National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 42
Safeguarding/Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill Inquiry
I write from the perspective of a regional Western Australian family supporting two autistic adults with complex needs, living in a thin-market community where choice and control are already fragile. The integrity of the NDIS cannot be separated from the lived reality of people who rely on it: social isolation, limited services, and the absence of culturally safe, community-embedded supports in remote areas. For many of us, the “market” the Scheme assumes simply does not exist.
Recent reforms have concentrated excessive discretionary power in the hands of the Minister and senior officials, enabling sweeping changes without adequate consultation, transparency, or safeguards. Decisions that profoundly affect people with disability are increasingly made about us, not with us. Lived experience is referenced rhetorically but routinely ignored in practice, particularly in relation to self-management, home-and-living supports, and the erosion of flexible arrangements that keep people safe in their own communities.
Integrity is not achieved through centralisation, suspicion, or punitive compliance settings. It is achieved through relationships, continuity, and trust — all of which are undermined when remote and regional participants are forced into rigid provider-led models that cannot meet their needs. Mandatory registration proposals, blanket restrictions on supports, and algorithm-driven decision-making risk further isolating people who already face geographic, social, and service-access barriers.
I urge the Committee to recognise that integrity must include fairness, proportionality, and respect for autonomy. This requires embedding lived experience in decision-making, protecting self-directed supports, and designing policy that reflects the realities of remote Australia — not metropolitan assumptions. Without this, the NDIS risks becoming procedurally “integrity-focused” while failing the very people it exists to support.