Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation
Committee
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendments
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Name to be withheld please. Who am I ?

I am parent carer of 2 young adult NDIS participants one with Downs Syndrome and Autism and the other with Autism. Both were also born with different congenital diseases. I am also a Guardian of another older severely disabled family member with degenerative MS, Frontal lobe dementia and Schizophrenia: also an NDIS participant.

I am already available constantly to accommodate and anticipate their needs. I have lost income, a career and superannuation. I do not have capacity to take on any more than I do already. I have been hospitalised because of carer fatigue. NDIS supports are not a luxury.

The NDIS in its current form is essential to all our literal survival. Access to supports and therapies are not, “nice to have”. They are life giving and life preserving. They are the foundation of stability that have allowed my sons to progress within their abilities, to live outside four walls and actively participate in society. There is broad economic and social value to ensuring this most vulnerable and isolated group of society retain properly funded supports. Without NDIS supports our older family member would have inappropriately been in an aged care facility in her 40’s due to her complex disabilities.

I support the ongoing sustainability of the scheme and agree there should be changes and safeguards for fraud. But changes that

disproportionately affect the safety, inclusion and wellbeing of
disabled people will not achieve this. The current NDIS already
over the last few years has become increasingly restrictive for
participants. It is providers (particularly larger registered
organisations that have been given legislated permission to charge
copious amounts). To insist on a 7 day cancellation policy but can
themselves cancel with no notice. There will be a small number of
participants doing the wrong thing, but all participants I know are
scared of claiming even allowable supports now and not the reason
for “budget blowouts” as the rhetoric suggests.

This proposed Bill punishes the disabled for living and by definition and cements government and subsequently public opinion that differently abled people are nothing but a financial burden that deserve to be pushed and pulled at whim. This gives permission for society at large to once again, go back to darker times, and view this population as subservient and not as important or deserving as nondisabled people. It gives permission to discriminate, to feel contempt for and regard as less human anyone who isn’t their “normal.”

Article 12 - Equal recognition before the law

Article 19 - Living independently and being included in the community

Article 4 - consultation and active involvement.

Article 3 - Respect for individual autonomy and freedom to make own choices.

Article 21 - freedom of expression and access to information

Legislation should not be the vehicle that reduces rights, inclusion and safety. It should not create distress, barriers, segregation, hopelessness and inability to trust our government.

I would like it noted that something written on paper looks entirely different. When the primary concern is monetary it is easy to justify ignoring humanity and become desensitised to the harm being caused to hundreds of thousands of people by one’s actions.

SOME SPECIFIC BILL CONCERNS- not exhaustive.

The minister has the power to cut plans by instrument without review (s 34A) The across the board cut to Social and community participation will mean in real terms participants will not be able to stay in the workforce, attend Doctors and therapist appointments, see family and friends, play sport or go to the supermarket when they need to. There may not be complete understanding of what this support category encompasses and what in practice this will remove from the lives of those whose disability requires support to ever leave the house. This means people will once again be affectively imprisoned in their homes. This same act allows cuts to any group any time from any part of a budget whenever and without appeal.

The foreseeable risk to this means there will be times people are left in an unsafe environment. It will lead in complete carer burnout and more hospital admissions. Core budgets work together to assist with all facets of a participants care needs and wellbeing. It just redirects cost to other areas ie) hospitals that are not set up for what will be even more overwhelming demand that already exists. Robbing Peter to pay Paul in this countries budget is semantics on paper but negatively affect peoples lives in practice.

The ‘whole of person’ is being minimised (s 34(1)(aa)) Adding the word “directly”- supports become available only if the need arises directly from a qualifying impairment. In real life this means people with multiple interacting disabilities will not be adequately funded. You cannot separate a whole person into segments.

Asking for unscheduled assessment all but removed. (s48A) Severely restricting the ability for unscheduled assessments is dangerous. Changing the time frame from 21 days to 90 days leaves participants at real risk of harm. This will increase strain on our burgeoning hospital system, public housing system and child services when people are simply unable to remain safely in their current situation. There has been removal of safeguards in general in this Bill.

Plans can be removed or suspended without notice (s 40A, 30 (1A)) The can happen after an unstated number of supposed attempts have been made to contact the participant. No circumstance common to disabled people have been considered. Hospitalisation, acute health event, mental health event, family issues, mail issues, working. If this includes contact as a phone call attempt of a few seconds where only a missed call from a private number is left showing on someone’s phone, this is not acceptable.

