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

Submission 3913

Title:

   Submission on the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future
         Generations) Bill 2026

  ‘Nothing About Us, Without Us’ is the motto of Disabled Peoples’ International.

Statement

I am concerned that in its current form this Bill poses serious and unacceptable risks to the wellbeing, participation, and livelihoods of people with disability. In particular, it exposes First Nations people with disability to the greatest policy risk since the NDIS was created, stripping $37.8 billion from disability supports while offering no dedicated pathway, no culturally validated assessment tool, and no funded governance mechanism for the 63,000 First Nations people on the scheme.

I strongly oppose elements of the proposed amendments that will:

• Restrict access to the NDIS for people with disability;
• Reduce community participation and inclusion;
• Devalue creative and cultural practice as legitimate supports;
• Destabilise both participants and the providers who support them.

This Bill goes beyond reform—it represents a structural shift away from the intent of the NDIS. Without significant amendment, it will undermine the Scheme’s foundational purpose: enabling people with disability to live full, self-directed, and socially connected lives.

The reforms include projected large-scale reductions in participant numbers (estimated at up to 300,000), with no clear evidence that broader system impacts have been considered.

These reforms risk shifting, rather than reducing, public expenditure, from the NDIS to health, income support, families and informal care system.

The Bill removes vital supports from hundreds of thousands of people at a time when no equivalent services currently exist, nor are likely to emerge in the coming years.

It rests on an assumption that state and territory governments will fill this gap, despite clear indications that they are not willing or able to provide comparable supports within the required timeframe. In doing so, it risks a return to the pre-NDIS system - one characterised by inadequate provision, a postcode lottery in access to services, and the widespread abuse, neglect and exploitation of people with disability, as evidenced by the Disability Royal Commission.”1

The scale and scope of the cuts, combined with the far-reaching nature of the proposed legislative changes, are compounded by an unreasonably short timeframe for consultation

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

Submission 3913

and response. This approach has the effect of limiting meaningful parliamentary scrutiny and constraining the ability of the disability community and broader public to engage with and respond to reforms of significant consequence.

Recommendations

I join FPDN in calling on the Senate crossbench to make passage of the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill conditional on three safeguards: - No First Nations participant is reassessed under the new tool until it has been independently culturally validated by a First Nations-led research body. - A statutory “no exit without alternative” guarantee ensuring no person is transitioned off the NDIS before a culturally safe, locally available replacement service is operational. - Immediate establishment and funding of the First Nations Disability Forum, with a permanent secretariat and formal links to Disability Reform Ministers.“2”

I join People with Disability Australia (PWDA), including supporting their 44 recommendations in full.

I join Tutti Arts including supporting their submission and the recommendations contained therein3

Sincerely,

• Aboriginal (Noongar) woman
• Carer for people with disability
• Board Member, Tutti Arts