Senate Community AƯairs Legislation Committee Inquiry
Submission on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing
the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission Date: 1 June 2026
My name is Alyce Nelligan and I am a disability advocate and participant of the scheme. I assist people to have their plans adjusted to meet their needs at the Administrative Review Tribunal. I cannot stress enough that this Bill cannot be amended, it must be scrapped due to the unnecessary harms and deaths that will occur if this legislation becomes law. That is not hyperbole, it is fact.
The timeframe for submissions for this bill is inadequate. Disabled people and organisations have been working around the clock to give participants the opportunity to provider feedback, with sessions and Zooms. Many of us have had to submit ones from our organisations, for example I was part of the submission by Our Fair Go. This process has caused disabled people considerable work, anxiety and stress.
Proposal to remove participants from the scheme:
As someone who implicitly understands the system, I am one of the leading NDIS experts in the state of Queensland, the governments targets to slow growth are pure fantasy, it cannot be done. The proposal to remove people with low to moderate support needs is so incredibly flawed for many reasons and cannot occur. Firstly, there is no one with such low needs on the scheme because the threshold for access is so high, secondly all disabled people require some supports, disability doesn’t occur in a vacuum, they are aƯected in some way and require some assistance and lastly and most importantly there is no state system to put these people onto. As I have told the media, Disability Services Queensland was never designed to be anything like the NDIS and was entirely dismantled when the scheme came in. Only the very outliers like the Medical Aids Subsidy Scheme and Home Assist Secure Scheme continue, which is part of aged care. As a profoundly physically disabled women I only ever accessed those and never qualified for a care package under the state scheme. I assist people who have tried to get support through the NDIS and fail to meet access. They do not get adequate support from the states. They either get inadequate or have it withdrawn because their needs are too high. QCOSS provide one hour of cleaning and one yard mow a month. Just woeful! For this government to abandon people in this way is unforgivable. People will be living in squalor or die.
The shift of economic costs:
The costs don’t disappear; they shift. It will go onto schools and teachers, the hospital system and emergency services, aged care, child protection services and families. We do not want to return to a society where disabled people are traumatised, hospitalised
and homeless or die via suicide. Some disabled people, particularly those with FASD or autism are at higher risk of becoming criminalised and ending up in prison.
Thriving Kids – Removing children from the NDIS:
Removing children oƯ the NDIS is also going to cause not only poorer long term outcomes for disabled children who won’t reach their potential, it will cause parents and carers to be at higher risk of carer burn out, the education system is not built to manage this in any meaningful way and these young people will need more supports as adults, with needing care, hospitalisations and even have shortened life spans. We have seen deaths of children in the scheme presently because of the mandate that parents have “parental responsibility” even when they have high needs. Koa aspirated and died in hospital when she was admitted to hospital because it was too dangerous to keep her at home. Thriving Kids does not exist and there is nowhere for children to go. We will see a return to the time where families were forced to relinquish their children into child protective services. I would be remiss of me to not mention that a significant number of children in care also are on the NDIS and rely entirely on those services.
Ministerial powers, NDIA powers and the fraud narrative:
This legislation has been marketed to Australians as “reforms” not cuts and has been excused as the only way to prevent fraud, make the system sustainable and to protect disabled people. This bill will achieve none of those objectives. This narrative was created by the Labor government and the commissioning of the Redbridge report to devise a way Australians would tolerate cuts to the scheme that was as beloved as Medicare. It identified fraud. A consequence of this is now that disabled people are more unsafe, as the campaign worked and we are seen as a burden on the economy and fakers that should have never been admitted to the scheme, returning to the dole bludger narratives we have not seen since the 1990’s. The hostility towards disabled people is palatable and they have drug us back 40 years in terms on human rights. The NDIS contributes $2.25 to the economy for every dollar spent and creates jobs. It is sustainable as it is. They just want to spend the money elsewhere. There are no extra powers given to the Quality and Safeguards Commission, just new unprecedented powers for the NDIA to search businesses with no warrant and seize their devices and harass staƯ to cooperate. Every Australian should be concerned at the criminalisation of disabled people and providers. Also forcing disabled people to share supports and have no say in where or who they live with is deeply concerning.
Cutting of Social and Community Participation and Capacity Building Supports:
Minister Butler has already flagged that he will cut 30% from the Social and Community Participation and 10% from Capacity Building Supports.
