Submission to the National Disability Insurance

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

Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs

Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au

Date: May 31, 2026

As a person with disability, a parent with a child on the NDIS and as an advocate within the disability sector 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.

For the last decade I have seen and experienced the benefits of the NDIS for my family members, friends and those more broadly in the community.

I am deeply concerned by the harm this Amendment Bill will cause if it passes Parliament . This Bill is too far-reaching to pass as it stands. I believe the Bill requires further scrutiny and amendment before it proceeds. I believe that genuine lived experience through co-design and robust consultation with self advocacy and advocacy groups must be core to these changes.

Parliamentary Scrutiny and Transparency

The consultation period for the Amendment Bill is two weeks, which is

insufficient to allow for appropriate consultation, considering accessibility and

communication needs. The Australian Government Guide to Policy Impact Analysis says consultation should occur for a minimum of 30 days where possible.

The short timeline impacts me greatly, I am primary carer to my 6 year old child who is Autistic (level 2) with ADHD and a PDA profile. He was suspended the first day of term 2 and hasn’t been back at school since. Despite funding for support the extent of his disability requires consistent 1:1 in order for him to access a sense of safety that then allows him to learn alongside peers. To our great distress this is not something the school can provide and so for the last few weeks he has been home. All of us battling burnout and deep trauma from when his needs were not met at school. I am a woman with disabilities myself, although I am currently excluded from the NDIS as I am a TAC client. I have physical disabilities, limited mobility as well as an ABI, PTSD and ADHD. I am unable to drive and have significant anxiety leaving the house. I work from home on already reduced hours but with our son being home I have had to manage hours that bleed into evenings and late nights to secure an income. I have no time for rest, recovery and my own self care. My conditions are deteriorating. I am an advocate for State based disability organisations and work as an accessible communications expert. In my work and in my home I see the benefits of the NDIS and the utter turmoil that can occur without it. I have seen the potential for abuse and neglect when people do not have access to their own choice of supports and control of their own lives. My partner has 2

been navigating his own neurdivergence and the ramifications of a childhood undiagnosed and high masking. Despite working fulltime hours and a wonderful work ethic he remains a casual worker to support our family as he so often must take days off to provide care for our son. Our informal supports are negligible. While our families are supportive, my parents are in their 70s and already provide care for my sibling who has psychosocial disablities, chronic kidney failure and numerous health concerns and disabilities – despite all this they have been rejected by the NDIS several times. The nature of our sons disability makes it impossible for us to get babysitters or have him watched by a friend. For him to feel safe and confortable he requires my partner or I with him. All this considered I am still making time in this chaos to write this submission. Because I care about my family and families and individuals with disability across the country.

Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30 days.

Key decisions left to ministerial instruments, not law

The issue: The Bill allows Ministers to change who gets NDIS support (Schedule 1 Parts 8 and 9) and how much funding people receive (Schedule 1 Part 4; Schedule 3) by signing an instrument, without going back to Parliament. The rules that will determine critical eligibility thresholds (Schedule 1 Parts 1, 8 and 9) have not yet been written.

How this affects participants:

The decisions that shape the lives of participants, whether they qualify for the NDIS and what supports they can access, could be changed without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny.

Participants may not know supports or eligibility rules have changed until their plan is affected.

Without proper safeguarding the possibility for abuse and neglect will always be there. As participants of the NDIS we deserve to know about the decisions that impact us, always. In ways that we understand and with time enough to fully consider them.

Recommendation:

Require that all decisions affecting NDIS eligibility and funding levels be made through primary legislation subject to full parliamentary scrutiny, with mandatory advance notice to affected participants before any changes take effect.

Existing participants face narrower criteria and fewer rights to challenge developments

How this affects participants:

This does not protect participants already on the NDIS, who could be reassessed under stricter rules. If someone’s funding is reduced or their plan renewed automatically, they may have limited or no ability to challenge that decision. This could make it harder for people to get extra support when their circumstances or disability change. Our son’s circumstances have changed considerably in the last few years. We have been too scared, however, to seek changes to his plan as we worry he will lose what he already has. We know we need more support for him, but what if what we have is taken away? Sit with that feeling. Imagine that you feel like you are failing your child and terrified to ask for changes. It doesn’t feel good. It weighs on you. No one deserves that, we deserve safeguards and he deserves continued care.

and without any right to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across

plan periods for high-cost items will lose that ability entirely.

