09/07/2026
Dear Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs,
Whilst I have made a previous submission, I was rushed by the unfair time constraint of the first submission period. Having now had a little more time to get my thoughts together, I would like to share with you two emails I have sent out to my (Queensland) senators regarding this bill, along with a comment I have submitted to the ABC Disability Affairs and Specialist Reporting teams.
I would appreciate it if you read through this supplemented information thoroughly, however my main points are as follows:
- The bill does not do what it claims to. a. It has been framed as a fraud bill, despite the majority of savings coming from cuts to participants.
b. As such it is misleading both for politicians and the general public. 2. The bill is based on a false pretence of ‘unsustainability’. a. You cannot judge the sustainability of a scheme based solely on what it costs – you also have to take into account the economic value it produces.
b. A Per Capita report from 2021 suggested that the NDIS contributes $2.25 of economic value per dollar spent on it. More recent research is needed.
- This bill violates human rights. a. The government’s own PJCHR report highlights that the bill represents “a significant interference with the rights of persons with disability, the rights of the child, and the rights to an adequate standard of living, health and social security” and refers to the bill as ‘retrogressive’ 13 times throughout the report.
b. Despite this, in the inquiry’s interim report Labor has chosen to ignore the findings of the PJCHR report in favour of their own human rights framing. This sets a dangerous precedent for human rights going forward in our country.
- This bill unfairly targets those who have historically had the hardest time proving their disability for removal from the scheme.
a. It does not, as it claims, target those with lower support needs or less severe disabilities.
b. Literally any disabled person can tell you that less visible and harder to prove does note equate to less severe or lower support needs.
On a personal note, I think it’s worth mentioning that a close friend of mine was told during a planning meeting months before this bill was even announced that the ultimate goal would be launch her off the NDIS. This is someone who relies heavily on support workers three days a week and has been told by multiple specialists that she may never work again and has high support needs. Honestly, this is reprehensible behaviour on part of the NDIS and if anything need to be investigated and reformed right now it’s the inner workings of the NDIA – not participant eligibility.
First email:
SUBJECT: Human Rights report finds NDIS bill ‘retrogressive’
BODY:
Dear Senator,
My name is Daniel Simpson and I am a constituent of the Rankin electorate in Queensland. I am an also an NDIS participant.
I am writing to you today to highlight that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, Report 7 of 2026 has not only found the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 to be retrogressive, but has in fact referred to it as ‘retrogressive’ 13 times throughout the report.
In particular the PJCHR report outlines that the bill constitutes ‘a significant interference with the rights of persons with disability, the rights of the child, and the rights to an adequate standard of living, health and social security’.
I bring this to your attention because the future of the safety of disabled people within our nation lies in your hands. I am extremely proud of my community for showing up to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee inquiry to the tune 4000+ submissions, however, I am also aware that with Labor’s majority in government and the Coalition set to support this bill - this inquiry serves little more purpose than ticking a box.
So let me reiterate. The Human Rights report found this bill retrogressive. Out of the 4000+ submissions to the Community Affairs inquiry - from disabled persons, friends, families, carers, health professionals and associations and advocacy organisations - the majority stated this bill must not pass in its current form. And we are relying on your vote to make this a reality.
If significant human rights violations and the outcry of thousands of disabled persons and their support networks aren’t enough to sway you (let’s be honest, political decisions are rarely swayed by such factors) I implore you consider the effect that voting for this bill to pass as it stands will have on your political career - in particular, support from disabled people and their support networks in future elections.
We are a strong, interconnected community with a far-reaching support network that includes just about every profession in the caring industry along with GPs, specialists, and of course, our friends and family. Neither disabled people, nor our far-reaching support networks will forget how you or your party vote on this matter.
Vote NO to passing this bill.
Sincerely,
Daniel Simpson
Second email:
SUBJECT: NDIS generates $2.25 per dollar spent (Per Capita, 2021)
BODY:
Dear Senator,
I have made a few emails and calls recently regarding the NDIS Amendment Bill and I very much appreciate your staff taking my concerns seriously. I don’t want to over burden with you with emails, but I just wanted to share this study by Per Capita created in 2021.
Granted, this information is likely out of date, but I would like to posit that it is essential an updated version of this study is done prior to making any changes to the NDIS. There is a presumption behind this amendment bill that the NDIS is
unsustainable in its current form. This data refutes that claim - suggesting instead that the economic value generated by the NDIS is more than what is being spent on it.
Once again, I appreciate your time and receptiveness to my, and others’, concerns on this matter.
Kind regards,
Daniel Simpson
Media comment:
I think disabled people are very angry, and rightly so. We know we’re being scapegoated. We know we’re an easy target. And we know this bill is based on a lie.
Fundamentally, we can tell you that the NDIS is worth the expense purely through the significant impact it has had on our lives. For many of us, dare I say most, it has given us a second chance at life.
But the government wants to tell us that it’s unsustainable - that we’re not worth saving. Putting all moral arguments aside, that is factually incorrect. We know that the 2021 Per Capita report suggested the NDIS creates 2.25x the economic value that is pumped into it. That number does not suggest unsustainability. Therefore the governments attack on our rights is a matter of priority.
The government has marketed this bill as tackling fraud - that’s a lie too. Only a small fraction of savings is set to come from tackling fraud. Disabled people will bear the brunt of the majority of these savings through everything from having essential supports cut, to being kicked off the scheme completely.
I said morality aside, but if we bring morality back into the room for a second, nothing about this bill, the way it’s been framed, the political rhetoric or the media spin has been remotely humane.
Make no mistake, the government knew that if they wanted to pass this bill, they first had to turn the public against NDIS participants, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. We have gone from being practically invisible, to being blamed by the average Joe Blow off the street for the cost of living crises. We know we’re being scapegoated.
The government’s own PJCHR report referred to bill as retrogressive for human rights 13 times throughout the report, but Labor’s own interim inquiry report chose to completely ignore this report in favour of their own human rights findings. This is the level of gaslighting we are dealing with.
The rhetoric surrounding this bill alone has been severely detrimental to disabled people’s perception by society already. It frames anyone who doesn’t have a physical disability as faking it, despite wanting to take away the funding for physically disabled people too. God, I am angry.
I guess if I have one question it’s this: Does the general public know how much they’re being lied to? Do they knew the entire framework of ‘Safeguarding the NDIS’ and ‘tackling fraud’ is a straight up lie? Do they know that this isn’t an isolated event that it’s part of a trend of neoliberalism eroding human rights globally? Do they know that everything proposed in this bill would essentially take us right back to the system we had before the NDIS? The one that wasn’t working?
Look, I’m autistic and maybe I’m reading too much into it - but my pattern recognition has a hard time not linking this event to the established historical
mistreatment of disabled people. If we stop learning about the past, we’re doomed to repeat it. Did you know disabled people were the first victims of Nazi mass murder? That they literally tested the facilities on us?
Disabled people have long been seen as burden on society. Meanwhile the general public benefits daily from automatic doors, lifts and curb cuts - all things that were developed initially for disabled people.
We may not be anywhere close to Nazi Germany in our treatment of disabled people yet, but recent events in America and elsewhere have shown us just how quickly protections can erode for minority groups and disabled people when the wrong people get into power. We cannot let a bill pass into parliament where the safety and protection of disabled people lies entirely on the acting disability minister having ‘good intentions’. Our rights to equality and quality of life must be enshrined in law.