Supports for rural women with disabilities (Provider advocacy) | External submission

Submission 386

Submission: National Disability Insurance Scheme

Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

May 2026

Keli McDonald

CEO, NRWC

Kathleen Tonini

NRWC Policy Writer

Submission 386

Acknowledgement of Country

The National Rural Women’s Coalition pays our respects to the ancestors, elders

and especially the women that are a part of the longest living civilisation on earth, the

First Nation peoples of Australia. We acknowledge their strength and resilience.

They are the custodians of the land, and we celebrate together their right to continue

with cultural practices on the land and water where they live.

About the National Rural Women’s Coalition

The National Rural Women’s Coalition (NRWC) is a grassroots organisation,

established in 2002, that provides a collaborative, powerful national voice for women

living in rural, regional, and remote Australia. We are made up of a coalition of five

peak rural alliances comprising the Australian Local Government Women’s

Association, Australian Women in Agriculture, National Rural Health Alliance,

Women in Seafood Australasia and Transport Women Australia Limited. For over 20

years, we have worked to ensure better social, economic, and environmental

outcomes for women in rural townships, in rural communities and in primary

production throughout Australia.

NRWC forms part of the National Women’s Alliances, alongside Women With

Disabilities Australia (WWDA), the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA), the Working with Women Alliance (WWWA), and the

Australian Multicultural Women’s Alliance (AMWA).

Submission 386

Summary

The National Rural Women’s Coalition supports WWDA and many other disability

and community organisations in expressing concern regarding the limited timeframe

provided for consultation on this Bill and the significant implications the proposed

amendments may have for people living with disability and their families, especially

those in rural, regional and remote Australia.

NRWC notes that people with disabilities are overrepresented in regional areas and

roughly one quarter of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people live with a

disability. The proportion of the total population who are First Nations increases with

remoteness from (2.2% in Major cities, to 30% in Remote and very remote areas)

(Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2024). These factors mean that real-life

access to both mainstream and NDIS funded services must be a critical

consideration in redesigning the NDIS.

We support WWDA’s recommendation that the Bill does not proceed in the

absence of a comprehensive, public gender impact analysis, and gender-responsive

reforms co-designed with women, girls and gender-diverse people with disability.

This analysis must also include women living rural, regional and remote

communities, who already experience daily challenges with lack of access to

appropriate health and social services including primary and specialist medical care,

childcare and reproductive health care.

Specific issues for rural, regional and remote women

Assumed availability of mainstream support NRWC is concerned that proposed section 25A assumes services exist, which

across much of regional, rural and remote Australia, is simply not the case.

Appropriate treatment cannot be assumed where a person cannot practically access

Submission 386

it because of cost, distance, workforce shortages, safety, culture or local service

gaps.

For example, areas classified as MM5-7 (small rural towns, remote and very remote

communities) have a lower-than-average number of doctors per 100,000 people and

MM6 has the lowest rate (40% per cent below the national rate) (Royal Australian

College of General Practitioners, 2025). About half a million Australians live in GP

deserts and receive 40% fewer GP services than the national average (The

Conversation 2025). National Rural Health Alliance data shows disparity of access to

other health professionals including pharmacists, dentists and medical specialists.

These figures highlight the nature of accessing health services in many parts of rural

Australia, which must be considered when making changes to the NDIS to avoid

significant negative impacts for rural regional and remote NDIS participants. Some of

the barriers to access to mainstream services faced by rural, regional and remote

women include:

Lack of local specialists, allied health providers or diagnostic services;
Long waitlists for visiting services
Long travel distances that add significant cost and stress

Pushing the burden of care back to women The NRWC is concerned that new provisions including subsection 34(1K) provides

that when considering whether a support takes into account what is reasonable to

expect families, carers and informal networks to provide, the CEO must consider

whether:

relying on these supports would expose a participant or others to a material risk of

harm, abuse or neglect that cannot be mitigated through informal or lower costs

supports.

The NRWC believes that in practice, informal and lower costs support is likely to

mean women’s unpaid care. This may be particularly true for rural, regional and

Submission 386

remote women, who, in addition to bearing a higher burden of caring responsibilities

than men, also face significant barriers to accessing childcare. An estimated 1.1

million Australians living in rural Australia do not have access to ECEC (and

effectively live in ‘childcare desserts’) (Hurley et al, 2022). Underperforming ECEC

centres are more common in lower socio-economic and rural, regional and remote

areas in comparison to the inner-city (Graesser et al, 2022). This means rural

regional and remote women have less mainstream support to access and are more

likely to provide the ‘lower cost’ care that the Bill presumes is available.

Exacerbating other risk factors Women living in regional rural remote Australia face several additional risk factors

and barriers that are relevant to this bill. People living in regional, rural and remote

Australia overall have lower incomes (National Rural Health Alliance, 2024) and

therefore less ability to pay out of pocket costs. Travelling to access services adds

significant cost. Rural people also experience more complex health issues including

higher burden of disease (National Rural Health Alliance, 2024)..Cuts to access for

people living with these compounding risk factors may serve to deepen existing

disadvantage and increase the time, difficulty and cost involved to access

appropriate services.

Recommendations

The NRWC calls for the Government to demonstrate that:

Rural, regional and remote women will not lose access because treatment is unavailable, unaffordable or delayed
Regional waitlists, travel costs and local workforce shortages will be considered in eligibility and support decisions
Mainstream services are available, accessible and culturally safe in regional, rural and remote areas before people are redirected away from the NDIS

Submission 386

Rural, regional and remote women will have guaranteed access to transport, advocacy, support coordination, community participation and practical

disability supports

Future rules, budget methods and support assessment tools will be tested for gender, regionality, disability, First Nations status, CALD status and

socioeconomic disadvantage.