Submission to the National
Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
I am a partner of a disabled person living with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), developed from a COVID19 infection. I am also an NDIS support worker, working with a separate client with Autism.
This Amendment Bill will invariably result in further harm to and the deaths of disabled people 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 has not given me sufficient time to draft a complete submission for myself - I’ve relied on the template provided by People with a Disability Australia to make my general points - I thank them for their advocacy and their work in this area.
It has also not given many of my disabled friends enough time and notice to make a submission. Many of them are living with energy limiting illnesses such that make it very dangerous for them to exert themselves beyond their expected capacity. As such, many of them have not been able to make. Those who have, have had to substantially alter their schedules to allot time to do this, or have elected to push themselves beyond their capacity due to the importance of this process. This creates a high risk of them suffering Post-Exertional Malaise which is characterised by pain, nausea and extreme exhaustion, requiring extended bed rest to recover.
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.
It is already an extremely difficult process to apply for and qualify for access to the NDIS - requiring a significant amount of work for the disabled person and their support team (usually family and friends). The scheme provides a degree of certainty in its current form - this would cease to be under the new scheme.
The original scheme is based on clinicians’ assessment of participant need - frankly, ministers who are not medical professionals are not qualified to make decisions like this.
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.
- 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.
The disabled client who I work with, along with my partner and my disabled friends all have disabilities that fluctuate over time. The existing NDIS framework does a poor enough job at recognising this - but the new framework would exacerbate the bluntness and inefficiency of the scheme even further - ultimately leading to poorer health outcomes and a resulting reduction in societal and economic participation of clients.
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.
My client’s need for supports fluctuates over time due to changes in personal circumstances and the changing physiological nature of their disability. Cuts in unspent community participation funds in particular would severely hamper my client’s freedom to engage with their community at times when their disability makes it especially hard to do this. The existence of unspent funds in participant’s plans is not an inefficiency - it is actually a reflection of the fact that participants tend to use supports that they actually need, when they need them, rather than simply spending money from the scheme without justification.
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.
Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility
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The issue:
A person with disability will need to exhaust treatment options before they can be eligible for the Scheme (Schedule 1 Part 8). There will also be a removal of whole-of-person assessment, replaced by single eligible impairment consideration (Schedule 1 Part 3). The note that previously acknowledged environmental factors and other ineligible impairments could affect support needs will be removed (Schedule 1 Part 3).
How this affects participants:
People with disability will need to prove their impairment cannot be treated before they access the NDIS. Once in the scheme, their supports will only be assessed against a single eligible impairment rather than their whole experience. A person’s individual circumstances will not be considered, including ability to pay for treatment, where they live or whether treatment is actually available to them.
My NDIS client is on the scheme for Autism, but also has many other conditions that affect their support needs and functional capacity, including a chronic autoimmune disease. They can pursue treatment for this disease due to being on the Disability Support Pension and the fact that they are able to access NDIS supports. Without said supports, treatment would not be accessible for them, and their functional capacity would take a dive, resulting in an inability to work and a dramatically shorter lifespan due to the condition.
Recommendation:
Do not proceed with a requirement to exhaust “appropriate treatment” options – there are no safeguarding measures around participant harm due to side effects or complications, a participant’s financial ability to pay, or their geographic capacity to access treatments.
Unvalidated functional capacity assessment tool risks misidentifying need
The issue:
The Bill shifts assessment from whole-of-person consideration to a single eligible impairment (Schedule 1 Part 3). Read together with the eligibility thresholds in Parts 8 and 9, the tool used to conduct functional capacity assessments must be capable of sufficiently identifying whether a person meets the threshold for that single impairment.
The named assessment tool is the Instrument for Classification and Assessment of Support Needs (I-CAN). I-CAN requires validation to ensure it will sufficiently identify the needs of all people with disability, including those whose needs may be fluctuating or episodic and may not be captured through a point-in-time assessment, and to ensure it is culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
How This Affects Participants
If the assessment tool does not accurately capture the full extent of a person’s disability, including needs that fluctuate or vary over time, a participant may be found ineligible or have their supports undercounted, with no guarantee the result reflects their actual experience.
Again, these are characteristics of disability that I have extensive experience with, and that even the existing version of the scheme does not fully acknowledge.
Recommendation:
Do not proceed with I-CAN as the functional capacity assessment tool unless it has been demonstrably validated to identify the needs of all people with disability, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
Supports cut before replacement system is ready
The issue: From 1 October 2026, 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.
Cuts to community participation will likely cause significant damage to the scheme’s ability to pay for itself through the increases in economic activity that it currently promotes. I worry that beyond all of the decreases in quality of life of people like my client that it will create, it will also render the scheme less beneficial to broader society, thereby further eroding its social license. It’s basic economics - you have to spend money to make money.
Additionally, foundational supports, whatever these are, will take time and research to build and implement. Throwing people like my client under the bus before they have a system in place to pick them up is wrong.
- 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.