These cuts will cause significant harm to disabled people and their informal support. Community Access is not a luxury; it is not what has been characterised in the media and by the ministers. People use that individualised support to access medical and rehabilitative care, to visit their friends and families, to buy their groceries, to work and volunteer, to worship, to exercise, to vote, and to do essential activities. Without the ability to do these activities people’s health and well-being will decline; they will be isolated, placing them at greater risk of abuse, neglect, and isolation. Because people use this funding flexibly for assistance with daily living, it will aƯect people’s ability to shower, prepare meals, and live with dignity. These cuts will cause deaths and harm. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander disabled people are already at greater risk of death when interacting with police and carceral systems, as evidenced by the death in custody of Kumanjayi White and many others. Without support, disabled people will be at greater risk of hospitalisation and incarceration, which will also produce greater fiscal strains on the system than simply supporting them in the first place.
This will also significantly impact disabled people’s ability to study, work and volunteer. A foundational principle of the NDIS was to empower disabled people to live and work as other people can.
Cuts to Social and Community Participation as well as the mandate that disabled people will be supported predominantly through a 1:3 ratio means disabled people will not be able to easily access their health and therapeutic support. This is going to cause significant decline in disabled people’s health and wellbeing, it will lead to more hospitalisations, putting pressure and costs on the health system. By reducing individual support, the government is simply transferring the costs to other systems. For some participants this reduction in care could lead to their deaths. We have already seen disabled people die in the last years after their supports have been cut. When high needs participants with feeding tubes, ventilators and other specialised care lose critical funding it directly causes their deaths.
These cuts will also aƯect disabled people’s mental health. Lack of choice and control in their lives, lack of socialisation and enriching activities, lack of choices and access to timely health care is going to cause mental health issues, cognitive decline and will cause crisis and suicides—see the 26 May 2026 article in the Chronicle on disabled people registering for VAD because of NDIS cuts that I am quoted in.
The 10% cut to Capacity Building will directly reduce necessary therapies, including physiotherapy, exercise physiology, speech, occupational therapy, psychology, hydrotherapy, and dietetics. This will cause disabled people’s health to deteriorate and move many people into hospital settings. Depriving children, and recently disabled people, of early intervention will also greatly increase the cost on the system to support them over the lifespan. It’s not just cruel, and a violation of human rights and international law, it’s also bad policy.
Cuts to Social and Community Participation funding will directly mean disabled people will not be able to study, work and maintain employment. They will not have the ability to be transported there or to be supported while they are at work. We will see more disabled people return to unemployment and poverty.
Without individualised support disabled people will be unable to engage in civic duties like non disabled people. They will not be able to be involved in their communities, in political movements or in advocacy for their own communities.
This will even impact disabled people’s ability to vote, which is a human right and legal obligation in Australia. Disabled people require transport and support to access any event in the community. Many disabled people do not drive or have the ability to catch public transport.
Disabled people will not be able to engage in any recreational activities, cultural activities, leisure or support. Their funding will be used for essential activities like medical appointments and grocery shopping. Disabled people are not currently funded for leaving the house more than a couple of times a week at present. This will significantly reduce their ability to do anything they choose to and enjoy. Many disabled people already are forced into group activities rather than the things they enjoy already as they are forced to share support. These cuts will only take away people’s choices and abilities to do the things they enjoy.
Disabled people in regional communities are going to be aƯected much more significantly by these cuts. They are forced to travel for many activities and there are less providers to support these participants. They will simply be unable to leave their homes and access essential activities.
There are so many changes as part of this bill that I cannot physically cover. I have a muscle disease which means I get fatigued via exerting myself and barely can use my hands. What must be said is this has caused an absolute crisis for disabled people. They are anxious, fearful, suicidal and worried about rotting in their homes. We lived a pre-NDIS life and many of us know what awaits us on the other side of this bill. This is cruelty and abuse towards disabled people, some of which are very vulnerable. This will inevitably lead to deaths of disabled participants for many diƯerent reasons. This is a stain of Labor’s legacy, to treat this scheme like welfare and to not aƯord disability people to live with dignity and safety in our communities. They were the architects of this scheme and now they wish to dismantle it. This bill must be stopped.
Sincerely,
Alyce Nelligan.