National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 3773

RE: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

I write this submission not as a policy expert or legal professional, but as a parent living the daily reality of Australia’s disability system.

I am raising neurodivergent children while navigating autism, ADHD, learning difficulties, emotional regulation challenges, school distress, mental health concerns, therapy systems, educational advocacy, and the overwhelming complexity of the NDIS.

Behind every discussion about “sustainability,” “cost containment,” or “reasonable and necessary supports” are real children, real families, and real lives already stretched beyond capacity.

I understand the need to protect the future of the NDIS. However, I fear this Bill risks doing so by increasing restriction, uncertainty, and administrative burden for the very families the Scheme was designed to support.

Families like mine are already exhausted.

We are attending appointments, managing schools, coordinating therapists, completing paperwork, fighting decisions, researching legislation, responding to crises, and attempting to hold our households together while caring for children with significant support needs.

Many carers are surviving in a constant state of burnout.

Some leave employment entirely because the system itself becomes a full-time job.

Some experience deteriorating mental health, financial collapse, relationship breakdown, and social isolation.

Children fall behind educationally, emotionally, and developmentally while families wait for assessments, approvals, reviews, and funding decisions.

When support systems fail, the consequences do not disappear — they shift.

They shift onto already overwhelmed parents. They shift into schools unequipped to cope. They shift into hospitals, mental health systems, crisis services, and emergency departments.

And too often, they shift onto vulnerable children who internalise the message that their needs are “too hard,” “too expensive,” or “not severe enough.”\n That damage can last a lifetime.

I am deeply concerned that this Bill may further restrict flexibility around supports, create greater uncertainty for participants, and increase the power imbalance between families and systems they are already struggling to navigate.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 3773

For neurodivergent children especially, support needs are not always linear, visible, or easy to measure within rigid frameworks. A child may appear “fine” in a brief assessment while privately experiencing debilitating anxiety, sensory overwhelm, emotional shutdown, or school refusal.

Early intervention, therapy supports, emotional regulation assistance, educational accommodations, and family support are not luxuries. They are often the difference between participation and isolation, safety and crisis, hope and despair.

I ask the Committee to consider the cumulative impact of these reforms on families already living under immense pressure.

Policy decisions made in Parliament echo into homes, classrooms, therapy rooms, marriages, workplaces, and children’s futures.

If reforms prioritise cost reduction over human impact, Australia risks creating a generation of families pushed beyond breaking point — not because they failed, but because the systems designed to support them became too difficult, too adversarial, and too inaccessible to survive.

The true cost of inadequate disability support is not measured only financially.

It is measured in parental burnout. Children disengaging from education. Mental health deterioration. Family breakdown. Increased crisis presentations. And the quiet devastation experienced behind closed doors by families doing everything they can to keep their children safe, regulated, supported, and hopeful.

I urge the Committee to ensure that any reforms to the NDIS strengthen trust, accessibility, transparency, and genuine support for participants and carers — rather than creating additional fear and instability for those already carrying enormous burdens.

The future of the NDIS must be secured without sacrificing the wellbeing, dignity, and humanity of the people it was created to support.

Thank you for considering my submission.