National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3223
Submission on the Future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Amendment Bill
The NDIS as the “Only Lifeboat in the Sea”: Sustainability,
Foundational Supports and Legislative Reform
I support attempts to ensure the long-term sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I also acknowledge the structural critique identified in the 2023– 24 NDIS Review: that the Scheme has increasingly become “the only lifeboat in the sea” following prolonged underinvestment in foundational disability, health, mental health, housing, and community supports outside the NDIS.
The NDIS was never intended to function as the sole mechanism compensating for failures across broader service systems. The Review itself recognised that meaningful
reform would require the rebuilding of foundational and mainstream supportsalongside changes within the Scheme.
However, rather than taking the review recommendations and investing in building foundational supports before making making meaningful reform to the NDIS, this new legislation is making dramatic cuts without functional supports being established at all. In effect, participants will pay the cost for poor Government implementation of the NDIS rollout. There is simply no plan for more holistic community health care foundation supports integrated within this NDIS reform. It appears the government is motivated by making budget savings rather than good-faith attempts to meet the needs of participants and the broader community. It requires either an ignorance of an on-the-ground reality of participants lived experience or a wilful blindness to the requirements of participants and the broader community to take such action.
The issue is not simply individual decisions, but a broader institutional orientation in which projected savings targets risk becoming prioritised over functional outcomes, continuity of care, and participant wellbeing.
The Robodebt Royal Commission demonstrated how systems can drift into harmful administrative behaviour when governments become overly committed to achieving ambitious savings outcomes while progressively discounting contradictory evidence emerging from affected communities. In my view, aspects of the current NDIS legislation risk reproducing elements of this same structural logic. The issue is not just technology or automation, although these risks are real, and well-founded. The deeper problem arises when projected savings outcomes become the dominant organising principle of administration before appropriate safeguards, foundational supports, and human consequences are adequately considered. My own experience
demonstrates that sustained investment in appropriate disability supports cansubstantially improve participation in education, employment and community life.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3223
The long-term sustainability of the Scheme is important. However, sustainability should not be understood purely as expenditure reduction. Narrow-cost-containment as the main focus risks undermining the integrity and aim of the entire scheme and ultimately failing in it’s endeavour to reduce costs anywhere, as costs are simply shifted into other areas of the health system and onto the community where it can not be contained.
A genuinely sustainable disability support system requires:
strong foundational supports outside the NDIS, continuity and stability of care, realistic implementation timelines, and recognition that disability-related needs do not disappear simply because access pathways are narrowed.
Without these foundations, there is a serious risk that apparent short-term savings will instead generate greater long-term social and economic costs elsewhere while further eroding trust between participants and the institutions intended to support them.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this submission.