Senate Inquiry Into The Ndis Amendments May 2026

By , NdIs Participant

Forward

My disabilities as listed in the NDis are

1. Schizophrenia (Schizoaffective) Disorder
2. Autism Level 2

Apart from my registered disabilities I am dying from metastatic oesophageal cancer. I mention this because nearly all schizophrenics die about 20 years too early. It’s a well published fact.

People with schizophrenia generally do not have friends. They do not go outside very often because of persecutory and paranoid problems. People with schizophrenia are generally more harm to themselves than to others, which debunks the myth that schizophrenics are a danger to themselves than public.

I have had schizophrenia since I was in the Army at age 17. The persecution dished out in the Australian Army probably ‘set off’ my schizophrenia.

As a higher functioning person with schizophrenia, I have 9 years military service between the Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force. I have university qualifications and was a TAFE electronics teacher for 35 years. Each of these roles has ‘distancing’ between myself and others. Schizophrenics are not team players, we do things independently, and individually - producing quality work with exacting results.

Was it easy being a teacher with schizophrenia? I was always in trouble with a myriad of student complaints over the years. That’s part of life with my disability.

Of course I am single, living alone. I can’t live with other people. Most all people with schizophrenia are single.

I am highly medicated daily as this is a true psychiatric disorder. (More on this in point 5 below)

To The Ndis Amendments

1) The NdIs will no longer look at the second listed disability

In my case I’m primarily disabled with schizophrenia and secondarily disabled with Autism.

Some explaining here. People with schizophrenia generally all have the symptoms of autism to some extent. Conversely, people with autism do not have all the symptoms of schizophrenia.

As such the two disabilities come hand in hand for a person registering to the ndis with primary schizophrenia.

My terminal oesophageal cancer which has taken 20 years off my life is also part of schizophrenia. Comorbidity exists everywhere in the medical world. It’s wrong not to take into account the second disability in the nDis.

Community Participation

2. Community Participation being reduced by 50%

In my case, I suffer from catatonic freezes in public. That is I will just stop and stare at the products in the grocery shelves while my brain is busy processing some other information. I might be frozen like this for several minutes. To allow me to be more normal in shopping areas I rely on a support person to accompany me.

I wasn’t always like this but with age and schizophrenia more symptoms show their ugly head.

I never use all of my allowance for community participation in my NDIS budget but it’s nice to know I have it just in case.

I do not agree with a 50% drop in community participation.

3. Rolling over funds from one period to the next

I disagree with this amendment.

In winter time I will not use my budget for yard maintenance as nothing is growing. When summer comes, I need more money to maintain my yard and keep my home tidy and safe.

I do hope that this amendment can be countermanded.

4. Regulatory Powers

I do agree that this area of the NDIS / NDIA needs to be improved and many more arrests need to be made monthly to limit the fraud in the system.

This is a good and necessary change.

5. Psychosocial Disability

I bring this up because of media talk about this category being eliminated / excluded from the NDIS

My own primary disability is schizophrenia which falls under psychosocial remediation.

This is an area of intensive medical intervention and patients are often heavily medicated day to day.

In my own case, two antipsychotics and antidepressants. This keeps me normal.

This is an area of the NDIS caring for chronically disabled individuals who have often been in length stays in hospital due to psychosis.

Psychosocial needs to remain in the NDIS whereas in point 6) below I discuss autism.

6. Autism and the NDIS

Autism dominates the NDIS and its inherently wrong that this is so.

There is profound autism, which stands out as THE ONLY AUTISM. This is individuals who cannot care for themselves.

Dr Uta Frith, recently wrote an article in New Science magazine about the autism spectrum.

Dr Frith is the autism pioneer, who back in the 1960s mapped out the spectrum and founded ASD1, ASD2 and ASD3.

ASD3 being profound autism.

In her recent article Dr Frith says she has made a horrible mistake with the spectrum.

She now says there is NO ASD1 or ASD2. She says these are ‘something like Autism’

This is because these people diagnosed with ASD1 and ASD2 are highly functional. They have some social peculiarities. They are not medicated as it’s NOT a psychiatric condition. They have normal jobs and live in normal marriages and have kids.

This is individuals who cannot deep contrast with psychosocial disabilities such as schizophrenia.

I agree that Dr Frith’s ‘people with something like autism’ ie ASD1 and ASD2 need to be removed from the NDIS. No more pony rides and crystal therapy! These people on the spectrum and without psychiatric <intervention and medication probably just need slight psychological assistance.

<Real psychotic individuals such as schizophrenia barely function day to day and die early. It’s a brain dysfunction.

Autism has no quantitative medical test and psychologists are too easy to hand out an adverse report.

Eliminate many of the ASD1 and ASD2 people from the NDIS. This is my sound recommendation.