PWDA Template: Submission to the

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

Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs

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

Date: 27.05.26

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 the mother of an NDIS participant and also an independent support worker supporting 5 other NDIS participants

I want to outline 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.

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 everyone who wishes to make a contribution by expressing their opinions and thoughts on this legislation.l

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: There needs to be safeguards via the legal system so that ministers cannot make decisions around who can access support and the type of supports that they can access. Any changes should be able to be scrutinised by the parliament and subjected to the rigours that that involves.

The idea that decisions can be made in a way that has no oversight by parliament is a very dangerous precedent to set and is unacceptable to me and also to the wider community . All participants should be notified before their plans are due to be renewed around any changes that will impact on 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 decisions

The issue: The Bill changes the rules for existing NDIS participants and makes it harder to challenge some decisions about supports and funding. It also restricts when you can request a reassessment, removes review rights for automatic plan renewals, and makes funding reductions unreviewable (Schedule 1 Parts 1 and 8). Combined with restrictions on reassessment requests (Part 2), automatic plan renewals without review rights (Part 5), and unreviewable funding reductions (Part 4), existing participants face narrower criteria with significantly fewer avenues to challenge decisions about their supports.

How this affects participants

It is unacceptable for decisions that are made around someone’s supports are then not able to be reviewed. Prior to the NDIS I was forced to RELINQUISH my very much loved adored and cherished child due to a reduction in his funding for support and no ability whatsoever to appeal..the impacts on myself and my family of having the incorrect level of support and then having to hand my beautiful child over to the state have been absolutely tragic. Each and every member of my family have had their lives so negatively impacted and the ramifications that can be costed run into millions of dollars. The ramifications that cannot be costed and that have altered every member of my families lives in diabolically negative ways are many. Childhood trauma, mental health conditions, neglect of siblings of my disabled child for years on end due to incorrect levels of funding, estrangement, the complete breakdown of the family unit. The costs that we have all had to bare are too much. Had we had the ability to appeal in any way none of these events would have happened. No appeal process would have left us in such a precarious and unsafe state due to a lack of support. 5 peoples lives and future family wellbeing destroyed by flawed departmental decisions . My son was a 2 on 1 moving at all times . We were in emergency time limited response funding which had to renewed every 15 business days so I had no idea from one fortnight to the next whether my beautiful boy could still be cared for in my home, My son and my family were never funded appropriately I NEVER had access to 2 support staff and never any over night supports . To take my 4 children into the community I needed 4 adults and with no informal supports whatsoever that was impossible. To be at home with my 4 children I needed 3 adults to keep them all safe. That was never funded. I was told by disability services that my child was the highest care child in qld and as such they did not want to set a precedent with any sort of permanent funding.

• We already know that historically many decisions made by the NDIA are
• overturned on review, despite many millions being paid on lawyers to fight
• participants. The impact of someone’s Disability, fluctuate and change. That is the
• very nature of many Disabilities - fluctuating and multiple disabilities impacting
• separately and in conjunction with each other creates the real need for additional or
• reduced supports over any period of time. Peoples disabilities and life
• circumstances change and the informal supports that are available to them
• also change. Carers May get sick themselves or need to be engaged in
• employment and therefore this impacts on the person with disability. Someone may
• find themselves without any informal supports at all and will then urgently need
• to be able to have a review of their circumstances. Without this safeguard
• participants will be put at very grave risk of harm.

We cannot return to the dark pre NDIS days where faceless bureaucrats make descisions for people living with a disability where there is no ability for the descisions to be contested.

Recommendation: Require a “no harm” safeguard ensuring no current participant loses access to supports unless equivalent supports are in place, with independent review rights before any exit decision and access to unscheduled reassessments preserved.

Unreviewable ministerial power to cut funding across all support categories

The Minister can reduce funding for any support or group of supports by a specified percentage through an instrument that cannot be challenged (Schedule 1 Part 4). This applies across all budget categories. Unspent funds will no longer carry over at plan renewal (Schedule 1 Part 5).

How this affects participants: Again the inability to trigger a review is just totally unacceptable.

• Many participants save money from their plans to purchase assistive technology (which is very expensive). For this money to then become unavailable will seriously impact on participants.
• Plans to use this money on capacity building , community participation and technology could be cut with no right of appeal.
• A participant’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding could be cut without warning and without any right to appeal. The right of appeal is a human rights issue protecting people living with a disability.

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: This is a VERY significant change and one that will directly impact on the ability for people with disability to access the scheme and put people at risk of harm . It is a totally preposterous idea that you would need to be able to prove that one’s impairment from a Disability has been treated by all possible treatment options before accessing the NDIS and that the Dept would be the arbitor on which treatments you should have, would have, could have accessed regardless of your ability to pay for treatment or even access it due to the location in which you live or even your life circumstances and is IMO discriminatory.

• For the dept to be able to make this decision FOR people WITH NO OVERSIGHT is going to put people at risk of grave danger and is totally absurd

• My sons early intervention and continual house modifications before the age of 10

cost me $500 000.00 plus my lost income due to not being able to return to work the

costs ended up as $1 700 000.00. I could have perhaps accessed overseas stem

cell treatment costing upwards of $200 000 but I could not afford it being on a carers npension. My son could be denied access to the scheme based on ?? The fact that I

could not have afforded this therapy ? The dept cannot possibly be allowed to make

the decisions around which therapies and around treatments in relation to access to

the NDIS.

And the idea that once on the scheme a participant can only be assessed on one disability is so ridiculous that it is just embarrassing. It does however serve to highlight how limited the knowledge, judgment, sector and lived experience that the bureaucrats putting up this legislation have.

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 participants 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

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 Schedule 1 Part 4. The

How this affects participants

These supports keep people connected to their communities , in employment and participating just like any other Australian. To do a sweeping 50% cut to everyone’s funding goes against the foundational principles of the NDIS. I have been dismayed by the amount of families that are having to prepare to exit employment due to this absurd proposal.

It is a reckless proposition based on some sort of sham premise that people with disabilities are having too much of a good time and living high on the hog of the NDIS funding . This is totally incorrect . The way in which all of the legislative changes have been “sold” to the community is an absolute disgrace and has been totally deceptive.

Why has there been no impact on the bureaucracy of the NDIS. The top 42 career public servants in the NDIS have almost no history of working within the sector. There are 2 only that have the credentials that mean that they understand the impact of the decisions that they have made. These are the very people who have failed to guide the scheme appropriately.

Why are they still employed and overseeing the dismantling of the NDIS? 50% of these people should lose their jobs as a start. Thousands of carers will be out of work almost immediately upon this being rolled out . For many there will be no choice but to continue work leaving their vulnerable loved ones totally uncared for.

Failing to fund such vital supports seem punitive and highly reckless and the risks involved will roll out with people with a disability being harmed.

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.