28/05/2026

NDIS Legislative Changes Submission

I am writing this submission as both an NDIS participant and a Registered Nurse currently working within the community and disability sector, supporting highly vulnerable people with profound disabilities, psychosocial disabilities, autism, intellectual disabilities, neurological conditions, behavioural concerns, trauma histories, and high-complexity care needs.

I have worked across acute healthcare settings including Emergency Departments, mental health, community nursing, disability care, chronic care, and complex behavioural support environments. This has provided me with a unique perspective on the direct flow-on effects that occur when vulnerable people cannot access adequate supports early.

I am now witnessing these impacts in real time within the community sector. Through both lived and professional experience, I have seen firsthand how essential the NDIS is in preventing:

• Hospital admissions
• Emergency department presentations
• Mental health crises
• Institutionalisation
• Carer burnout
• Homelessness
• Family breakdown
• Abuse and neglect
• Loss of dignity and independence

The NDIS is not simply a funding scheme. For many Australians, it is the difference between surviving and falling through the gaps of multiple already-overwhelmed systems.

What does the NDIS mean for you right now?

The NDIS currently represents stability, safety, access to healthcare, and basic human dignity for many people. Without it, many participants would not survive safely in the community.

For myself and many of the individuals I support, the NDIS is not a luxury system. It funds essential daily living needs, therapies, behavioural supports, community access, emotional regulation, continence support, transport, supervision, communication support, and assistance with activities that many people take for granted.

Support for Individuals with Complex Needs

I support individuals with:

• Severe autism
• Global developmental delay
• Cerebral palsy
• Seizure disorders
• Double incontinence
• Non-verbal communication
• Psychosocial disabilities
• Complex trauma
• Behavioural dysregulation
• Significant sensory and cognitive impairments

Many of these individuals require 24/7 supervision and support to remain safe. Without NDIS-funded supports, families would collapse under the pressure, emergency systems would become overwhelmed, and vulnerable people would face serious risks including abuse, neglect, self-harm, homelessness, institutionalisation, and medical deterioration.

How do you feel about the proposed changes to the NDIS Act?

I feel deeply concerned, frightened, and disheartened by the proposed changes. From both a nursing and lived-experience perspective, the proposed reforms appear heavily focused on cost reduction without adequately considering the long-term human and systemic consequences. In healthcare, we know that when preventative and community-based supports are removed, people eventually present in crisis. The cost is then transferred into hospitals, emergency departments, inpatient mental health units, child protection systems, policing, homelessness services, and aged care systems. I have personally seen this pattern occur repeatedly throughout my nursing career across emergency, acute care, mental health, and now community disability settings.

I am also deeply concerned about increasing registration requirements and restrictions that may unintentionally remove participant choice and control regarding who provides their most intimate personal care.

Many people living with disabilities require assistance with:

• Showering
• Toileting
• Continence care
• Pad changes
• Dressing

• Personal hygiene
• Menstrual care
• Catheter care
• Transfers and physical support

These are extremely personal and vulnerable moments. One of the most important aspects of quality disability support is trust, familiarity, emotional safety, and consistency of carers. For many participants — particularly those with autism, intellectual disabilities, psychosocial disabilities, trauma histories, behavioural concerns, or communication impairments — having unfamiliar workers enter their home can be highly distressing and dysregulating.

Participants should have the right to choose who assists them with intimate care. Removing flexibility and forcing participants into larger provider systems risks creating a revolving door of unfamiliar staff entering vulnerable people’s homes every day. This is not trauma-informed care, and it does not uphold dignity or person-centred practice. As both a Registered Nurse and disability provider, I have seen firsthand how essential continuity of care is for emotional regulation, behavioural stability, trust-building, safety, and prevention of trauma responses. Many participants cannot verbally advocate for themselves. Some are non- verbal. Some have experienced abuse previously. Some become behaviourally escalated or emotionally distressed when unfamiliar people touch them or invade their personal space.

We must ask ourselves honestly: how would any member of the public feel if a different stranger entered their home every day and performed their most intimate personal care?

For many participants, these supports involve assistance with washing intimate areas, toileting, changing continence products, and supporting them during moments where they are physically and emotionally vulnerable. Choice and control are not optional extras within the NDIS. They are foundational principles of dignity, autonomy, trauma-informed care, and human rights. While safeguarding and quality standards are important, reforms must not unintentionally strip participants of their ability to choose trusted carers with whom they feel safe. The current language surrounding “reasonable and necessary” supports, permanence, reassessments, and funding reductions creates significant fear and uncertainty for participants, carers, and providers alike.

Changes to Disability Support

Many disabilities are lifelong. While therapies may improve quality of life, they do not “cure” autism, intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, severe psychosocial disability, or complex neurological conditions.

The suggestion that participants may need to continually prove their disability or trial every possible treatment before qualifying for support is distressing, unrealistic, and potentially harmful.

Do you feel these changes have been explained clearly enough?

No. Many participants, families, and even experienced providers (including myself) and clinicians are confused about what these changes actually mean in practice.

The language used is often vague, legalistic, and difficult to interpret. This creates fear within the disability community.

