Formal Submission Opposing Proposed NDIS Changes

To: Senate Standing Committee / Relevant Parliamentary Inquiry Re: Submission in Opposition to Proposed NDIS Legislative Changes and Funding Reductions Date: 28 May 2026

I am writing this submission in strong opposition to the proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reforms and funding reductions currently being advanced under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and associated legislative and policy reforms.

This submission is made as a parent and primary support person to two sons with disabilities, while also caring for my youngest child and managing the broader impacts these reforms will have on my entire family unit.

The proposed reforms are being presented publicly as measures to improve sustainability, consistency, and fraud prevention. However, the practical reality for families like mine is that these changes will substantially reduce supports, increase family burden, worsen developmental outcomes for children with disability, and transfer care responsibilities onto already stretched parents and siblings.

The reforms are not merely administrative. They represent a significant restructuring of how disability is recognised, assessed, funded, and supported in Australia. The cumulative effect of these changes will reduce access to meaningful support and undermine the foundational principles on which the NDIS was created: inclusion, functional support, independence, early intervention, community participation, and family sustainability.

Overview of Proposed Changes

The proposed reforms include:

Reduction of social and community participation funding by approximately 50%
Reduction of capacity building daily activity funding by approximately 10%
Introduction of standardised “support needs assessments”

Tightening of the definition of “reasonable and necessary” supports
Greater consideration of informal supports and family capacity
Increased use of reassessments and funding controls
Potential exclusion or diversion of some participants into mainstream systems
Restrictions around providers and plan management arrangements
Greater NDIA powers around plan management and participant compliance

These changes have been outlined by the Australian Government and NDIA across multiple reform documents and legislative summaries.

The government has confirmed that social and community participation budgets are intended to be reduced by 50%, with additional cuts to capacity-building supports.

The reforms are also intended to reduce overall NDIS growth and participant numbers substantially over coming years.

Impact on My Sons with Disabilities

Loss of Community Participation Is Not a Minor Reduction

For children and young people with disabilities, community participation supports are not optional recreational extras. They are critical developmental supports.

The proposed reduction to social and community participation funding demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of disability and child development.

Community participation supports provide:

Skill development
Emotional regulation opportunities
Social learning
Routine and predictability
Reduction of isolation

Increased independence
Sensory regulation
Confidence and resilience
Access to peer relationships
Exposure to environments that build adaptive functioning

For autistic children and children with developmental disabilities, these supports are often the only reason participation is possible at all.

Without funded supports:

Many activities become inaccessible
Parents cannot safely facilitate participation alone
Children become increasingly isolated
Skills regress
Anxiety and behavioural dysregulation increase
Siblings lose opportunities because family resources become concentrated on crisis management

The assumption that these supports are somehow excessive or non-essential ignores the lived reality of disability.

The government itself acknowledges these changes are specifically designed to reduce spending in these categories.

Increased Reliance on “Informal Supports” Will Harm Families

A deeply concerning aspect of the reforms is the increased weighting being given to informal supports and family capacity.

This effectively assumes families can absorb growing levels of disability support work without consequence.

Parents of children with disability already perform:
Care coordination
Behaviour support
Therapy carryover
Emotional regulation assistance
Transport
Advocacy
Supervision
School liaison
Medical coordination
Crisis management
Sleep disruption management
Financial sacrifice
Reduced workforce participation

These responsibilities already exceed normal parenting expectations.

The reforms risk institutionalising the assumption that families should continue filling service gaps indefinitely.

This is particularly concerning for families with multiple children, including multiple children with disability, because:

Care demands compound exponentially
Parent burnout increases
Financial stress increases
Sibling needs become secondary
Family breakdown risk increases
Mental health deteriorates across the household

Standardised Support Needs Assessments Are Inappropriate for Complex Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

The NDIS was never intended to operate on the assumption that families would permanently replace professional support systems.

The Proposed Support Needs Assessments Raise Major Concerns Regarding Fairness, Accuracy, and Validity

Disability is not experienced uniformly.

Children with autism and neurodevelopmental disabilities often present:

Masking behaviours
Variable functioning
Context-dependent capacity
Delayed burnout responses
Episodic dysregulation
Hidden support needs

Brief standardised assessments cannot accurately capture:

Executive functioning deficits
Sensory overload
Emotional exhaustion
Social communication fatigue
Functional impacts within home and school environments

There are already serious concerns from disability advocates and participants regarding the reliability and fairness of the proposed assessment model.

