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 via email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Date: 9 July 2026
Dear Committee Secretary,
Thank you for 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 parent of a young NDIS participant, and I want to outline the harm this
Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament. I am deeply concerned that the
proposed changes prioritise financial cost-savings over the safety, dignity, and
human rights of Australians living with a disability. I urge the committee to reject the
Bill entirely and seek to co-develop a more sustainable, just and equitable proposal,
working with a diverse group of individuals with lived experience of disability and
organisations with strong knowledge and understanding of the needs of individuals
with disability. At the very least major amendments should be recommended based
on the following critical points:
Ministerial over-reach, reduced parliamentary oversight and weaker safeguards for participants
The issues: The Bill allows Ministers to impose broad funding cuts for whole groups
of participants instead of basing funding decisions on individual needs without the
need for Parliament oversight and removes the rights of participants to individually
appeal any such funding reduction via the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. It
proposes that Ministers will have direct authority over pricing mechanisms and the
types of supports funded by NDIS without needing Parliament to vote on any
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changes. The rules that will determine critical eligibility thresholds have not yet been
written, making it impossible to understand the potential impact on participants. The
Bill permits the use of automated, computer-based systems for funding decisions,
removing human oversight and risking the loss of any ability to manually adjust
funding to meet participants’ actual needs.
Impact: The decisions that determine whether individuals qualify for the NDIS and
the 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 and they would have limited to no means to appeal or
challenge these decisions, regardless of the severity of impact on their lives and the
potential for life-threatening outcomes if essential supports are removed.
Decisions regarding NDIS eligibility and what constitutes reasonable and necessary
NDIS funded supports should be made on transparent, legislative rules that are co
developed by the disability community. They should not be at the mercy of the
unilateral powers of the Minister. Nor should funding decisions be left solely to
computer-automated systems. Disability is complex and human oversight and the
ability to tailor support to an individual’s specific, fluctuating or critical needs is
paramount.
Recommendation 1: 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.
Recommendation 2: Guarantee human oversight of eligibility and funding decisions
and preserve timely, clear review and appeal rights for all NDIA and needs
assessment decisions.
Recommendation 3: Require that any funding reductions are proportionate,
evidence-based and demonstrably safe at the individual participant level, and that
any reduction in funding that falls below an assessed need is subject to transparent
justification and merits review safeguards.
Recommendation 4: Require that before any funding reduction is imposed that a
comprehensive risk assessment be conducted that includes safety, fluctuation and
deterioration, behavioural escalation, restrictive practices and carer capacity.
Funding should not be reduced where a high risk of harm is identified and/or the
funding falls below reasonable and necessary support needs.
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Erosion of Choice, Control, and Flexible Funding
The issues: The Bill proposes changes that would make it harder for participants to
challenge some decisions about supports and funding and would restrict when they
can request a reassessment, remove review rights for automatic plan renewals, and
make funding reductions unappealable. These changes, along with the proposed
restrictions on reassessment requests, would strip away participants’ abilities to
challenge decisions about their supports, regardless of the impact on their lives.
Further, the Bill grants the NDIA expansive powers to stipulate how participants use
their funding, introduces a “one-size-fits-all” needs assessment process, narrows
approved supports, and strips away the flexibility needed to tailor support to
participants’ individual needs.
Impact: These changes take away the choice and control of participants, alienating
their human rights and may force people into shared supports instead of individual
living arrangements, or force them to use providers they do feel safe with, or strip
away supports that are essential for participants to maximise their independence and
actively participate in their community, or in some cases remove the supports that
are crucial for their health and safety. Not only would this make it harder for
participants to request changes to their supports when their circumstances change
and appeal decisions that impact on their human rights and go against the
underlying principles of the NDIS, in some cases participants’ lives would be placed
at risk. Additionally, it places a significant burden on families and informal care and
support to fill the gaps left by funding cuts – with a disproportionate amount of this
responsibility falling to women who are then forced to reduce or exit the workforce
and adopt a primary carer role, significantly increasing their risk of financial
insecurity, and physical and mental illness. Reliance on informal care is
unsustainable, compounds the burden on health systems and reliance on
government payments for income (e.g. Carer’s Payment) and, crucially, is not an
option for those participants without family members to provide unpaid care.
Recommendation 5: Retain strong protections for participants’ choice, control and
tailored, person-centred, individualised planning.
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Recommendation 6: Maintain accessible and responsive reassessment and plan
variation pathways, along with internal review and independent merits review
processes.
Recommendation 7: Do not increase reliance on informal, unpaid care.
