National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3869
Submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submitted by: Georgia Oatley Role: Staff Member, Tutti Arts Date: 31 May 2026
Introduction
I am a staff member at Tutti Arts, South Australia’s leading multi-arts organisation for learning-disabled and neurodivergent artists. I am writing in a personal capacity to express my strong opposition to the proposed NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026, and to urge the Committee to recommend significant amendments before this legislation proceeds.
The Human Cost of These Cuts Working at Tutti Arts, I see every day what NDIS-funded supports make possible. The more than 240 artists engaged in our programs are not passive recipients — they are building careers, developing skills, forming community connections, and contributing meaningfully to Australia’s cultural life. These outcomes do not happen in spite of NDIS supports. They happen because of them.
The impact of the NDIS on the lives of disabled people is undeniable. What is equally undeniable is the harm that comes when those supports are absent or reduced. I have seen firsthand how participation in structured, supported arts programs contributes to participants’ mental health, independence, sense of identity, and connection to community. These are not luxuries. They are the foundations of a dignified life.
My Concerns About This Bill I am particularly concerned about provisions that would:
- Grant the Minister powers to reduce funding without parliamentary oversight or independent review
- Reduce social and community participation supports before adequate replacement systems are in place
- Weaken participant rights, including the ability to challenge decisions or request reassessment as circumstances change
- Shift assessment away from a whole-of-person model, failing to account for the intersecting and complex nature of many participants’ disabilities
These changes would create instability and fear for some of the most vulnerable people in our community — people who have already navigated significant barriers simply to access the supports they need.
A Question of Priorities
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 3869
I believe strongly in what my taxes contribute to. If there is one area where public investment delivers clear, measurable, and lasting returns — for individuals, for families, for communities, and for the economy — it is in supporting disabled people to live full, self-directed lives. The cost of not providing these supports — in terms of health deterioration, social isolation, family breakdown, and increased crisis service use — is far greater than the cost of providing them.
I urge the Committee to consider who bears the burden of these cuts and who does not. Reducing support for disabled people — people who rely on the NDIS as a primary pathway to community participation — is not a neutral financial decision. It is a choice about whose lives we value and whose we do not.
Recommendation
I strongly support the concerns raised in Tutti Arts’ formal submission and urge the Committee to recommend significant amendments to this Bill, including:
- Retaining robust parliamentary oversight of any funding changes
- Protecting participant rights to reassessment and independent review
- Preserving whole-of-person assessment and social and community participation supports
- Ensuring no funding reductions occur before adequate alternative systems are in place
The NDIS exists to enable people with disability to live full, self-directed, and socially connected lives. This Bill, in its current form, moves us away from that purpose. I urge the Committee not to let that happen.
Georgia Oatley Staff Member, Tutti Arts 31 May 2026