Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee

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

Submitted by: Berinda Karp, CEO, Autism STEP Australia Location: EMAIL: Date: 30 May 2026

Introduction

I am writing to express serious concerns about the proposed changes to the NDIS under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, and to make three specific recommendations to the Committee.

About the Submitter

I am a person with disability, and I have family members who are recipients of NDIS supports and funding. My perspective is both professional and deeply personal — I understand this system as a provider, as a person with disability, and as a family member of people who depend on it.

I am the CEO of Autism STEP Australia and an independent specialist consultant with ten years of experience working primarily with Autistic youth and adults in the NDIS space, supporting approximately 40 clients at any given time. Prior to this, I spent 27 years as a Teacher Consultant at TAFE, where I helped develop and deliver the original Certificate III in Disability Services and the Certificate III for Teachers Aides.

I hold five degrees, am a PhD candidate, and am completing a Diploma in Counselling. I presented at four conferences in 2025, with further presentations completed and confirmed in 2026 and numerous other conferences over the last 35 years. My program Ask Me What I Need — Autism awareness training for Emergency Services — received State and National Resilience Awards and was featured by the ABC. I am recognised as an expert witness by NSW magistrates and receive referrals from the judicial system, the Department of Communities and Justice, out-of-home care services, schools, and families who have exhausted every other option.

I bring a perspective that is rare in this field — I am simultaneously a person with disability, a family member of NDIS participants, and a specialist provider with nearly four decades of experience.

The Problem: Erosion of Flexible Support and Specialist Access

My clients are among the most complex and vulnerable people in the NDIS system. Many have a Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) profile with Autism and Mental health diagnosis and carry deep wounds from conventional therapeutic interventions that failed them

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in childhood. They do not engage with standard OT or psychology services — they have already been through those doors, and many have been harmed. They are nocturnal, socially isolated, in poor health, and referred to me precisely because everything else has not worked.

Effective practice with this population is slow by necessity. It can take two years to build enough trust before any goal-directed work begins. To a NDIA planner reviewing utilisation data, it can look like nothing is happening. But something is happening — it is the most important thing: a person who has never felt safe is beginning to feel safe. Once that foundation is built, these clients are extraordinarily capable. They go on to study, work, and build lives. But they cannot get there faster just because a budget spreadsheet says so.

Until recently, I worked under the Therapies Other line item, which reflected the specialist, flexible nature of my work. That flexibility is now being systematically removed. Planners are increasingly writing stated supports specifying only conventional therapies, explicitly excluding Therapies Other — preventing clients from accessing what actually works, and preventing me from being paid for what I actually do.

I do access and use SLES and Employment supports with clients which reflects my extensive experience in vocational education and training, direct pre and post employment supports dealing with employers and on site training.

The financial impact has been devastating — a reduction in effective income of approximately one third. I have provided directors’ loans to keep the business operational and regularly forgo my own pay. I am a recognised national expert, and I am considering whether I can sustain this practice within the next twelve months. If I close, my clients have nowhere to go. The Real Cost of These Reforms

Administrative language can obscure human reality. The following are not hypothetical risks — they are the current circumstances of people I support right now.

Suicide risk and self-harm. I have clients who regularly self-harm and express suicidal ideation daily. These same clients are now — because of sustained, relationship-based support — actively participating in community and social activities. The proposed reforms specifically target Community and Social Participation for reduction or elimination. In practice, for some of my clients, this means removing the supports that are keeping them alive.

Homelessness. I have clients experiencing homelessness. My support includes practical assistance — accessing food hampers, navigating services, maintaining basic stability. This work does not fit neatly into a therapy line item. It is exactly the kind of flexible, needs-based support the reforms are designed to eliminate.

The justice system. I have clients on court orders where my services are explicitly named in legal documents as integral to their rehabilitation and community management. NSW magistrates have accepted my futures reports and recognised my role in keeping these individuals out of incarceration. Removing my access through NDIS planning decisions

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effectively overrides a judicial determination. The downstream costs of incarceration — human and financial — vastly exceed the cost of the supports being cut.

Families. Many families I work with have multiple members with disability, including mothers who are late-diagnosed Autistic with co-occurring conditions and histories of domestic violence. For these families, Support Coordination is not administrative — it is the mechanism that makes everything else possible. Reducing it means missed appointments, failed plan reviews, and children who fall further behind.

These are not edge cases. These are the people the NDIS was designed for. The reforms will not save money — they will shift costs to emergency departments, the justice system, crisis services, and human lives.

Success Stories

The NDIS, when it works as intended, transforms lives. These outcomes are exactly what is under threat.

• A young woman with an Autistic and PDA profile — it took two years to engage with her. She has since completed school and TAFE and is now completing a double degree at university.
• A young man supported through his first year at university — managing social demands, executive functioning, study, and part-time work. He no longer needs my support. He is independent.
• A woman I supported over several years is now a qualified support worker running her own small business. She was married yesterday.
• A young man who had not engaged with anyone outside his family since age eight is now eighteen with career goals, asking when I am coming to see him next.
• A now 30-year-old, Mild Intellectual Disability, Autism, Hearing Impaired, now travels independently to work four days a week, with my initial support at home cooks dinner for the family (has support workers on other days), has independent life skills, goes out weekly to a group and a support worker takes him bush walking. This is his exercise and helps maintain his mental health.

These outcomes were not quick. They were not cheap. They were not achieved through conventional therapy. They were achieved through sustained, flexible, specialist support — exactly what this Bill proposes to eliminate.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Protect Access and Support for Autistic People

No reduction in support should be made for Autistic NDIS participants without a mandatory, independent specialist assessment by all practitioners involved. Utilisation rates are not a valid measure of support effectiveness for people with complex profiles who require extended engagement before goal-directed work can begin. Cuts based on administrative data rather than specialist evidence will disproportionately harm the most vulnerable participants.

Recommendation 2: Mandatory Specialist Training for Planners and Decision-Makers

Any NDIA planner, LAC, or delegate writing or approving plans for Autistic participants must hold demonstrated, current training in Autism — including co-occurring conditions, PDA profiles, trauma-informed practice, and neurodiversity-affirming approaches. Plans written without this knowledge cause direct harm, directing people toward supports that do not work and away from supports that do.

Recommendation 3: Qualified Oversight of Decisions Affecting Participants

Neither the government nor the NDIA should hold unilateral power to cut or significantly alter a participant’s supports without independent, qualified oversight. Decisions of this magnitude must involve people with genuine expertise in the relevant disability. Bureaucratic or budgetary decisions made without specialist input are inconsistent with the NDIS’s founding commitment to individual need and must be subject to independent review by qualified professionals.

Conclusion

The NDIS was built on a promise: that people with disability would receive the support they actually need, determined by their individual circumstances — not by what is cheapest or most administratively convenient. The changes proposed in this Bill are moving in the opposite direction.

I have spent nearly four decades in this field. The people I work with are not statistics — they are the young woman now completing a double degree who couldn’t leave her room. The young man with career goals who hadn’t engaged with the world since he was eight. The family held together, in part, because someone showed up and stayed.

This Bill puts all of that at risk. I urge the Committee to listen to those working at the complex end of this system and make recommendations that protect the people who have no alternative.