping people move off welfare and lead an ordinary life.
through tax, food, clothing, rent, mortgages, and spending at small businesses. The list is endless.
The money keeps circulating, making the world go round. I do not begrudge small businesses my custom if I stopped supporting them, they could no longer afford to keep their doors open, and then where would I go? I get to know them personally, and they feel like extended family to me. Feeling seen and valued in this way is so important for my wellbeing.
Cutting my Community Participation budget will take me back to the dark days of being stuck at home, or having to choose between a doctor’s appointment and interacting with someone in the community. I would challenge any able-bodied person to endure the restrictions my disability places on me. I cannot simply decide to go and sit in the park in the sun. I cannot simply decide to go to the shop to buy takeaway. My plan is my lifeline to a world that was closed off to me before the NDIS.
I cannot believe the government is contemplating legislation that gives full power to a Minister to make decisions that impact my life, when he does not know me or understand my needs. No matter how well trained the staff may be, it is my carers and my medical supports who know the reality of my life and my needs. They are the only ones who should be involved in decisions about what I need to live my life.
I also cannot believe the government proposes no review of decisions relating to plans under this new legislation. How can this be possible, when most other branches of government allow some form of review or right to challenge a decision?
With the introduction of periodic fund releases in new plans, there is even more need for rollovers to be allowed for core budgets. My needs sometimes vary, so I may need extra funding in one quarter compared to another. This legislation needs to be amended to allow for this.
The disability community is alarmed and fearful of the cuts being proposed both to participants’ individual plans and to their access to the scheme itself.
I urge the Committee to listen to the voices of NDIS participants like myself, and to ensure that any changes to this scheme protect, rather than diminish, our ability to live ordinary lives.