There are also concerns that:

Treating clinician evidence may be reduced in importance

Assessments may be conducted by non-specialists
Algorithmic budget determination may occur
Appeal rights may become more difficult in practice

Families should not lose essential supports because of flawed standardised assessment systems that fail to reflect real-world functioning.

Impact on My Youngest Son With No Disability

My youngest son will also be negatively affected by these reforms, even if he is not the direct recipient of disability funding.

When supports are reduced:

Household stress increases
Parent availability decreases
Family financial pressure increases
Sibling experiences are restricted
Attention becomes evenly distributed
The entire family system becomes organised around survival rather than healthy functioning

Siblings of children with disability are already disproportionately affected by:

Reduced parental time
Interrupted routines
Exposure to behavioural distress
Increased caregiving expectations
Emotional stress within the home

Impact on Families

Reducing Supports to Disabled Children Does Not Only Affect the Participant

It affects every child in the household.

Impact on Me as a Parent and Carer

The proposed reforms will significantly increase the burden placed on me as a parent and carer.

Reduced supports do not eliminate needs. They simply transfer those needs onto unpaid family labour.

This has direct impacts including:

Reduced ability to work
Financial instability
Chronic exhaustion
Increased physical and emotional strain
Reduced ability to parent all children effectively
Increased risk of caregiver burnout

There is also a broader systemic contradiction in expecting families to:

Maintain workforce participation
Absorb increasing care demands
Navigate increasingly complex bureaucratic systems
Replace formal supports with unpaid labour

These reforms risk pushing families into crisis while simultaneously reducing the supports that prevent crisis.

The Proposed Changes Undermine Early Intervention Principles

One of the most concerning aspects of these reforms is the apparent shift away from preventative and developmental support models.

Reducing supports may create short-term budget savings, but the long-term costs are likely to increase through:
Higher mental health service use
Increased hospital presentations
Increased school refusal
Family breakdown
Greater long-term dependency
Increased state system involvement
Increased crisis interventions

Early and adequate support reduces future costs.

Removing supports after developmental progress has begun is both harmful and economically short-sighted.

The Reforms Risk Returning Disabled People to Isolation

The original purpose of the NDIS was to allow disabled Australians to participate meaningfully in society.

Cuts to social and community participation supports directly contradict this purpose.

The message these reforms send is that:

Inclusion is optional
Participation is excessive
Independence should be limited by budget targets
Families should absorb systemic failures privately

For many families, these changes will mean children becoming increasingly confined to home environments due to lack of accessible support.

Concerns Regarding Consultation and Speed of Reform

There are also significant concerns regarding:

Limited consultation timeframes
Insufficient accessibility of consultation materials
Rapid implementation timelines
Lack of meaningful co-design with disabled people and families

Community concerns regarding inadequate consultation have already been widely raised publicly.

Reforms of this magnitude should not proceed without substantial disability-led consultation and transparent modelling of real-world impacts.

Intergenerational Evidence of the Importance of Disability Supports

My family provides a real-life example of the difference that appropriate disability support can make across generations.

There are five people across three generations of my family who rarely leave their homes unless absolutely necessary. Two family members have only recently received disability diagnoses later in life, despite experiencing significant challenges for decades.

Prior to the existence of supports such as the NDIS, members of my family experienced outcomes that are sadly common when disability is not recognised or supported appropriately.

Family members left school early, became parents at a young age, experienced homelessness,
lost custody of children, struggled to maintain employment, struggled with addiction, and were
unable to sustain long-term relationships.

One family member spent much of his life homeless and living on the streets. He is now over 50 years old. Since gaining access to NDIS supports, he is experiencing the most stable, secure and positive period of his life. The support he receives has provided opportunities and quality of life that were simply unavailable to him for decades.

The contrast between previous generations and the younger generation in our family is striking.

My nephew, who has Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 2, completed Year 12 and has maintained full-time employment for the past two years.

My eldest son is completing Year 12 this year and is planning to enter the workforce.

My second son is also on track to complete Year 12 within the next two years and similarly intends to enter employment.

Both of my sons have healthy friendships, active social lives, and aspirations for their futures. These are outcomes that previous generations of our family were largely unable to achieve.

The difference is not that my sons are somehow more capable than previous generations. The difference is that they have had access to early intervention, disability supports, community participation opportunities, therapies, skill-building programs, educational assistance, and social supports that previous generations never received.

The proposed reductions to NDIS funding and supports risk denying future generations the same opportunities that have allowed my children and nephew to succeed.

Recommendations for Improving NDIS Sustainability

Introduce Stronger Price Controls

The Government should review NDIS pricing arrangements to ensure they better reflect provider qualifications, experience, specialisation and demonstrated outcomes.

