Submission 3170 — Name Withheld (3170 | External submission

Supplementary Submission to the

Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Inquiry into the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

This document is supplementary to a previous submission sent to the Committee Secretary via email on 1 June 2026 during the first round of submissions. Since the June deadline I have been able to peruse the bill and its Explanatory Memorandum to the best of my capacity.

THIS BILL SHOULD NOT BE PASSED. I OPPOSE THIS BILL.

This bill is a retrograde step and is harmful to people with disabilities and their unpaid carers.

This supplementary submission is divided into two parts:

Part 1 will focus on one aspect of the bill from the Explanatory Memorandum where the bill seeks to redefine the definition of “REASONABLE” (regarding what is a ‘reasonable and necessary’ support). Illustrated by my own experience, it will discuss:

Funding of supports
Effects of co-payments
Loss of supports and consequences
Austerity
Support Determinations
Choice and Control
NDIS Budgets
Silos
Plan Reassessments
Values and priorities
Co-design Part 2 will be a collection of responses about various aspects of the bill as I have come to understand them and their implications. This is for the purpose of placing a disability perspective on the progress of this proposed bill.
For Senators and MPs
A universal scheme for human rights realisation
Merging Of Disability And Aged Care Support Sectors
Systemic Patterns Of Concern
The Bad Old Days Of Retribution And Abuse
Response To Interim Report Of Community Affairs Legislation Committee Page 1 of 8

PART ONE – REDEFINING ‘REASONABLE’

“What insurance policy would you accept if it said your support could be cut to a tiny fraction of what you actually need?”

This is what Mark Butler’s new NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 is proposing according to its Explanatory Memorandum (EM):

“To improve consistency and equity across the Scheme, the application of ‘reasonable and necessary supports’ must link to consideration of what is reasonable for the Scheme to fund. This means funding for some NDIS supports may be less than the actual cost of providing or acquiring the support. “

This means that the NDIS would not need to pay for the entire cost of a support. That leaves the law open for co-payments to be required from NDIS Participants in order to receive support. This is not the equity we expect from a universal scheme. This will mean people with disabilities WILL lose access to supports that they need to live an ordinary life.

I know this because that is what happened to me in the old state system. Disability supports became privatised and co-payments were required for Every.Single.Item supplied (usually equipment for hire so it was an ongoing hire cost) and Every.Single.Service.

For a single parent on a Disability Support Pension’s fixed low income, the costs were prohibitive. Do I receive a service or do I buy food (how do I even get to the shops without support? We struggled with meals on the weeks where the support service cancelled at the last minute) or do I buy medicine or do I pay for my child’s school shoes? Do I travel across town for a medical appointment or to support my ailing elderly mother?

I ended up without supports and deteriorated. At my worst I was down to 42 kg (as an adult) and was fearful of dying young leaving behind 3 school-aged children.

The NDIS saved my life* by covering the costs of desperately needed supports. In only 5 years the NDIS has taken me from being bedridden most of the day to being able to contribute to my community and to thoughts of paid employment in some capacity. This is how a proper functioning NDIS can save our economy and improve GDP in the long term.

The Amendment to the NDIS Act that Mark Butler is proposing threatens to dissolve all of that progress. Austerity measures of co-payments, underfunding in general and blanket support determinations where the Minister can arbitrarily withhold set percentages of necessary funding will send people back into crisis, strain the economy in every other sector, and people will die.

Have you seen the pattern where Aged Care Packages have been approved on paper and then the recipient receives a package that is 40% less than what was approved and inadequate to meet the recipient’s needs for safety and dignity (exemplified by a constituent’s mother’s experience tabled in parliament by Pat Conaghan MP). That is what this bill has planned for NDIS Recipients by adding Ministerial powers to make Support Determinations across entire

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cohorts and support categories regardless of individual needs or circumstances. We can see what it will look like because it is already happening in Aged Care.

I have heard anecdotes from other jurisdictions like the UK where disability support is provided through a lens of austerity. It results in people not being able to get the customized equipment or supports that they need and the equipment they are left with creates complications related to harms caused by inappropriate supports. This is why people with disabilities and NDIS Participants must not lose CHOICE and CONTROL which is a key concept for keeping people with disabilities safe.

It is an insult when the NDIA places ‘Stated Supports’ in NDIS Plans which are inadequately funded, effectively preventing access from that support. I will use small numbers to illustrate. A Participant might need a specialised piece of assistive technology that needs further customization for it to work effectively. It appears to be approved by the NDIA by appearing as a ‘Stated Support’ in the plan budget. The NDIS Plan states $100 of the budget can be used on that item. The Participant never gets the support because the price of the very base version of that item starts at $150. To have that item customized as required costs even more.

This happened to me. The NDIS gave me false hope, 5 years ago, of being able to at last obtain the assistive technologies and supports that I need for optimal daily function by having them ‘Stated’ in my plan. After 5 years I am still without life-changing pieces of equipment because the ‘stated’ amount was inadequate and the NDIS says we cannot supplement their funding from my Core budget despite adequate funding being there. In this situation the notion of ‘flexible budgets’ is farcical right now.

