National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3462
- The Reality of Our NDIS Experience Right Now Right now, the NDIS is failing to keep our family safe because of a rigid, clinical focus. The system currently favours funding formal clinic-based therapies while denying or restricting the practical, everyday core supports we actually need to survive.
Managing the high-intensity, complex needs of two young children on the spectrum— both with severe cognitive and developmental delays—is an around-the-clock physical and emotional crisis. Therapy appointments do not keep a household from collapsing. We are drowning in the daily logistics of survival, yet the system treats clinical therapy as a cure-all while ignoring our desperate need for physical relief, care support, and respite.
- Why “Therapy-Only” Funding is Causing a Family Collapse There is a dangerous bureaucratic assumption built into the NDIS that funding speech or occupational therapy is enough to support a disabled child. It is not.
Therapy does not provide relief: My children cannot benefit from a weekly therapy session if our household is collapsing from sheer exhaustion. Therapy does not wash the dishes, it does not manage severe sensory meltdowns at 4:00 AM, and it does not give a burnt-out mother a single hour of rest.
The missing infrastructure: What we actually need is human infrastructure—support workers to assist with daily living, community access programs to give the children a safe outlet, and respite to allow the family to reset. Forcing clinical therapies on a family while starving them of core daily support is actively driving us into the ground.
- Feedback on the Proposed Legislative Changes The proposed changes to cut budget allocations for social, civic, and community participation feel like a direct threat to our family’s survival.
These changes have not been explained clearly to exhausted, overwhelmed families. Frontline carers do not have the time or energy to sift through dense legal jargon while managing severe burnout. The lack of plain-English communication creates immense panic, leaving us to wonder if the tiny amount of core support we do have is going to be stripped away.
- The Compounding Impact of Reducing Core and Capacity Supports If Social and Community Supports are Reduced or Removed:
Immediate Family Breakdown: These supports are what provide the small windows of respite that allow me to rest and keep our home functioning. Cutting this funding means the entire, unsustainable weight of care falls solely on me, accelerating a dangerous level of chronic carer burnout.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3462
Isolation for the Children: Community participation is where my children learn to navigate the outside world safely. Without it, they are trapped in our living room, causing their behaviors to escalate due to lack of stimulation.
If Capacity Building Supports are Reduced or Removed:
Increased Long-Term Costs: Capacity building is supposed to teach my children basic daily living skills and independence. If a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old do not get functional, practical capacity support now, their regression will make them entirely dependent on government systems and intensive crisis care for the rest of their lives.
Conclusion
The NDIS was created to make the lives of people with disabilities and their families viable. Expecting depleted, severely burnt-out parents to absorb funding cuts and fill the gaps with unpaid labor is a breaking point. My family is collapsing under the current system; reducing our access to community and daily supports will push us over the edge. I urge the committee to look beyond clinical therapy metrics and protect the core, hands-on support that keeps families alive.
Submitted by:
Capacity: Primary Carer / Mother
Family Context: Primary carer to a son (aged 9, ASD Level 2, Combined ADHD, Intellectual Disability, IQ 61) and a daughter (aged 5, ASD Level 3, suspected Combined ADHD, suspected Intellectual Disability).