Currently, many providers charge the maximum NDIS price regardless of differences in experience, qualifications or service quality. While price limits are important for maintaining provider viability, there should also be mechanisms that ensure participants receive value for money.

Consideration could be given to a tiered pricing structure that recognises higher qualifications, specialist expertise and demonstrated outcomes, while preventing excessive charging where equivalent services can be delivered at lower cost. This would help ensure NDIS funding is used efficiently without reducing participant access to essential supports.

Increase Oversight of Provider Charges

There can be significant variation in costs between providers delivering very similar services. Families often have limited ability to determine whether higher charges reflect greater expertise, improved outcomes or simply differences in business practices.

Greater transparency around provider pricing, service delivery and outcomes would help participants and carers make informed decisions when selecting supports.

Improved Oversight

Improved oversight would also assist in identifying excessive charging practices and ensure that NDIS funding is being used effectively to achieve participant outcomes rather than unnecessarily increasing scheme expenditure.

Strengthen Registration Requirements

All providers receiving NDIS funding should be required to meet appropriate standards relating to qualifications, training, safeguarding, professional conduct and ongoing competency.

Participants and families should be able to access services with confidence, knowing that providers meet consistent quality standards and are subject to appropriate oversight.

While maintaining participant choice is important, stronger registration requirements could help improve service quality, reduce risks to participants and ensure public funds are being directed towards providers who meet recognised professional standards.

Increase Auditing of Providers Rather Than Participants

Efforts to improve the sustainability of the NDIS should focus on areas where the greatest savings can be achieved without reducing participant supports.

Many participants and families already experience significant administrative burdens in demonstrating their needs, while concerns continue to be raised regarding provider charging practices and service quality.

Increasing audits of providers, invoices and service delivery arrangements could assist in identifying fraud, waste, duplicate billing and inappropriate charging practices. This approach would target inefficiencies within the system while preserving essential supports for people with disability.

Introduce Independent Reviews of High-Cost Providers

Where providers consistently charge significantly above average rates, there should be mechanisms to determine whether those costs are justified by specialist expertise, participant complexity or demonstrated outcomes.

Independent review processes could provide greater transparency and accountability while ensuring that higher pricing is supported by evidence of additional value to participants.

This would help protect participants from excessive costs while also ensuring that providers delivering genuinely specialised or complex services are appropriately recognised.

Recognition For Providers Who Successfully Build Independence

Providers who demonstrate that participants have improved functional capacity, achieved educational goals, entered employment, increased community participation or reduced reliance

Increase Investment in Regional and Telehealth Services

Expanding access to telehealth and regional service delivery could improve access to qualified professionals while reducing costs associated with travel and provider shortages.

Many participants face long waiting lists, limited provider choice or significant travel requirements to access specialist services. Telehealth has demonstrated that many therapies, consultations and capacity-building supports can be delivered effectively without requiring face-to-face attendance in every circumstance.

Greater investment in these service models could improve equity of access, particularly for regional and remote participants, while also reducing costs for both providers and the NDIS.

Conclusion

I strongly oppose the proposed NDIS changes and funding reductions.

These reforms will:

Reduce essential supports
Increase isolation for disabled children and adults
Shift care burdens onto families
Harm siblings and carers
Reduce developmental opportunities
Increase long-term societal costs
Underminate the foundational intent of the NDIS

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The sustainability of the NDIS should not be achieved by reducing the quality of life, participation, and future opportunities of disabled children and their families.

Fraud prevention and administrative reform are legitimate goals. However, broad funding reductions and restrictive eligibility measures unfairly target participants and families rather than addressing systemic inefficiencies and provider exploitation.

I urge the Government and Parliament to:

Reject reductions to social and community participation funding
Reject blanket cuts to capacity building supports
Ensure treating clinician evidence remains central to planning
Prevent overreliance on standardised assessments
Protect family sustainability within planning decisions
Preserve genuine participant choice and control
Conduct further disability-led consultation before implementing reforms

Disabled children and their families should not bear the cost of balancing government budgets.

My family has experienced both worlds: life before meaningful disability supports and life with them. The difference in outcomes is undeniable. The proposed NDIS changes risk reversing this progress, not only for my family but for thousands of Australian families who rely on these supports to build independent and meaningful lives.

I urge the Government to reconsider reforms that reduce access to supports and instead focus on protecting the programs that have already demonstrated their value through improved educational, social and employment outcomes.

The NDIS should be strengthened, not reduced. Future generations of Australians with disability deserve the same opportunities that my children have been fortunate enough to receive.

Thank you for considering my submission.

Yours sincerely, Parent and Carer

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