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: 1 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 parent 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.
The short timeline impacts me by not allowing time to fully consider and understand how these changes will harm my family.
- 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.
Accessing the NDIS in the first place is difficult. Navigating budgeting and understanding what supports are funded now can be confusing. We do not need further uncertainty here. Changes to rules need to be made fairly and openly to let people give input and plan ahead.
- 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.
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.
The ability to request a review is incredibly valuable to participants. The decisions on how much funding we receive are already made by people that don’t always understand our needs. If someone decides my child is doing well and reduces his funding we need a way to question and challenge this. The amount we receive directly impacts his ability to live a healthy and fulfilling life and needs fluctuate depending on many factors, including age. My child isn’t going to wait for his plan to be under review to start puberty or go to high school. We already know his needs will change then and we may need to apply for more funding to allow him to do this safely. The amount of evidence participants require to increase or challenge funding decisions is already significant and difficult to gather - it costs a lot more than the NDIS provides us with. Making a change that disallows funding challenges and reassessments will negatively impact so many participants. Changes like this can not be allowed as a cost saving measure.
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 ight to appeal. Participants who save unspent funds across plan periods for high- cost items will lose that ability entirely.
Managing an NDIS budget to allow for enough support is a tricky thing. We know how much a session costs, but planning a year of support, in advance, is a skill. Tight budgets don’t allow for the unexpected. Allowing us to carry over unspent funds gives us the ability to have an extra session during school holidays or during a difficult period. It was particularly useful as a rural family, when we finally accessed support we had to play catch-up. The fear of unexpected and unexplained budget cuts is real and unfair.
Recommendation: Require that unspent funds carry over at plan renewal for participants particularly those saving for high-cost items and require independent review rights before any funding reduction takes effect.
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. 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.
This issue is my biggest concern with these changes. My child would likely not be eligible for NDIS support if this rule was in place when he was diagnosed and accepted into the NDIS. We lived in a rural area with very limited local support available. We were not able to access any treatment options. He was on speech pathology waitlists for 4 years, and unable to get onto waitlists for occupational therapy. Psychological assessments and the paediatrician were over 100km away and online appointments are not suitable for all. The only option for support or treatment would have been pulling him out of school to drive 3 hours to Canberra.
People from the NDIA actually encouraged this as a solution. The cost of this both financially and physically made this impossible for our family. The time missed from school and work would have been significant and any progress made in appointments would have been lost in the chaos. NDIS funding allowed him access to one support locally. This was life changing for our family and would not have been possible otherwise.
You need to understand that in many places there are no treatment options. Not everyone can afford to travel to reach appointments. Using this as a reason to limit access to the NDIS is wrong. Rural and regional people, particularly children, are already at a disadvantage because of the lack of access to quality education and healthcare. It is awful to know that children and families will be affected by such a change and will not be able to live a fulfilling life. It scares me to know how this will further impact mental health in regional communities where we already struggle to access the services we need.
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.
This change along with the above proposed changes to reviews will leave many people without the support they need. Consider the reality of what happens if you assess my child on a good day and you decide to cut his funding and take away his supports. The good day is a result of the supports working and I would be unable to challenge the decision. The assessment needs to allow for fluctuations in capacity.
The community deserves to have confidence that the assessment system is designed to capture their reality and is an improvement on the current system.
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.
Such a change would mean that my child would lose regular support sessions. The gap between sessions would increase and his ability to build independence, regulation and social skills would be compromised. His ability to participate at school and attend activities would suffer. I’m a parent, I am not a qualified speech pathologist. I’m not a therapist. I don’t have the skills, time or capacity to take on this role.
You cannot rely on schools to fill this gap either. Some schools are amazing and provide support for students that need it. Others do not and will not. My sons experience at a rural primary school was so bad that we had to move. If a school and the education department are unable to provide simple accommodations for a child (allowing the use of fidget toys, providing written instructions and emailing homework) they are not going to be able to provide real support to replace NDIS
funded therapy. Anything that is taken away from the NDIS needs to have a
replacement that is the same or better. The community need to have confidence that
it will help them and certainty that support will be available.
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.
Thank you for taking the time to read my feedback. It is imperative that you
recognise the challenges that many NDIS participants already face to participate in
life in a safe and meaningful way. It is not right to make it harder for them, to bring in
more uncertainty or use them as a cost saving measure. So many families and
carers are already doing everything they can to support their people. Please take the
time to really understand the further challenges faced by rural and regional -communities in accessing support services, even with help from the NDIS.
8