PWDA Template: Submission to the
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs
Submitted by email: community.affairs.sen@aph.gov.au
Date: 01 June 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 of an NDS participant.
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.
I work, I support my family and I care for my sister with a disability. The short
timeline impacts my ability to review all the information contained in the Bill and
provide a fulsome account of how this will impact my sister and my family as a
whole.
It disadvantages family members already experiencing stress from high care loads providing for their person with a disability.
I would like to explain this Bill to my sister and incorporate her feedback into my submission. There is not enough time for me to read the Bill and collateral information, let alone unpack it into the Plain English and pictorial format my sister needs to be able to provide her feedback.
In shortening the timeframe, you have taken away my sister’s voice.
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
be written.
determine critical eligibility thresholds (Schedule 1 Parts 1, 8 and 9) have not yet
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.
My sister’s generation of people with disability are petrified of the decisions made by Ministers of Health. In the 60s and 70s, Ministers of Health made carte blanche
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decisions about whether people with disabilities, like my sister, were allowed to live
in the community, or better housed in institutions.
I cannot believe we are in 2026 and Parliament is considering returning these
powers to the Minister of Health. It is a monumental ‘up yours’ to people with
disabilities of my sister’s generation.
Whilst an argument may be no one is talking about institutions in this Bill, the
wording in this Bill gives the Minister power to do just that without Parliamentary
oversight.
How as a nation can we support handing absolute power to one person to decide
how our most disadvantaged can live? Where are the safeguards?
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 3
that decision. This could make it harder for people to get extra support when their
circumstances or disability change.
Can you imagine waking up tomorrow and finding the end of your street being ripped up by a backhoe? When you tell the backhoe operator that it means you cannot access the outside world, he tells you the Minister decided it was too costly to upkeep the road, so they are removing it to save money. When you call the government to say this isn’t fair, you are told, you don’t have a right to challenge the decision, the government had the right to rip up the road, without consultation and without consideration of the ‘harm’ it would cause you. You just must live (or die) with it. You bought your house based upon its location and access to amenities and, in an instant, it is all taken away from you.
This is what this Bill does. It takes away NDIS participant rights to consistent support. It takes away their rights to plan for the future.
It also takes away accountability for NDIA to fix mistakes. Using the above backhoe analogy, imagine you now find out the street that was supposed to be ripped up was not your street but actually the street around the corner. This Bill means you cannot ask to have your street repaired. You cannot have your access reinstated. You bear the consequences of the government error.
Australians believe in fairness. Just as it is not fair for Australians to not be consulted about decisions which will impact their daily lives, and, it is not fair for Australians to bear the consequences for government error, it is unfair for existing NDIS participants to have their review rights removed from NDIA decisions.
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:
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 Minister says this is because social, civic and community participation supports have ballooned by over 50% in the last five years.
Whilst this is true for my sister, she has never received any additional support.
My sister works in an Australian Disability Enterprise (ADE). She has worked in the one job at the one ADE for over 30 years. Her support at her ADE has been funded by successive governments for over 30 years. During COVID, ADE’s, like most Australian businesses, closed. NDIA moved funding for support in ADE’s from the subcategory Finding and Keeping a Job to Social, Civic and Community Participation supports.
It was an expedient option to take- it doesn’t fit within this category, but it removes the administrative burden on NDIA during lockdowns to find a solution to enable continuity of care for ADE recipients.
NDIA took this step for the 20,000 NDIS participants receiving support through ADEs.
NDIA changed the make-up of my sister’s plan for administrative convenience, now
they want permission to cut this plan by 50%.
When the reduction in Social, Civic and Community Participation occurs as
announced, my sister will lose the job she has had for over 30 years. The job
she loves.
The explanatory notes say there will be provisions for safety within this instrument.
But it doesn’t specify what this will look like.
Recommendation: Require independent review rights before any funding reduction
takes effect.
Exclude participants who are using Social, Civic and Community Participation to fund
support within ADEs from these planned cuts given a driver for the NDIS is paid work for people with disabilities.
Requirement to exhaust treatment options before eligibility
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.
My sister has complex disabilities; cognitive, neurological and physical. The interplay of impairment from her disabilities is also complex. Some days are good, 6
- others profoundly bad.
As my sister ages these complexities are having a greater impact on her support needs.
Evidence of disability is virtually impossible to source for people with intellectual disabilities of my sister’s age. Description of her disabilities in the 1970s by Health Professionals writing for different purposes does not translate to the demands for evidence by NDIA today.
For the first ten years of my sister’s life, my family had to fight to keep her from being placed in an institution, because her needs were ‘deemed’ too complex for her to be supported in the community. Today we must fight to keep her supported in the community, because we require evidence for everything, to qualify her support needs.
My sister has not changed.
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
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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.
How can the I-CAN and the background algorithms accurately determine my sister’s support needs? The interplay of her complex disabilities and ageing is only now subject to research, because people like my sister did not live into their 50’s until recently.
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, across all stages of the lifespan, including those with episodic or fluctuating disability, and demonstrated to be culturally appropriate for First Peoples with disability.
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.