Dear Members of the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee,

I am the mother and primary carer of two NDS participants aged 23 and 17. Both of my sons live at home with my husband and me.

In the early years of the NDS, our family experienced many positive outcomes. We were able to choose providers who were the right fit for our sons, access consistent therapies, and engage reliable support workers. This was a significant improvement on the state-based, block-funded services we had previously relied upon. While the scheme was not perfect, it gave us hope that our sons could work towards living ordinary, meaningful lives, while also allowing my husband and me to have lives beyond our caring responsibilities. During this period, we saw positive progress in both of our sons. I was able to gradually increase my work hours, our family felt less isolated, and we became more connected to our community.

Unfortunately, over the last few years, our experience has changed. Accessing additional supports to meet our sons’ changing needs has become increasingly difficult, and restrictions on how funding can be used have reduced the effectiveness of their plans. Two years ago, I made the difficult decision to close my business because I was juggling too many responsibilities and needed to prioritise my family’s needs. To compensate, my husband now works extremely long hours in his own business to support us financially.

I had hoped that once my youngest son transitioned from school, I would be able to return to work and achieve a more balanced family life. However, the recently announced NDS reforms have left me feeling deeply concerned about our future.

If these proposed changes are legislated, this is how they will affect our family:

Risk of Participants Being Removed from the Scheme

I am extremely concerned that my eldest son could be among the estimated 160,000 participants expected to transition out of the NDS.

The proposal for states and territories to provide foundational supports appears flawed. It is difficult to see how governments can accurately plan and deliver these services before they know who will require them and where demand will exist. It is likely to take years before these supports are available at the scale required.

Prior to the NDS, many of these services were already struggling to meet demand. While I understand the NDS was never intended to support every person with a disability, governments must acknowledge that many state and territory disability services were reduced or closed as people were encouraged or required to transition into the NDS.

Rather than removing participants who have already met access requirements

A more efficient and cost-effective approach would be for states and territories to contribute financially to the NDIS while allowing existing participants to remain on the scheme and continue accessing the established support networks around them. This would be a more stream-lined approach and remove the risk of a gap in services for the 160,000 participants expected to exit the scheme.

Standardised Assessments

The proposal to use standardised assessments conducted by people who do not know participants is deeply concerning to many families in the disability community.

Every person with disability has unique strengths, challenges, goals, and support needs. If funding becomes formula-based rather than individually determined, there is a significant risk that many participants will receive inadequate support, resulting in poorer outcomes and reduced independence.

People with disability should not be reduced to a score on an assessment tool. Funding decisions should continue to be based on a holistic understanding of a person’s circumstances and individual support requirements.

Proposals to significantly reduce social and community participation funding would have a major impact on both of my sons.

My eldest son experiences significant social anxiety and cannot leave the house without the support of a trusted adult. We have fought hard to secure funding that meets the reasonable and necessary criteria for his needs. If this funding is substantially reduced, he will either become increasingly socially isolated or I will need to take on the responsibility of supporting his community participation myself.

My younger son is highly social and loves exploring the community using public transport. However, due to his complex disabilities, he also requires one-to-one support whenever he leaves home.

It is simply not possible for me to support both boys in the community at the same time. If their social and community participation supports are reduced, the burden will fall back on me to meet those needs individually.

As a parent of adult children with disability, I often ask myself: At what point am I allowed to step back from being the primary support person in every aspect of their lives? The NDIS was intended to provide people with disability with greater

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independence and choice. Reducing access to community participation supports risks reversing years of progress and increasing reliance on family carers.

Reduction in Capacity Building Supports

Reducing capacity building budgets is particularly concerning.

There is substantial evidence showing that investing in skill development, independence, and capacity building reduces long-term reliance on funded supports. It makes little sense to reduce supports that have already been assessed as reasonable and necessary.

Rather than reducing participant supports, greater attention should be directed towards addressing provider misconduct, fraud, and inefficiencies within the system. Participants should not bear the burden of cost-saving measures when much of the scheme’s financial pressure stems from issues elsewhere.

Broader Impacts

These reforms are unlikely to generate the savings that are being projected. Instead, they risk shifting costs into other systems, including health, mental health, justice, education, and child protection services.

When people with disability and their families do not receive the support they need, their ability to participate in society, employment, education, and community life is diminished. The long-term social and economic costs of this are significant.

The reality is that the NDIS was a major reform that was not implemented as effectively as it could have been. There were insufficient safeguards from the beginning to prevent fraud, inadequate training across the sector, and persistent workforce instability among planners, delegates, and Local Area Coordinators. Mistakes have undoubtedly been made, but reducing participant supports as a means of controlling costs fails to address the underlying issues.

One of the greatest strengths of the NDIS has been its recognition that investing in people with disability benefits everyone. When people with disability receive the support they need to live ordinary and fulfilling lives, families are better able to work, contribute to their communities, and participate in the economy. The benefits extend far beyond individual participants and create stronger, more inclusive communities.

Most importantly, disability support should not be viewed solely through the lens of cost. People with disability have the same fundamental human rights as every other Australian, including the right to dignity, independence, choice, inclusion, and full

Participation in Community Life

Participation in community life. These principles are recognised in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), to which Australia is a signatory.

The NDIS was established to give effect to these principles by providing people with disability the supports they need to pursue their goals and participate fully in society. Any reforms to the scheme should strengthen these outcomes, not diminish them. We should be striving to build a society where people with disability are valued, included, and empowered to live meaningful lives—not one where they are viewed as a financial burden to be managed.

I urge you to carefully consider the real-world impact these reforms will have on participants and families before supporting legislation that reduces access to essential supports. The success of the NDIS should be measured not only by its financial sustainability, but also by its ability to uphold the dignity, rights, and quality of life of the Australians it was created to support.