National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3408
I have a 26 year old daughter who has a severe disability. She is in a wheelchair, nonverbal and needs 24/7 care. I am so very grateful that she receives NDIS funding and it has definitely improved her life since we started 10 years ago. Before then we had very little support and I did all of her care. Back then I didn’t realise how much of an impact it would make to her life. I thought she would live at home forever and I would always have to support her so once she left school I wouldn’t be able to work. I knew that we could never affort to support her independent living, to have to pay for 2 households was so far out of our reach. Having 2 other children with no disabilities I felt I had failed her in not giving her the life that I wanted for all of my kids.
Thanks to the NDIS now is living in a SDA house with her best friend and is just thriving having her own space and support. I feel like I can play more of a role as her mum and not just her carer which is life changing for me. We have finally come to a place where everything feels like it is working well and then I saw the news about the “Securing the NDIS for Future Generations” Bill. While I am very aware that changes do need to be made to the NDIS to secure its future I feel that there are many places to save money without cutting budgets so drastically. The amount of money spent on reports for my daughter when her disability has never changed and will probably never change in the future seems like such a waste. I feel like we are being punished for the few people who haven’t used the scheme as it was intended.
If my daughters Social and Community budget is cut by 50% that means that I need to go back to being her carer and supporting her. genuinely needs to keep her current funding to be able to live her life as normal as possible. There is no way that we can make her current budget stretch to support her needs. She will be forced to come home on public holidays and weekends.
I am also a support worker and this affects the clients that I support. I will have to reduce the hours so that I am able to support my daughter. They will not be able to continue with the amazing work they have done to improve their social and community network and feel apart of the local community. The NDIS has improved community awareness around accepting people with disabilities and I know that this will change if these budget cuts are accepted.
If her therapy budget is also cut that means she will have less access to the therapists who are working so hard so she can sustain and sometimes improve her ability to live life as normal as possible. Just being able to hold her cup independently is a struggle, and it has taken years to get her to hold onto her cup while being supported. It many seem such a small achievement but to it is a big step in the right direction to her eating and drinking independently, which most people would take for granted.
Please consider the lives you are affecting if you pass this bill as it currently is. It is not only my daughters life that will be affected but also all of the people around her including her current support workers.