My name is , and I am a participant of the NDIS who is deeply concerned about the
proposed changes to the NDIS under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
I suppose you could say that my first concern is how short the submission period for this inquiry is. Two weeks have not been enough time for a disabled person like myself to organise an appropriately detailed response to a bill making such extensive changes to the system we rely on. My impairments, particularly to memory and executive functioning, make tasks like these difficult.
The past two weeks have, for me, been filled with panic that I might miss my chance to have a say in legislation that will determine so much of what my future might look like. Panic and luck are the only reasons I’ve started typing, and if you’re reading this, then I’ve overcome some considerably unlikely odds just by finishing and actually submitting it. I’ve missed many inquiries I’ve wished to make submissions to before.
More than that, I worry this has not been enough time for many participants and other individuals impacted by these changes to even be aware that there is an inquiry process they can make a submission for, or how to do that. Other participants I have spoken to since this began have told me they had no idea it was open.
I’ll likely only be able to write my thoughts on a few of the changes, but I want to be clear that I oppose the bill in its entirety and simply was not allowed a more accessible period of time to address more.
Reduction of Social, Economic and Community Participation supports, and ministerial powers to reduce categories of funding for groups of participants
I watched the announcement of these changes, hearing this category being characterised as going out for coffees, going to the hairdressers – spending time recreationally was the gist. While it is already shocking enough to see these characterised as un or less necessary when, for so many disabled people, this is the only time they do manage to leave the house for those purposes, it also shows me how little even our own NDIS minister understands what Social, Economic and Community Participation is as a category.
It is going shopping for your groceries, it is going to the pharmacy to buy your medications, it is going to or from work and volunteering and study, it is for some attending required mutual obligations under Centrelink, it is going to the doctors or specialists or dentist.
This is the category charged any time you require support work outside of your home.
I urge anyone reading this to remember what it was like during the Covid-19 lockdowns, to remember what it was like to be unable to leave your home to see friends, to make friends, and imagine how much worse this would be if it meant that you could also not buy what you need for dinner, or visit your GP, or continue to work.
for disabled people whose access to their work, to their health, to their community depends
on this category.
I urge you to remember the severe and even ongoing impacts to mental health this event in our history has caused for so many, and to understand what it means when you decide that a group that already faces so many barriers to community and such poor mental health as a result should be afforded even less access. I urge you to consider how much a decision like this will impact our already stressed mental healthcare systems.
What seems like a simple or easy reduction will have far reaching, costly consequences.
The bill states in regards to this change that “In making the determination, the Minister must have regard to the safety of participants”, but under what circumstances can overriding an individually assessed need and requirement for supports ever account for our safety? By reducing support funding at a specified rate for any group of participants, you are putting us at risk of harm through ignoring individual needs.
In my case, as a participant who often flexibly uses core funding between Assistance with Daily Life and Social, Economic and Community Participation due to a lack of funding that I am in an ART case over, this would mean I no longer have the hours between the two for my weekly washing (clothes, towels, and bedding) unless I sacrifice another day of support – thatis, having breakfast, taking my medication, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, and otherwise preparing for the day. I already do not receive support on Thursdays and over the weekend as my funding would not cover it. I do not manage all of these most basic tasks on the days I cannot access support. Under these changes I can choose to risk my dental health further, or I can choose to risk my hygiene, in either case these cuts represent a direct risk to my health.
I’m far from the only participant who utilises the provided flexibility of core funding in this way. So many people, even with adequate funding, may find they need to use hours from Social, Economic and Community Participation towards Assistance with Daily Life or other parts of core funding at times where their circumstances or needs change, especially those with fluctuating capacities.
Automation of assessing participant needs, and the removal of Administrative Review Tribunal powers to make changes to participant plans
The rollout of automated assessments in Aged Care should give anyone pause when considering introducing them to a system for disability supports.
Assessing the support needs and functional capacity of disabled people requires the input of professionals who are qualified to assess them, no single kind of clinical tool can be suitable for all disabilities under all circumstances. People particularly at risk of the proposed changes include participants like myself that struggle with spoken communication,
The definition of functional capacity & activities as a whole
These were some of the changes in the bill I wished to speak on most, given the sheer impact they have on myself and so many others. Ironically, I’ve been struggling to write this section for days and will probably not manage much before the deadline for submissions.
I can’t overstate how much these changes fundamentally misunderstand disability and what supports need to take into account to be effective. We are whole people, whose impairments
won’t sit neatly into separate parts of our lives without interacting with and changing because of our environment and personal circumstances. A person’s housing situation, relationships, financial situation, and other conditions, impairments, or disabilities can all interplay in complex ways, along with many other factors.
There is no world where my disabilities do not impact my ability to work, which impacts my financial situation, which impacts the tools, treatments, supports, and access to diagnostic processes that I can or have been able to access. It impacts my housing situation greatly, leaving me little choice in living in environments that can increase my support needs. These all impact the stress and overwhelm I experience, which in turn further impacts my executive functioning impairments. It would be impossible to understand my functional capacity in isolation of how my disabilities, environment, and personal circumstances interact.
These changes risk deeming someone capable of activities they clearly cannot manage, risk seeing us only through a narrow lens of capacity that does not work in people’s daily lives or for the resources they can realistically access, and fall significantly out of line with current best approaches to assessing capacities and support needs.
It is recognised, or is meant to be recognised at least, that when our circumstances change our support needs may increase, and so may require more funding. Why would those same circumstances not be part of any initial understanding of functional capacity, where those circumstances interact with our disabilities and impairments?
You can’t assess functional capacity out of context, and that context for us is our environments and personal circumstances.
I hope my words will be heard and considered, thank you for taking the time to read them.