This bill wants to silo our disabilities as well as the budgets - to only fund supports for one disability if a person has multiple (and most of us do). This idea looks like it comes from the ableist lens of convenience for bureaucrats who are dealing with IT and administrative systems that are antiquated and not fit-for purpose. We are whole people and our lives are not lived in silos. So are you, dear Reader. (thank you for reading this far!)

I am going for an early plan reassessment because the unmet needs of disability don’t go away! The lack of these supports is exacerbating pain, and diminishing capacity to function day to-day. We need Planners to know this!

This is where the NDIS is failing and part of the reason for ‘too many’ Plan Reassessment applications.

The answer to Plan Reassessments is not in this ‘Future Generations’ Amendment. Denying Participants the means to apply for Plan Reassessments when their needs change is dangerous. The answer is to get the NDIS Plans correct in the first place by adequately addressing Participant’s needs. The NDIS needs to get its own house in order.

It looks from here that our Government values big business over the lives of our elderly, of people with disabilities and their families; not from what it says, but from what it does and how it does it. Why else would it want to change support ratios which forces people who are living safely, happily, productively, independently as part of their wider community into dangerous congregated settings? Who wins there? The people in charge of the real estate and the institutional care set-ups? Certainly not the person with disability who will be the loser.

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Actions speak louder than words. Communities that have been oppressed, abused, neglected and exploited can detect the danger from a long way away. We will be watching which way politicians of all colours vote.

The Red of the Labor Party will forever represent the blood of disabled people who have suffered and died at their hands if this cruel, retrograde bill is passed.

The other parties’ colours will be stained with complicity if they allow this horrific bill to pass.

*PEOPLE WILL DIE if they cannot access adequate disability supports whether they are NDIS supports or ‘foundational supports’. Splitting disability support money into different ‘buckets’ just costs more through the duplication of administerial processes.

We are citizens and our lives are worthy. We are here. There will always be people with disabilities because it is part of the human condition. We are parents, friends, relative, co workers, students, teachers, volunteers, artists, athletes, creators, thinkers, problem-solvers, partners, lovers and we have so much to contribute. We are not tick-boxes and our disabilities and lives cannot be siloed.

If only the energy used up on submissions to stop dangerous legislation could have been used on a meaningful co-design process, facilitated by government, led by people with disabilities and their representatives, we could have had some of the problems cited by the Minister halfway to being solved already! That would be more REASONABLE to me.

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PART TWO – GENERAL VIEW

The lack of consultation and co-design between the Australian Government and the State Governments and people with lived experience of disability is apparent and alarming. People with disabilities have a lot of expertise to share, borne of lived experience. Any legislation created without meaningful collaboration with those who will be affected by it, is doomed to fail; and puts on show the real purpose of legislation – not to serve people with disabilities but other parties looking to exploit us whether that be financially or abuse of power or other motivations.

I am very concerned that the bill appears to be lacking in specific details and is open to wide interpretation and abuse of power. This bill provides for a lack of government and agency transparency by keeping important details outside of parliamentary purview by placing them in other legislative instruments such as rules etc. which can be changed without the scrutiny of the parliamentary processes.

The NDIS Act is ‘living legislation’ in that it is intricately entwined in the lives of Participants and people with disability who will rely on the scheme. The decisions and laws around this bill and other instruments relating to the NDIS have direct and daily effects on our lives right down to the number of showers we can have or how often we can use the toilet.

It is important that legislators realize that they are not just voting to put words into a law, but they are playing with OUR DAILY LIVES. That is why any amendments to the NDIS Act 2013 must be comprehensive in the Act and not placed in some other document that is not a Legislative Instrument or other document that can be changed without public scrutiny.

FOR SENATORS AND MPS So the Australian Government, and Ministers Butler and McAllister particularly, want to take Disability Support back to the bad old days before the NDIS.

Today I dug up a Time Capsule from 2009 which gives all the reasons for NOT going backwards; reasons for NOT dismantling the NDIS which the ‘Future Generations’ Bill 2026 will do if it is passed by Parliament.

Chapter headings tell you how bleak it was to exist as a person with disability or an unpaid carer pre-NDIS; for example:

Excluded and ignored
Broke and broken
Can’t get a job
Can’t get there, can’t get in, can’t get it
The wasted years - education experience of people with disabilities
Isolated and alone With discussion about the experience of disadvantaged groups and the implications of it all.

WE CANNOT GO BACK TO THOSE DARK TIMES.

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The Australian Government knows exactly what’s at stake if Minister Butler’s bill gets passed.

Our Local MPs have NO EXCUSES for ‘not knowing’ - “I don’t know” “I’m not sure about that..” common phrases coming out of our local MPs lately when the bill is raised.

NO EXCUSES for Senators whose job it is to properly scrutinise the proposed NDIS legislation before them (and I thank them for extending their current inquiry into the bill).

SENATORS, MPs, I remind you of:

the SHUT OUT report;
THE DISABILITY ROYAL COMMISSION INTO VIOLENCE, ABUSE, NEGLECT &

EXPLOITATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY

Australia’s responsibilities to the UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF

PEOPLE WITH DISABILITY

over 4000 SUBMISSIONS to the current inquiry because people with disabilities and their families are desperate not to be forced back to the cruelty and atrocities we have in recent memory.

