Senate Inquiry Submission
Written with assistance from family and disability support workers due to disability-related limitations
I am a severely disabled Australian whose life depends on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. I am submitting this essay with the help of my family and disability support workers because my disabilities affect my ability to write independently. The fact that I require assistance to participate in this democratic process is itself evidence of how essential disability supports are. Without the NDIS, I would not be able to communicate my experiences, advocate for myself, or even survive. I say this without exaggeration: without the NDIS, I would be dead. I also personally know many disabled people who would not be alive today without the NDIS, and who will not survive if their supports are cut under the proposed Bill. These are not hypothetical scenarios; they are lived realities.
My disabilities are complex, severe, and co-morbid. This means I do not have one condition but multiple conditions that interact with and amplify each other. Co-morbidity is not a minor detail—it is the foundation of my disability experience. When several conditions overlap, the impact is not simply additive; it is exponential. Symptoms compound, risks escalate, and functioning fluctuates dramatically from day to day. Any assessment that fails to consider co-morbid disability is medically unsafe, clinically inaccurate, and discriminatory. The proposed Bill attempts to simplify disability into narrow categories and rigid criteria, ignoring the reality that many disabled people live with multiple interacting conditions. When co-morbid disability is assessed incorrectly, the consequences are sudden cuts, unsafe plans, medical deterioration, crisis escalation, hospitalisation, institutionalisation, and preventable death.
The Bill also breaches multiple human rights obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including the right to life, the right to health, the right to independent living, the right to non-discrimination, and the right to safety and protection from violence. By enabling broad ministerial discretion, undefined “reasonable and necessary” criteria, and mechanisms that allow sudden cuts, the Bill creates conditions where disabled people lose essential supports required for survival. Removing or reducing supports that keep people alive is a direct violation of the right to life. Restricting access to supports that allow disabled people to participate in society violates the right to inclusion. Weakening safeguards for disabled women violates the right to safety and protection from violence.
Disabled women are already one of the most vulnerable populations in Australia. We
experience violence at three times the national average, significantly higher rates of sexual assault, coercion, exploitation, poverty, housing insecurity, medical neglect, and systemic discrimination. Many disabled women rely on the NDIS for safe support workers, crisis-prevention supports, independence from unsafe environments, therapeutic intervention, and stable routines that reduce vulnerability. Cutting these supports dramatically increases our exposure to violence, isolation, exploitation, and harm. A policy that knowingly increases violence risk for disabled women is not reform—it is harm and needs to be stopped by the senate.
One of the most overlooked but essential components of disability support is social and community participation. For disabled people, community participation is not a luxury or an optional extra; it is a stabilising force that supports mental health, emotional regulation, behavioural stability, and crisis prevention. I can not access the community safely on my own. Social participation provides routine, structure, sensory regulation, skill development, independence, and protection from isolation. When these supports are cut, the consequences are immediate and severe. Behaviourally, disabled people experience increased distress, meltdowns, shutdowns, emotional dysregulation, and conflict at home. Mentally, cuts lead to increased anxiety, depression, hopelessness, trauma symptoms, and isolation. Most critically, the loss of social connection and support dramatically increases suicide risk. Disabled people already face higher rates of mental illness and trauma; removing the supports that keep us connected and stable is life-threatening.
The government has stated that the Bill aims to “control costs,” but the evidence shows that cutting supports does not reduce costs—it shifts them to other government departments that are already underfunded and unable to cope. When NDIS supports are cut, the burden shifts to the health system, mental health services, emergency departments, ambulance services, psychiatric wards, crisis teams, child protection, homelessness services, and the justice system. Hospitalisation costs thousands of dollars per day, while NDIS supports cost a fraction of that. Cuts lead to increased emergency service use, increased police involvement, increased crisis presentations, increased homelessness, and increased institutionalisation. These systems are already overwhelmed, and shifting the burden onto them will dramatically increase government expenditure.
This is not cost-cutting; it is cost-shifting. And statistically, cost-shifting increases total government expenditure across multiple departments. Every dollar invested in the NDIS returns more than two dollars to the economy through increased workforce participation, reduced crisis costs, reduced hospitalisation, increased independence, and increased tax revenue. Cutting supports does not save money—it increases long-term financial burden on the government and society.
The proposed Bill cannot achieve its stated goals. You cannot reduce costs by cutting life-saving supports. You cannot create stability by increasing uncertainty. You cannot uphold human rights by weakening safeguards and denying all reports that show this from the 1970’s till now. This is why NDIS was formed as a social program.
You cannot fix provider fraud by targeting cutting funding from participants and kick 100s of thousands off the scheme. You cannot assess disability accurately without recognising co-morbidity. You cannot protect disabled women by removing the supports that keep them safe. And you cannot claim to protect disabled people while enabling conditions changing legislations that will harm and kill them.
Reform must be co-designed with disabled people from the beginning, not after drafting. Reforms must target provider fraud, not participants. Cost-saving measures must focus on efficiency, not cuts. Parliamentary oversight must remain mandatory. And essential supports already in place must never be reduced, because lives depend on stability. People can not be kicked off the scheme who are already accessing it.
I am asking the Senate to understand the truth: disabled people will die and face harm if this Bill passes—whether in its current form or in any amended form. The NDIS is not a luxury. It is not optional. It is life support and the social budgeting cost will be far greater for many many years to come if this bill passes in this form or any amended form.
Reform must be co-designed with disabled people and must focus on preventing provider fraud, lowering costs through efficiency, protecting human rights, strengthening supports, and saving lives and by addressing those issues costs can be lowered without sacrificing human rights, disabled people and their families. This is community you are talking about and disabled people matter and deserve equity and equality.
The Bill cannot pass in its current form or in any amended form. Disabled people must be co-designers of reforms that reduce fraud and save money without cutting supports or kicking people of the scheme.