National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3146
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to express my deep concern regarding the proposed NDIS Amendment Bill and the significant cuts to capacity-building and community participation supports.
Reducing community participation funding by up to 50% is not “reform”, it is forced isolation for many people living with disability. These supports are not luxuries or optional extras. They are the very supports that allow people to leave their homes, engage with their communities, build relationships, maintain mental health, develop independence and participate in everyday life with dignity.
For many participants, community access supports are the difference between connection and complete social isolation.
Likewise, cuts to capacity-building funding will have devastating long-term consequences. Capacity-building supports exist to help people develop communication, emotional regulation, independence, social participation, daily living skills, and overall functioning. Reducing these supports does not reduce need, it simply shifts the burden onto families, emergency systems, hospitals, schools, aged parents, unpaid carers and an already overwhelmed disability workforce.
As someone working closely with individuals and families impacted by the NDIS, and also as a family member of a person living with disability, I have already seen the effects of funding reductions, plan instability, and increasing barriers to accessing appropriate supports. This concern is deeply personal to me, not simply professional. Families are exhausted. Participants are losing consistency of care. Providers are spending increasing amounts of time justifying basic supports rather than delivering them.
We cannot continue moving toward a system where people only qualify for support once they are already in crisis.
Recent tragedies involving disability, carer burnout, mental health deterioration, and family overwhelm should serve as serious warnings about what happens when people are isolated and unsupported. These are not isolated incidents, they reflect systemic strain, chronic under-support and the consequences of removing protective factors from vulnerable people and families.
The proposed Bill, in its current form, risks:
- Increasing social isolation
- Reducing participant safety and wellbeing
- Reversing years of therapeutic and functional progress
- Increasing family and carer burnout
- Creating greater long-term costs across health, education, housing and crisis systems
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3146
- Undermining the original intent of the NDIS: choice, control, inclusion and meaningful participation
People with disability deserve more than survival-level support. They deserve the opportunity to participate in their communities, pursue goals, maintain relationships and live meaningful lives.
I strongly urge you not to pass the NDIS Amendment Bill in its current form. Significant consultation with people with disability, families, carers, allied health professionals, support workers and providers is essential before changes of this scale are implemented.