PWDA Template: Submission to the

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs

Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au

Date: 10/7/26

I welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

I am a person with a disability who has found employment following a life-changing injury as an NDS support worker.

I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. This Bill is too far-reaching to pass as it stands. I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds.

Parliamentary Scrutiny and Transparency

The consultation period for the Amendment Bill is two weeks, which is insufficient to allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and communication

needs.

The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis says consultation

should occur for a minimum of 30 days where possible.

The short timeline impacts me by making it hard to ensure that all the participants

that I work with are able to communicate their needs and concerns regarding this bill.

Those of us with limited energy or differing cognitive ability deserve the same

opportunities to influence policy that you would allow your lobbyists.

Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30

days.

Key decisions left to ministerial instruments, not law

The issue: The Bill allows Ministers to change who gets NDIS support (Schedule 1 Parts 8 and 9) and how much funding people receive (Schedule 1 Part 4; Schedule 3) by signing an instrument, without going back to Parliament. The rules that will

determine critical eligibility thresholds (Schedule 1 Parts 1, 8 and 9) have not yet been written.

How this affects participants: The decisions that shape the lives of participants, whether they qualify for the NDIS and what supports they can access, could be changed without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny. Participants may not know supports or eligibility rules have changed until their plan is affected.

Muddying the waters of what is considered a lifelong and significant disability invalidates the lived experience of our experts in the field, the participants. Deliberate obfuscation such as seen in the robodebt fiasco inevitably harms vulnerable people and prevents them accessing services they both require and deserve.

Recommendation: Require that all decisions affecting NDIS eligibility and funding levels be made through primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, with mandatory advance notice to affected participants before any changes take effect.

Existing participants face narrower criteria and fewer rights to challenge decisions

The issue: The Bill changes the rules for existing NDIS participants and makes it

harder to challenge some decisions about supports and funding. It also restricts

when you can request a reassessment, removes review rights for automatic plan renewals, and makes funding reductions unreviewable (Schedule 1 Parts 1 and 8).

Combined with restrictions on reassessment requests (Part 2), automatic plan renewals without review rights (Part 5), and unreviewable funding reductions (Part 4), existing participants face narrower criteria with significantly fewer avenues to challenge decisions about their supports.

How this affects participants: This does not protect participants already on the NDIS, who could be reassessed under stricter rules. If someone’s funding is reduced or their plan renewed automatically, they may have limited or no ability to challenge that decision. This could make it harder for people to get extra support when their circumstances or disability change.

This change takes control and flexibility away from vulnerable people. Just last year a person that I support sustained a physical injury requiring rehabilitation. Due to existing intellectual disability the recovery was not linear and they relied on support hours to provide personal care which would otherwise have not been completed.

This is a basic human dignity you would be withdrawing.

Recommendation: Require a “no harm” safeguard ensuring no current participant loses access to supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.

Unreviewable ministerial power to cut funding across all

support categories

The Minister can reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specified percentage through an instrument that cannot be challenged (Schedule 1 Part 4).

This applies across all budget categories. Unspent funds will no longer carry over at plan renewal (Schedule 1 Part 5).

How this affects participants:

A participant’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding could be cut without warning and without any right to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across plan periods for high-cost items will lose that ability entirely.

Choice and control are fundamental to the NDIS. Giving the Minister the power to remove entire funding categories not only increases the pressure on services to deliver outside of their capability putting participants at risk but also deeply undermines investment in creating or working in service delivery.

Recommendation:

Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights before any funding reduction takes effect.

Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility

The issue:

A person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, replaced by single eligible impairment consideration (Schedule 1 Part 3). The note that previously acknowledged environmental factors and other ineligible impairments could affect support needs will be removed (Schedule 1 Part 3).

How this affects participants:

People with disability will need to prove their impairment cannot be treated before they access the NDIS. Once in the scheme,

their supports will only be assessed against a single eligible impairment rather than

their whole experience. A person’s individual circumstances will not be considered, including ability to pay for treatment, where they live or whether treatment is actually available to them.

I do not believe that a person’s entire life could be governed by a singular eligible impairment. Most of the intellectual disability participants that I work with are more prone to injury, in order to live fulfilling and safe lives they frequently require additional treatments in order to prevent larger cost down the line. Failing to provide for co-existing conditions will result in more expensive hospital care for people that struggle to function within that system.

Recommendation: Do not proceed with a requirement to exhaust “appropriate treatment” options – there are no safeguarding measures around participant harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity to access treatments.

Unvalidated functional capacity assessment tool risks misidentifying need

The issue: The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment.

The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I-CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disability, including those whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a point-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.

How This Affects Participants

If the assessment tool does not accurately capture the full extent of a person’s disability, including needs that fluctuate or vary over time, a participant may be found ineligible or have their supports undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual experience.

I believe that the cruelty is the point of this exercise. Automated testing for Centrelink resulted in actual deaths. This will do the same. Suggesting such diagnostic technologies exist and can be relied upon is a flagrant lie. Subjecting participants to such testing is cruel and should not take place before years of testing.

Recommendation:

Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disability, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.

Supports cut before replacement system is ready

The issue:

The government has announced funding for social, civic and community participation supports will be cut by 50 per cent and capacity building daily activities by 10 per cent for all participants, reductions that will be implemented through the ministerial instrument power in Schedule 1 Part 4. The Foundational Supports system intended to fill that gap has no confirmed implementation date and is not yet operational.

How this affects participants:

Supports that help participants connect with their community, build skills and maintain independence may be cut before anything exists to replace them, leaving carers and families with greater responsibilities and no additional support. These supports are often what help people stay visible, connected and safe.

Isolated people that I work with will drastically deteriorate in mental capacity without their ability to access the community. There is little solace to be taken from a suggestion that programs will be created, this must have occurred before a rug is

• pulled.

Vulnerable people will be unfairly punished simply for existing. Without

creating additional services this suggestion is not far from a death sentence for some

of the people that I work with.

Recommendation: Require that no reductions to community participation or

capacity building supports take effect until Foundational Supports are fully

operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those

who will lose NDIS supports.