We are SCREAMING at you not to pass this bill.

Rushed legislation is rubbish legislation. BIN THIS BILL

More accurate titles for the latest NDIS Bill instead of “Saving the NDIS for Future Generations 2026”:

“Oops We’ve Changed Our Mind because Disability is too Hard for our Administrators and IT

Systems to Handle“ Bill

“Roll Back the NDIS to the Bad Old Days” Bill

“Institutionalise and Torture People with Disabilities” Bill

“Dismantling the NDIS Bill”

“F*** Human Rights” Bill

A UNIVERSAL SCHEME FOR HUMAN RIGHTS REALISATION All of the progress we have made in the intervening years towards realising the human rights, dignity, quality of life and social and economic inclusion of people with disabilities and their families will be dissolved if the “National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026” is passed.

The NDIS is meant to be a universal scheme for all Australians because anyone anywhere anytime could acquire a disability and need support through the NDIS. Medicare is also a universal scheme - would it be acceptable if Medicare functions were run by private companies?

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MERGING OF DISABILITY AND AGED CARE SUPPORT SECTORS Terrible things happening in Aged Care sounds like what Mark Butler wants to do with the NDIS by arbitrarily cutting budgets regardless of need or safety. Eg in Pat Conaghan MP’s aged care case brought to parliament, consistency in funding being cut by 40%.

We cannot cause more harm by repeating aged care atrocities in the disability community.

We need to bring aged care standards up to the human rights based vision of the NDIS that people with disabilities are fighting for.

If ministers want to merge disability and aged care to the same deplorable neglectful and abusing standards then they need to think about the voting power when aged care and disability support recipients and their families and their support people also merge for the same fight. Where is the common sense?

May I also remind you that anyone anywhere anytime can acquire disability and all of us are ageing every day as long s as we are breathing. What happened to universal systems for universal human needs?

SYSTEMIC PATTERNS OF CONCERN Observe the pattern - government showing favour to big business even when it goes against the general good of society… not just legacy charity models of disability care, but sports betting companies too. We know how much harm those companies do and yet the government is so out of alignment with community attitudes and will still allow them to operate in ways where they can harm people.

These ‘actions’ (louder than words) show us that our government does not care about the safety and wellbeing of the average Australian which erodes trust, undermines respect for a lawful society, creates fear, divides society and can only lead to more suffering, harm, crime, mental illness, poorer outcomes, greater costs in the long-term.

THE BAD OLD DAYS OF RETRIBUTION AND ABUSE In response to recent ABC Article cited below where an NDIS Participant has been given a six month reprieve by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) after speaking out on social media claiming the NDIA had stripped him of his right to self-manage his own care:

“Mr Ruff has been given six months to continue self-managing his care before he will be transitioned to agency-managed funding.”

And here we are at the bad old days already where retribution is doled out to people with disabilities who dare to speak out and defend their human rights - a ‘self-managed‘ participant is now going to be punished by the NDIA which will force them to be ‘agency-managed’. this means the Participant has less choice and control over how their plan is spent and which providers they can use. More bureaucracy.

“After ABC reporting, the NDIA contacted Mr Ruff and agreed to allow him to continue self managing his plan for the next six months while it reviewed his funding arrangements”

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It seems to me that people who actually care about this man and have specific training in his highly specialised needs are going to keep him safe and supported better than some random agency staff who haven’t had the same training.

I’m sure that this is not the reason the NDIS gave a reprieve. The NDIS has a risk table that prioritises the wellbeing of the NDIS/NDIA reputation higher than the wellbeing of Participants.

Of course the reprieve only came after the ABC found out; but it is only a disguise for the retribution of agency management.

[Paynter, M. & Norman, R., Designer featured on Gardening Australia given temporary NDIS relief after funding stripped, online article, Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1 July 2026, < https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-01/gardening-australia-ndis-relief-overturned/106864196 >]

RESPONSE TO INTERIM REPORT OF COMMUNITY AFFAIRS LEGISLATION COMMITTEE Chapter 2 – Views on the bill 2.2 “The committee understands that NDIS participants and their loved ones are experiencing real distress regarding their understanding of the proposed changes to the Scheme. A lack of information and context regarding some of the proposed changes has understandably resulted in individuals attempting to fill the gaps themselves, which has led to some confusion and misinterpretation regarding the bill’s intent and impact. Ultimately, this has resulted in misconceptions circulating in the disability community and beyond.”

How does all that misinterpretation potential lead to more consistent decision making (one of the govt’s aims)?

If there is already confusion and misinterpretation due to gaps in the bill, there will be more confusion, misinterpretation and poor decisions made by the NDIA bureaucrats, delegates and planners too.

This is offensive to people with disability who know that INTENTION DOES NOT CHANGE THE IMPACT. People with disability have suffered by people doing things to them and for them without asking permission or to work with them. People with disabilities have endured many harms and cumulative trauma from the actions of people with ‘good intentions’ and incorrect assumptions.

This is not an exhaustive list of concerns.

Thank you for reading and considering.

END OF DOCUMENT

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