There is widespread anxiety regarding:

• Who may lose eligibility
• What supports may be removed
• Whether autism and psychosocial disabilities will remain recognised appropriately
• How “permanence” will be defined
• Whether participants will be forced into inappropriate or unaffordable treatments
• Whether regional and rural Australians will be disadvantaged further

Many participants with cognitive impairments, intellectual disabilities, autism, trauma histories, low literacy, or psychosocial disabilities may not fully understand the implications of these reforms, which makes accessible communication even more critical.

What would these changes mean for you, your family, friends, carers, or community?

The consequences could be devastating.

Families are already exhausted and overwhelmed. Informal carers are experiencing burnout at alarming rates. Many parents and carers cannot safely continue without support systems in place.

As both a nurse and provider, I have witnessed:

• Families breaking down under care demands
• Parents unable to sleep safely due to seizure monitoring requirements
• Carers developing severe mental health issues from prolonged unsupported caring roles
• Participants becoming socially isolated when supports are reduced

• Increased hospital presentations when early intervention supports are
• Escalation of behaviours of concern when routine and therapeutic supports are disrupted Reducing supports would not remove disability. It would simply shift the burden onto families, hospitals, emergency services, aged care systems, homelessness services, mental health systems, and the broader community. It is also important to recognise that nurses, disability support workers, allied health clinicians, and support coordinators are already leaving the sector due to burnout, financial instability, emotional exhaustion, and increasing administrative burden. Further instability risks worsening workforce shortages within an already strained system.

What would happen if your social and community supports were reduced or removed?

Social and community supports are essential protective factors. For many participants, these supports prevent:

• Isolation
• Depression
• Behavioural escalation
• Regression
• Loss of communication skills
• Loss of independence
• Self-harm
• Family violence
• Hospitalisation Community participation is not “extra.” It is fundamental to mental health, emotional regulation, learning, confidence, and quality of life. Many participants with autism, psychosocial disabilities, intellectual disabilities, or trauma backgrounds rely heavily on consistent support workers and routines to safely access the community. Without these supports, many individuals would become housebound and socially excluded.

What would happen if your capacity building supports were reduced or removed — or if you never had access to them in the first place?

Capacity building supports are among the most important investments the NDIS makes.

• Therapies, behavioural supports, occupational therapy, speech therapy,
• psychology, support coordination, and skill-building programs often prevent much higher long-term costs.

Without early intervention and capacity-building supports:

• Participants deteriorate faster
• Behavioural concerns escalate
• Functional decline increases
• Carer burnout worsens
• Hospital admissions increase
• Crisis interventions become more frequent
• Long-term dependence increases

I have personally seen participants make meaningful improvements in communication, emotional regulation, independence, safety awareness, and community participation because they had access to consistent therapeutic supports.

Removing these services would reverse years of progress for many vulnerable people.

What would these changes to the definition of permanence mean for you?

The proposed changes to the definition of permanence are particularly concerning. Many disabilities are lifelong even if symptoms fluctuate or therapies provide partial improvement. Requiring participants to trial “all available treatments” before accessing support is unrealistic and inequitable, especially when:

• Treatments may cost thousands of dollars
• Waiting lists are years long
• Services may not exist regionally or rurally
• Participants may not medically tolerate treatments
• Some therapies lack evidence for certain disabilities
• The emotional and financial burden becomes overwhelming As a Registered Nurse, I am particularly concerned about the ethical implications of expecting vulnerable individuals to exhaust every possible treatment pathway — regardless of affordability, accessibility, evidence base, trauma impact, or quality of life — before being considered “disabled enough” for support. Disability should not need to be proven repeatedly when conditions are already well documented by specialists. This approach risks excluding vulnerable people simply because they cannot afford private therapies or live in areas without service access.

Final Statement

As someone working directly within disability care, I fear these changes will disproportionately harm:

• Rural and remote Australians
• Low-income families
• Individuals with psychosocial disabilities
• Autistic individuals
• People with intellectual disabilities
• Children requiring early intervention
• Participants with trauma backgrounds who struggle with repeated assessments and system navigation

The NDIS is not perfect, and reform is needed. However, reforms must focus on improving accessibility, reducing fraud appropriately, increasing transparency, and strengthening quality care — not reducing essential supports for vulnerable people. Disability does not disappear because funding is reduced. The reality is that removing supports will simply increase suffering, crisis presentations, family breakdown, homelessness, and long-term costs to other government systems. As a Registered Nurse who has worked across emergency, acute care, mental health, and community settings, I am deeply concerned that these reforms risk undoing years of progress in community-based disability support and shifting vulnerable people back into crisis-driven systems that are already overwhelmed. I urge the government to genuinely consult with participants, carers, nurses, allied health professionals, disability workers, and people with lived experience before implementing changes that may permanently harm vulnerable Australians. People with disabilities deserve dignity, safety, inclusion, autonomy, and the opportunity to participate meaningfully in society.

I am more than happy to speak to politicians, take additional questions and provide further information. Please find contact details below.

Kind Regards,

Registered Nurse | Dip. Counsellor AHPRA: Areas of Special Interest Mental Health & Disabilities. ADHD/ASD Coaching.

LGBTQIA Safe Practitioner. M: