Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

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

Date referred: 14 May 2026 | Submissions close: 10 July 2026 | Reporting date: 14 August 2026

Dear Committee Members,

I am writing as a single parent of a child with complex, lifelong disability needs, to raise serious concerns about the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. I ask the Committee to consider the points below carefully, as they reflect the daily, lived reality of families like mine who will be directly affected by these changes.

I have already been through this firsthand. My son’s plan has been reduced year by year, and it wasn’t until they began cutting his therapies - speech, occupational therapy and physiotherapy - that we had to call an emergency meeting with his foster case worker, his coordinator and I, to address how much had been stripped away, including his support worker hours. These are not luxuries. They are essential to his ability to function.

1. Restrictive eligibility criteria will cost lives

The language used in this Bill around limiting support for individuals with complex medical needs is far too restrictive. In effect, the Bill tells both participants and carers to either find and fund their own resources - which are expensive and often inaccessible - or to exhaust everything they have and go without. Read plainly, this Bill does not reflect an understanding of individual, complex needs. It reads as a document focused on saving money, with insufficient regard for the real suffering and deaths that will result while people wait for support they are entitled to.

2. Disability is lifelong, not static - needs change over time

The Bill does not appear to account for the fact that disability needs evolve. If the intent is to support people with lifelong, permanent disability, then the support plan must be treated as ongoing - because as a child or adult continues to live and grow, their needs and complexities will change, not stay fixed. A person may start work and need more support. They may develop new goals. New technology or medical research may open up ways to improve quality of life. A rigid, static approach to funding does not reflect the reality of a lifelong condition.

3. One person’s power over life-and-death decisions

I do not believe the Minister should have final say over decisions of this magnitude. The current administration of the Scheme is already falling short in many respects. The prospect of further cuts being decided by a government that does not understand the basics of autism - let alone the

Complexity of Other Significant and Lifelong Disabilities

The complexity of other significant and lifelong disabilities — is genuinely frightening. This is not a minor administrative adjustment; it is a structure that risks incompetence with horrific, real-world consequences for vulnerable people who have no other options.

The Power to Cut Off a Plan Puts Lives and Safety at Risk

I am deeply concerned about the power given to decision-makers to determine when and how an individual’s plan can be cut, without full consideration of the impact on that person’s health, safety and wellbeing. My son can never be left alone. He has an intellectual disability. In a safe, simple environment, he can be supported at a ratio of three participants to one worker. In a more complex environment, with more people and more unpredictable factors, he needs one-on-one support. My concern is that decisions will be made without the reasonable, common-sense understanding of what happens to someone like my son if that support is dismissed or reduced.

The Toll on Carers, and the Loss of “the Village”

Living with a child with special needs is isolating. This Bill risks cutting supports that families rely on, based on budget considerations rather than the actual needs of the participant. My child has rights under the relevant charter of rights. Telling parents to simply “do more” ignores that we already do everything we can: we follow up every speech therapy and occupational therapy session in our daily lives, and we exhaust ourselves trying to give our child the best possible life. Support workers are often the only bridge our children have to social participation, because the wider community does not always understand disability. When you take away that support and leave parents as the only person in their child’s life, you take away their entire community — their village.

My son’s community is built around his support workers and the connections he has through them. If that support isn’t there, he may not be supported in some of the most important moments of his life—What is “reasonable” support for one person may look completely different for someone else, and this Bill does not appear to reflect that.

This Bill Does Not Account for Complexity

The Bill does not appear to account for trauma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander complexity, socioeconomic disadvantage, single-parent households, or foster and family dynamics. Children and adults with disability are not standalone cases—they come from different backgrounds, and those backgrounds interact with and affect their disability. Even individuals who share the same diagnosis face different challenges and complexities that shape their day-to-day life. Common sense, and the evidence, both point to the need for individualised assessment—not blanket rules.

Expert Evidence Is Already Being Ignored

I strongly urge the Committee to ensure that professional, individualised assessments remain central to NDIS planning, and that the consistent evidence of allied health professionals cannot simply be dismissed. My son has been assessed by multiple allied health professionals, a paediatrician, a neurologist, a case worker, a counsellor, his special needs school, his cerebral palsy team, and a

behavioural support plan

and every one of these reports reaches the same conclusions. Despite this weight of evidence, the government can still make lifelong cuts to his support. I have completed every recommendation from these professionals, and sought out training myself, including drawing on my own background in teaching. Even with all of this,

Careful stewardship of funding — and a narrative of blame that is misplaced

I want the Committee to understand what responsible use of a NDIS plan actually looks like, because it is not reflected in how this debate has been framed. In my son’s plan, I have worked closely with a coordinator, a planner and a case worker to meet his goals. Every part of the plan has been documented, budgeted and explained. Each year, my coordinator and I build a reasonable budget together, and I plan ahead for situations that might arise. Every dollar has been meticulously documented and justified. I have never used any part of his plan for my own purposes. All of it goes toward building his lifelong skills, his goals, helping him socialise, and giving him the rights to have a life as a child.

I also work in the special needs sector myself, as a support worker, so I understand this system from both sides. There have been moments where clients have tried to step outside agreed boundaries eg asking for more km. I follow the documented goals and outcomes, I stay within assigned kilometres and hours, and if anything needs to change, I communicate with my employer first. I work for a large organisation, and if any issue arises, I raise it with my manager or file an incident report. I try to be as ethical and transparent as possible, with both my employer and the people I support.

Given this, I have been troubled by how the Minister and the media have framed the cost pressures on the Scheme — as though the fault lies with participants themselves, for asking for support they need, or for being taken advantage of by others. This is victim-blaming, and it is misdirected. The real problem that needs addressing is the lack of safeguards against providers who price-gouge or misrepresent how many hours or supports a person actually needs. Strengthening the Scheme should mean stronger safeguards against exploitation by people who see the vulnerabilities and exploit the provider market — not tightening the screws on the vulnerable people the Scheme exists to protect.

Everything I do for my son — every recommended therapy, every doctor’s appointment, every specialist visit — is because I want to improve his quality of life. I want to ease his pain. I want to help him walk better. My greatest fear is not his disability itself. It is the risk factors that a poorly implemented, underfunded system may create for him, through no fault of his own.

Conclusion

I ask the Committee to recognise that this Bill, as currently drafted, places enormous and unreasonable pressure on families who are already stretched beyond capacity. I urge the Committee to recommend that the eligibility criteria and the treatment of disability as a lifelong and evolving

Submission

condition. With genuine input from participants, carers and the allied health professionals who work with them every day. I also ask the Committee to redirect attention toward genuine safeguards against provider misconduct, rather than a narrative that blames participants and carers for the pressures on the Scheme.

Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission and for considering the real impact this Bill will have on families like mine.

Yours sincerely,