National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3777
1 June 2026
Committee Secretary Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
deeply regretted.
Dear Dr Committee Secretary,
I welcome the opportunity to make a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. I am an Occupational Therapist who has worked with NDIS participants since the commencement of the scheme in Queensland. I want to outline the harm this Amendment Bill will cause to people with a disability if it passes Parliament in its current form. I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds. In particular, I recommend that the following issues regarding the Bill be reviewed:
Implementation of Support Needs Assessments
The Bill shifts assessment from a holistic consideration to assessment via a single assessment tool – The I-CAN (Instrument for Classification and Assessment of support Needs). This assessment tool does not provide a comprehensive or holistic assessment of a participant’s functional needs, particularly for those participants who have episodic or fluctuating disabilities, such as participants with Multiple Sclerosis. Use of this assessment places participants at serious risk of their needs being undercounted, without due consideration of their actual support needs. I therefore recommend that the Bill not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool.
New Framework Planning
The Bill links development of the participant’s plan budget directly to the outcome of the Support Needs Assessment. Given the concerns raised above that the proposed assessment tool is not valid to provide a comprehensive assessment of support needs, it is likely that a participants’ plan budget will not accurately reflect their support needs. The Bill also does not allow for participant plan budgets to be reviewed according to individual support categories. Therefore, if for instance the participant had a need for consumables budget to cover continence management products, but these were not identified through the Support Needs Assessment, this could not be reviewed separately, but rather the NDIA would have to complete another full Support Needs Assessment. This would result in inefficient administrative processes for the agency and unnecessary concern and stress for the participant. I therefore recommend that participant plan budgets not be solely linked to the outcome of the Support Needs Assessment and that individual support need categories be able to be reviewed separately.
Functional Capacity definition
The Bill proposes a new definition of functional capacity which assesses what a person can do without assistance from other people, without assistive technology or modifications and excluding, as far as possible, environmental and personal circumstances. As an experienced Occupational Therapist, I can confirm that functional capacity cannot be understood outside of the contexts of environmental and personal circumstances.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3777
spina bifida, and in theory these two people should have comparable functional capacity based on what they can do with assistance or without AT or modifications eg. They can both only mobilise with the use of a manual wheelchair. However, in reality this is not the case that their functional capacity is comparable due to differing personal or environmental considerations. Take for example, if one of these people with spina bifida lives in a home with internal stairs to access some parts of the home, versus a person living in a home with no stairs.
I therefore recommend that the definition of functional capacity be reviewed according to the universally accepted definition of the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF).
- Executive powers The Bill provides power to the relevant Minister to reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specified percentage through a process that cannot be challenged. It also allows the NDIA’s CEO to reject a support if there is limited high-level published research evidence as to the effectiveness of the support. This is likely to place many participants at risk of harm as there are often supports that are required by participants about which there is currently very limited academic research. As an example, as an Occupational Therapist, I may recommend provision of a power assist device add on to a participant’s manual wheelchair, in order to improve their endurance with community mobility. These items of assistive technology are very recent developments and there is currently limited published research regarding their efficacy, however participant specific evidence of improved outcomes can readily be provided. This new legislation places such participants at risk of not receiving these very valuable and effective supports.
I therefore recommend that NDIS participants should retain the right to appeal these decisions regarding their essential supports.
- Implementation of the “Foundational Supports” system The Bill proposed that many supports currently provided via the NDIS, will be shifted to the Foundational Supports programs. These programs are not currently operational and thus many participants needs cannot be met through these programs
I therefore recommend that no reductions to support services take effect until Foundational Supports are fully operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those who will lose NDIS supports.
Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission regarding the NDIS Amendment Bill 2026 and I ask that these matters be reviewed with the necessary intense scrutiny given the very real risk of harm to people with disabilities within our community.
Yours sincerely,
Occupational Therapist