Disability while permamenet is still dynamic. Not understanding that is a

failure to see people with disability as whole, complex beings worthy of

dignity and respect. Again the lack of transparency and possible cuts

without warning would devestate us as a family trying to provide support

and the opportunity to have a beautiful and meaningful childhood.

Recommendation: Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for

participants saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights

before any funding reduction takes effect.

Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility

The issue: A person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options

before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also

be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, replaced by single eligible

impairment consideration (Schedule 1 Part 3). The note that previously

acknowledged environmental factors and other ineligible impairments could

affect support needs will be removed (Schedule 1 Part 3).

How this affects participants: People with disability will need to prove their

impairment cannot be treated before they access the NDIS. Once in the scheme, their supports will only be assessed against a single eligible impairment rather than their whole experience. A person’s individual circumstances will not be considered, including ability to pay for treatment, where they live or whether 6

• treatment is actually available to them. The path to disability is often paved
• with doctors consults, social outcasting and that internal knowledge you
• are different. Whether from birth or acquired, people with disability are
• conditioned to feel inferior – they are either too disabled or not disabled
• enough. Seeking support is often done out of desperation. Expecting
• participants to prove what they are worthy of is cruel. It will retraumatise
• and establish a clear deficit based model. We want our son to be proud of
• his disability, of who he is. This would strip him and us of that pride and
• reduce him to what is “wrong”. Our child’s disability is not wrong, his
• needs not defecits. It is the system and the bureaucracy that’s wrong and
• wrongly convinces people with disability they are defecits.

Recommendation: Do not proceed with a requirement to exhaust “appropriate”

• treatment options – there are no safeguarding measures around participant
• harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay,
• or their geographic capacity to access treatments.

Unvalidated functional capacity assessment tool risks misidentifying need

The issue: The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment.

The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I-CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will

sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disability, including those

whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a

time-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First

Peoples with disability.

How this affects participants: If the assessment tool does not accurately

capture the full extent of a person’s disability, including needs that fluctuate or

vary over time, a participant may be found ineligible or have their supports

undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual experience.

Every person is unique, their strengths and their challenges. Yet we expect

a tool to evaluate functional capacity without safeguarding and culturally

appropriate validation? That is terrifying. The impacts of this I cannot

even fathom, other than again reducing the autonomy of people with

disbailities and their families to non existent.

Recommendation: Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disability, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with Disability.

Supports cut before replacement system is ready

The issue: From 1 October 2026, the government has announced funding for social, civic and community participation supports will be cut by 50 per cent and capacity building daily activities by 10 per cent for all participants, reductions that will be implemented through the ministerial instrument power in 8

Schedule 1 Part 4

The Foundational Supports system intended to fill that gap has no confirmed implementation date and is not yet operational.

How this affects participants: Supports that help participants connect with their community, build skills and maintain independence may be cut before anything exists to replace them, leaving carers and families with greater responsibilities and no additional support. These supports are often what help people stay visible, connected and safe. As outlined above I am at capacity, mypartner, our family, our child we are all at capacity. Expecting us to do more is both unrealistic and cruel. Supports through community participation allow our child to have regular sessions where he feels safe and connected. It builds his capacity to be away from us, in an environment that was actually built for him. Without this respite (currently one hour a week) I would never get a break. I love my child more than anything in the world but how can I be everything he needs if I can’t even have 60 minutes a week to be myself, for myself? It is unfair and unrealistic. This isn’t parental responsibility this is an untennable. misogynistic and cruel policy.

Recommendation: Require that no reductions to community participation or capacity building supports take effect until Foundational Supports are fully operational, adequately funded and demonstrably able to meet the needs of those who will lose NDIS supports.