Eligibility criteria and support funding based on unvalidated functional assessments and evidentiary requirements that are not fit for purpose
The issues: The Bill introduces changes that would enable the Minister to reduce
funding for any support or group of supports based on the outcome from the use of
an instrument that cannot be challenged. This forces diverse and highly individual
needs to attempt to be captured by a standardised “one-size-fits-all” framework that
relies heavily on self-report rather than objective observations by health
professionals. The Bill would also prevent the NDIS from taking into consideration
the combined and interactive impact of comorbidities, and would require individuals
to have exhausted all appropriate, evidence-based treatments to improve, cure or
alleviate their impairment before accessing the NDIS.
Impact: This process risks missing crucial individual differences in support needs,
may not accurately capture participants’ required supports, and provides little to no
safeguards to appeal decisions that are based on potentially inaccurate information
and/or that provide inadequate funding to meet the individual’s reasonable and
necessary supports. It also fails to recognise the significant impact that comorbidities
can have on individuals and imposes an unrealistic expectation of being able to
separate out which support needs arise solely from each disability/health
condition/comorbidity. Further, the proposed treatment test unfairly disadvantages
rural and regional Australians who lack local treatment options and/or cannot afford
the travel to metro areas for treatment, may force individuals into a treatment they
are not comfortable with (e.g. due to negative side-effects or previous trauma), and it
is not specified who will determine when a treatment has “failed” or when treatment
options have been exhausted – a decision that should only be made by an
individual’s primary treating health professional.
Recommendation 8: Require the use of holistic, person-centred assessments that
are culturally sensitive, adequately capture the complexity, fluctuation and real-world
functioning of individuals, and that recognises the impact of comorbidities.
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Recommendation 9: Recognise specialist clinical input and lived experience as
valid evidence in assessment and planning.
Recommendation 10: Remove inappropriate treatment tests and do not make
eligibility or support contingent upon unrealistic, ineffective, or clinically inappropriate
treatments (including those only available through clinical trials), or those that are
inaccessible due to cost or location.
Removal of social inclusion and community participation as a fundamental human right
The issues: The proposed Bill penalises participants by restricting funding for
community, social, and recreational activities. It treats social inclusion as a “luxury” or
“ordinary living expense” rather than a fundamental human right and fails to
recognise the significant barriers to community access and participation that many
individuals with disability face.
Impact: Access to community, social, and recreational activities is often limited, more
expensive, more complex and more time-consuming for people with disabilities.
Shifting the burden of these increased pressures to families is unfair and
disadvantages our most vulnerable individuals who do not have the resources (time,
money, equipment) to enable community participation. The proposed changes would
increase isolation, forcing participants to remain at home, place unsustainable
pressure on families and informal supports to provide community, social and
recreational access and ultimately increase long-term costs due to the impact on the
physical and mental health of participants and their informal carers.
Recommendation 11: Protect community access by explicitly mandating that social,
recreation and community participation remain full-funded core components of a
participant’s NDIS plan to fulfill Australia’s obligations under the UN Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Premature access changes without alternative supports
The issues: The Bill intends to significantly alter eligibility and reduce participant
numbers and funded supports, without first establishing accessible, fully-funded, and
operational alternative community supports.
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Impact: This is dangerous and leaves vulnerable individuals at risk of having no
access to required supports. This may lead to delays in their treatment, may
contribute to more rapid progression of some conditions, and may place lives at risk
if essential supports are cut. 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.
Recommendation 12: Do not remove participants from the NDIS or reduce their
supports until appropriate, fully-funded alternatives are operational and accessible to
the individual.
Recommendation 13: Require safeguarding checks and human oversight for
decisions that affect safety, continuity, or legal rights.
Recommendation 14: Identify and protect high-risk cohorts through the creation of
a legal mechanism to identify rare disease disability and other high-risk cohorts and
prohibit reductions in supports (including staff ratios) that are needed for safety,
essential functioning or the prevention of deterioration or restrictive practices.
Thank you for considering my submission. It is clear that reform is required to
strengthen the integrity and sustainability of the NDIS; however, this cannot be at the
cost of those who rely on the NDIS for their rights to live independently, feel safe,
participate fully in their communities, retain choice and control over their lives, and
pursue their goals. The proposed Bill risks alienating the Human Rights of individuals
with disability, shifting responsibility and costs across systems, and weakening
fundamental safeguards. Targeted co-design with people with lived experience of
disability and organisations that represent them is therefore essential. I urge the
Committee to recommend critical amendments to the Bill included in this submission
and call for co-design reform to embed lived experience and disability expertise into
policy design, implementation and evaluation.
Sincerely,
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