PWDA: Submission to the National
Disability Insurance Scheme
Amendment (Securing the NDS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Date: 31/5/2026
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/carer of an NDIS participant/person with disability and healthcare professional.
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 by being unable to explore this legislation in depth
due to care requirements for my adult child with a disability over the past two weeks including in which time I had to manage my child’s extraction from a coercive religious group (cult).
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.
Sudden changes in planning decisions have and do impact my family by causing severe anxiety and stress around ongoing employment options, ongoing therapeutic relationship with known providers – especially where rapport has been built over years, and the impact of this on the emotional regulation of my child with autism and secondary significant impact of safety on surrounding family members. Myself and all three of my daughters have significant trauma due to times where we as the carers of my son with a disability were unsupported by services and appropriate NDIS funding.
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.
As a single parent carer for an Autistic person, care needs change suddenly and my
previous experience of attempts to request plan reassessments were harrowing. Due
to this, I was close to relinquishing my son to state care back in 2022 due to the
extent of behavioural dysregulation and impact on safety on myself and his sisters.
With additional family services and child protection (for my younger children)
involved and advocating alongside me, the review finally allowed additional daily
core supports that enabled my family to stay together safely. Fighting for two hours
of daily support to keep my family together to continue to provide his care gave me
shingles twice that year – and resulted in me having an associated long term pain .condition. Lack of support = harm.
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.
The impact of this on my family would be considerable. For high school students who are NDIS participants there is no outside school hours care. As a single parent, I had to cover these 14 weeks and before/after school supports with either NDIS funding or my own employer-approved leave without pay. With 14 weeks of school holidays a year but only 5 weeks leave a year as a health professional, I had to resort to employer-approved purchased leave (2 weeks). Even with this I utilised the maximum amount of social and community participation funding in my son’s plan to cover the 7 remaining. Without it I would have lost my job and subsequently my home. Changes to funding (even small changes) have real life consequences to people operating on the poverty line.
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.
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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.
As a family that lived in the catchment where Irabina prescribed “appropriate” treatment for behaviour management that is now outlawed, it concerns me that “appropriate” treatment with regards to Autism is ill-defined and open to interpretation. It is my and my child’s right to assess what is “appropriate” for his specific situation, considering my financial capacity, best practice and consolidated research. During my son’s worst years of behavioural dysregulation, and as a single parent, I was “required” to access private psychiatry services for medication prescription unable to be prescribed by my paediatrician. The initial assessment alone cost me $871. I was unable to afford many basic items that month (including food). It is not reasonable, except where public health services are free or low cost and accessible in a timely manner to have a requirement to exhaust “appropriate” treatment options.
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.
As my child masks, it would be easy for his functional impairment and support needs to be missed in a single interview. Additionally, he would tell you that he does not require support which due to his high language ability, many adults believe (who don’t know my son). However, with therapists who understand Autism, using time and tools that detect the autistic functional impacts, his assessment demonstrates significant disability and support needs. This is additionally impacted in other data such as school attendance (60%). It would be shameful for him to admit as a young adult of 18 that he still requires parental assistance to attend to basic tasks such as reminders to brush teeth and flush toilets. This risks leaving him at risk of inadequate supports at a time when support could assist navigating full time employment post school and contributing to taxes and to society longer term.
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.
At present my son uses social and community participation funding for accessing health appointments. This is non-negotiable for his health and safety. If he is unable to access supports, this will be detrimental to his long term health and safety.
Additionally, the reduction in this forces caregivers, predominantly women, to fill the gap thereby impacting my employment. This is a loss for gender equity. Having these supports added to my son’s plan allowed me to return to fulltime work, provide accommodation to keep the family intact and provide further opportunities (such as surgery to address my son’s health needs). Additionally, being away from the family home and family, using SACP funding, allowed my son to develop interests so that he has now secured post school full time employment, continued engagement at the gym and use of public transport. If this had not been available, he would be substantially restricted in his adult development.
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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 NDS supports.
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