Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the
NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Date: 24 June 2026
Committee Secretariat
Community Affairs Legislation Committee
By Email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
RE: Opposition to the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations)
Bill 2026
To the Committee Secretariat and Honorable Senators,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide a submission regarding this legislation.
I am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposed cuts and the introduction of new assessment tools contained within this Bill.
My Family’s Circumstances
I am a single parent raising my daughter, who lives with a permanent and lifelong intellectual disability. Her disability is not temporary, and it is not something she will recover from, outgrow, or overcome with time.
As the sole provider for our household, I have no choice but to work full-time to keep a roof over our heads, pay our bills, and meet the basic costs of living.
My daughter cannot safely navigate the community on her own. She does not have the capacity to go out alone, manage risks independently, or access ordinary daily activities without support.
For this reason, NDIS core funding and support workers are not optional extras for our family. They are essential supports that allow my daughter to be safe, supervised, included, and cared for while I work.
Without this funding, she would be left isolated, unsupported, and confined to our home while I am at work. That is not independence. It is abandonment of a vulnerable person who relies on these supports to live safely and with dignity.
The Vital Role of Core Support and Community Access
The core funding my daughter receives is not a luxury, a convenience, or an optional support. It is what prevents her from being isolated at home and cut off from ordinary community life. Isolation is not an acceptable outcome for any person with disability.
Community support gives her safe access to life beyond the walls of our home. It allows her to take part in social, recreational, and civic activities, attend events, pursue hobbies, go shopping, interact with others, and, with support, volunteer at the RSPCA.
These supports are vital because isolation is deeply harmful. Being left at home without community access would damage her mental health, emotional wellbeing, confidence, social skills, personal development, and sense of belonging.
Support workers do far more than accompany her to activities. They help prevent isolation by supporting her to engage with others, build routines, practise communication, make choices, participate safely, and experience herself as a valued member of the community.
Removing or reducing this funding would not promote independence. It would force isolation, reduce her opportunities for connection, damage her wellbeing, and leave a vulnerable young person without the support she needs to live safely, with dignity and inclusion. That is not acceptable.
Opposition to New Assessment Tools and Funding Cuts
I strongly oppose the introduction of the proposed new assessment tools, which risk stripping vital support from people with permanent and lifelong disabilities based on narrow, impersonal criteria.
Standardised tools and automated checklists cannot properly assess the complex reality of a participant’s daily life, support needs, safety risks, vulnerability, or long-term dependence on care.
A person with disability must never be reduced to a score, a tick-box, or a spreadsheet outcome. These decisions affect real people, real families, and the basic right to live safely and with dignity.
For example, being able to make a piece of toast does not mean a person can safely plan, prepare, cook, manage appliances, understand risk, or live independently.
The proposed cuts in this Bill would be devastating. They would punish families who are already carrying enormous emotional, financial, and practical responsibility, and they would place vulnerable participants at serious risk of isolation, neglect, and harm.
As a single parent, I cannot simply stop working and become a full-time unpaid support worker. If I am forced out of the workforce, I cannot pay for housing, utilities, food, transport, or the basic costs of living.
At the same time, my daughter cannot be left at home alone without support. Removing or reducing her core funding would not create independence; it would remove the very supports that make safety, participation, and stability possible.
I am not at retirement age, I cannot access superannuation, and I cannot rely on a pension as a solution. Families like mine are being placed in an impossible position: work to survive, or leave a vulnerable child without the support she needs.
This is not a sustainable, fair, or humane policy outcome.
Conclusion
These proposed changes would cause serious harm to participants and their families.
They would increase financial pressure, emotional distress, and the risk of isolation for people who rely on NDIS supports to live safely, with dignity, connection, and inclusion.
I urge the Committee to reject these cuts and the proposed assessment tools.
The NDIS must protect core funding that prevents isolation, supports community participation, and allows people with permanent disabilities to live as valued members of society.
Inclusion is a basic human right, not an optional extra. Anything less is not acceptable.