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

From: Email: Date: 31/05/2026

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 a family member and carer of an NDIS participant. My son, , is 23 years old and has received funding from the NDIS since it first started. I also have personal experience in working within the system as a support worker. In my work I have seen how funds are often wasted, and there is often not value for money.

However, the proposed amendments in my view will cause extreme hardship and distress and a loss of quality of life for all people with disabilities, as the measures are very arbitrary and do not address wastage.

I have until very recently self managed my sons plan and been very careful to ensure that he does receive value for money from his supports, and is using this funding towards keeping himself safe, as well as building his capacity to contribute in meaningful ways to his community.

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 me and the disability community, as we are all busy carers who struggle to find time to make submissions. It appears that the short timeline is designed to minimise the number of submissions and enable this to be rushed through.

• 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.

My son has an intellectual disability and is unable to advocate for himself and his own needs. Government should be seeking to protect him and his rights instead of taking them away.

• 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: 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.

My son had a very recent plan review, at the end of 2025. The information for the plan review was submitted to the NDIS ten months prior to the review occurring. During this 10 months, I continually followed up to try and find out what was causing the delays and offered to provide further information. During the time taken by the NDIS, some of his funding ran out, as his previous plan was rolled over several times and had not been reviewed since he finished school. During that time, he had moved out of home and required more support in different areas of his life, hence why the funding ran out. If an ordinary plan review takes 10 months and cannot be completed or prioritised even when funding has expired and a vulnerable person is living alone, what protections are going to be in place to ensure that people are safe and supported when their circumstances change?

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:

A participant’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding could be cut without warning and without any right to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across plan periods for high- cost items will lose that ability entirely.

When funding is supporting a person to live their life,

it is not a linear spending model. In reality, people with and without disabilities save and then spend their savings as they require for their needs. The same applies to unspent funds in the NDIS.

For example, my son requires a support worker to attend a conference with him in New Zealand that he is attending this year in October. All of the flights and accommodation and personal expenses have been saved from personal funds, however, he will also require a large amount of community participation funding to be spent all at once, as a support worker will need to be in attendance the whole period that he is away. With this in mind, we have carefully saved a small amount of funding each month for the past 12 months so that he has funding available for this purpose. If unspent funds are not able to be kept aside for future high cost items, participants will lose the choice and control that this funding is meant to provide.

Also it is very obvious that if sudden and un-appealable cuts can be made at any time and without any warning, the basic right of my son to be able to access his community and plan for his future will be severely limited. Capacity building and Community participation funding are not ‘optional extras’. Without this funding my son is unable to ever go to the doctor, go to appointments, play sport or exercise, go to work, learn any new skills, see friends or make any new friends. His contribution

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.

Supports cut before replacement system is ready

The issue:

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 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.

This is in my opinion an extremely dangerous and arbitrary way to approach funding. My son’s plan was cut at his recent review, in both Capacity building and Social and Community supports.

He currently uses his Social and Community supports to access a skill building program 2 days per week with other young adults with disabilities. This program is run at a 1:2 ratio, and over the 4 years that has attended he has learnt many new skills which are enabling him to grow and learn and better access the community independently.

A further two days per week is spent in another program at a 1:2 ratio, where mows lawns and does landscaping work accompanied by his support worker. has learnt many new skills in this area also, and can now confidently mow a lawn by himself. However he needs significant support to organise his days, and of

• course will never be able to transport himself and the equipment required to run a business independently.

• For the 5th weekday, we requested funding for a 1:1 support worker so that can attend doctors and therapy appointments.

• All of this funding was denied in his new plan, and he was funded for 30 hours per week at a 1:5 ratio, which is a significant cut to his Social and Community funding. 1:5 programs do not exist anywhere that I know of.

• And now the proposal is to further cut Social and Community at arbitrary percentages? How will people go to the doctor? Attend therapy? Learn how to participate in society?

• The government needs to be aware that MOST Social and Community funding is not spent in going to the movies or having coffee, this funding produces real outcomes for my son and enables him both to participate in the community and learn new skills.

• 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.