It needs to be acknowledged that death can result from sudden removal of supports. There are no real safeguards to this.

Eligibility is being reassessed for everyone, Section 9B. This introduced a new untested, tool relying on AI. AI cannot be relied upon. Saying there will a human running the script is not a safeguard for inappropriate assessment. There is no safeguard for those who simply cannot engage with this format or do not have ability to engage for the required time to complete it. No one I care for will be able to engage meaningfully meaning the results will be incorrect. This leads to incorrect funding and supports put in place. These will also be run by planners with no allied health credentials. The lack of appropriate lived or other experience by current planners have been a significant reason for plan reassessments, some planners have never interacted with a disabled person before becoming a planner. Medical professionals are ignored which in any other industry is unconscionable. Adding an AI script run by a planner inexperienced in any given disability with no professional allied health/medical input is not fit for purpose. If the sole purpose is to remove participants under unethical and false pretences, this will do it.

The Henry viii powers- not appropriate It cannot be appropriate to give such overarching unilateral power in this space and is the direct opposite of co-design, transparency and accountability.

Changes for a vulnerable population should not bypass democratic checks and balances even under the guise of ‘temporary or transitional’. Nothing in NDIS is ever either of those things.

This is a slippery slope enshrining this into NDIS law and should be a flashing red warning sign for the future of our democratic Australia. Henry Viii is not someone to be emulated. History repeatedly shows what happens when one person dictates that the lives of one group of people are more valued and important than another group. No person is unworthy of living a full life included in society, then anyone else is.

This also reduces, like elsewhere in this Bill, rights of appeal and judiciary powers by narrowing or removing what courts can review.

It alters our democratic and human rights to simply change laws each time one delegate decides they don’t like them.

Removing the real right of appeal of NDIS decisions. By removing the powers of the ART to be independently able to be a safeguard to incorrect decisions made goes against the right of ‘real’ appeal of a decision. It shows an enormous imbalance of power by reducing the independence of the ART for oversight and creating a loop straight back the people who made the error. Only being left with appealing via the court system is not cognitively or financially accessible to the majority of NDIS participants or their carers/nominees. You have selected/singled out the most vulnerable group in society to further reduce choice, control, safety and agency.

Including every NDIS decision must be financially based as opposed to need. There has always been requirement for value for money. It has been NDIS themselves that deliberately insist on a more expensive support or product from lack of knowledge. It should be one consideration not the only consideration.

Including that cheaper options for supports and equipment must be

taken regardless of being inferior or even dangerous. There are many reasons for needing a particular support/equipment. These are individual as is every person with disability. Professionals understand this and should be the ones who make those decisions.

Insisting all treatment options have been tried.

This isn’t even a possibly. Some may not be appropriate for an individual, as a whole person, not be accessible, available or financially viable. An agency cannot impose a treatment requirement. This is akin to giving medical/ allied health advise without credentials. Dictating what is appropriate “treatment” for every disability is outside of a planners/agencies scope and will lead to participants trying to undertake irrelevant and detrimental treatments to ensure their life sustaining supports are not removed.

CONCLUSION

Any legislation creating fear, removing agency and inclusion and targeting only vulnerable people actively gives rise todiscrimination. Knowingly regressing quality of life for this one group in society ignores established and recognised human rights.Inciting segregation and distain from the nondisabled community against the disabled in society by sustained rhetoric against them, is to my mind immoral and against the law.Please do not pass this Bill in its current form. There are alternatives that will address sustainability without producingharm.I ask that any participant harm from any Bill passed bereported onand available publicly and accessibly. This should also commanda revocation of the parts of the act responsible.

Unpaid parent and carer.

Over the last 25+yrs I have tried to return to the workforce, but my sons care needs have made that not viable.

I have been hospitalised with illness due to carer fatigue. Both my husband and myself have complex health needs and we have no informal supports available to us. Along with so many others I am petrified of the new proposed NDIS legislation.

I can not take on any more of the caring responsibility that this legislation will produce. I have already given my whole life to caring which is way way beyond that of a normal mother or any parental responsibility.

This Bill will literally remove the independence we have worked so hard to achieve.