Submission to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Date: 31/05/26
Name:
Attention: Committee Secretary, Senate Standing Committee on Community
Affairs.
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 significant 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.
My 39 year daughter is non verbal, she can not talk with her voice. uses pointing her one functional finger to an individual letter on a board to make a word, then a sentence. has never spoken so has never had the option of sounding out a word to help with spelling accuracy. She has spent 39 years trying to be understood by getting key words across, this changes her learned syntax and sentence structure capacity when she wants to communicate more than her urgent basic need. To consult and accurately communicate with she requires at least 50% more time than people who can speak with their voice. If is talking to an unfamiliar communication partner she would need greater than 80 – 90% more time than a voice speaking person would need to say the same thing. has the human right to be listened to and not discriminated against because her expressive communication method is slower. People with a communication disability need more time to consult and communicate.
The short timeline impacts me by making the incredibly high anxiety put onto me and the disability community by government and services, unbearable to live with. Since Mark Butler’s announcement I have had next to no sleep and
can not eat or work due to the anxiety of the proposed changes to NDIS. With this timeline we don’t even have time to access supports to help us make sure we can communicate with the people, such as , who are potentially about to lose their lives from approval of this bill.
Recommendation: Amend the consultation period for a best practice minimum of 30 days. Double that to 60 days if considering the cohort this bill affects and their communication differences.
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
- have not yet been written. can not execute the ordinary life she has built with of her NDIS support over the last 9 years without having the confidence that she can access parliamentary debate or public scrutiny if required. is proud and fulfilled in her work and social participation in her community. Community members who do not have a disability regularly feedback how ’s presence in society has changed their life for the better. Non disability specific organisations that works at have changed their disability policy and practice and won state and national awards for access due to changes they have made because of ’s participation and inclusion. ’s quality of life, hence her communities, will be diminished if the human right of being able to work towards individual fair change is taken away. has a diagnosis of severe Cerebral Palsy Quadriplegia yet she has her own hopes, dreams, desires and goals, different than other adults with the same diagnosis. How much funding she receives is related to her personal and professional goals, it is a dynamic process that can not and should NEVER be determined by ministers. Living with the ambiguity of losing access to her ordinary life is anxiety producing and soul destroying to live with daily. Ministers should not be given the power to put her in a peg hole with all other people who have the same presentation of needs, to limit her or silence her. Plan transparency, individual considerations and consultation must always remain in place.
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.
This does not protect who is already a success,a model NDIS participant. Living with the trauma of potentially being reassessed under stricter rules is debilitating. has been put through every aspect of complete scrutiny throughout her life, she at least deserves the respect of no funding reduction or having her plan renewed automatically, without clear communication with NDIS and a seamless processes in place to challenge any life limiting decisions. ’s life has recently changed and she has no informal support due to her parents life threatening illness. We never want to see things being made harder for people to get extra support when their circumstances or disability change.
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).
If ’s community participation, capacity building or assistive technology funding was cut without warning and without any right to appeal she would immediately lose her individual specialised trained staff which are nearly impossible to replace. People would be unemployed. Significantly would be unemployed and unable to leave the house at all. Her physical condition would deteriorate quickly and she’d soon be hospitalized or dead. With the threat of
having Social and Community Participation, Capacity Building or Assistive
Technology cut or reduced is forced to live on high alert and hypervigilance.
It is stressful and hideous running a business ( has a small success art
business) with the threat of losing support staff to support her to actively execute her business. Right down to ordering stock and booking in markets or checking emails and fufilling online orders, it all requires long term planning and security. How can anyone live day to day with the threat of loosing their access to their life source unknowingly in the blink of an eye?
needs the option of saving unspent funds across plan periods for high-cost items.
As hard as it is for some people to imagine a person with a severe disability may even dream of employing a support worker to make it possible for them to have a 2 week holiday at a holiday destination of their choice a couple of times in their adult life. This level of Social and Community Participation / support worker funding would need to be saved up for. The NDIS participant would be providing employment (1-1 support worker) and adding to the economy by travel expenditure. This is not something that is currently possible. Is there any other group in Australia that never get to have 2 weeks annual leave? But we feel like it is expected for an adult with a severe disability…
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.
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).
lives regionally and does not have access to all services locally. Individual circumstances need to be considered. ’s whole of life experience needs to be considered and individual circumstances must always be considered. Disabled people like should not be disadvantaged because they have no informal supports in their life and no independent financial means.
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.
has had a Functional Capacity Assessment administered this year. The assessment cost close to $3,000, is 52 pages long and took months and months of work. It is a factual, detailed up to date document created by long term specialists that understand . Being constantly mandatory assessed is unnecessary, expensive and emotionally heart wrenching. Assessments need to be individualised to match the participant and the purpose. Assessments need to be peer reviewed and best practice. We need to be saving NDIS funds by
listening to recommendations and reports from qualified therapists who have ongoing real life relationships with the disabled person, rather than having expensive and stress filled rebuttal from administration staff e.g. planners, AI, computers or others that have never met the disabled person. Every individual has individual needs that need to be acknowledged and respected. Time and money and emotional stress is wasted long term when we don’t assess the whole person and look we misguidedly focus on a ‘one fix for all’ strategy.
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.
From the age of 18 years (2005) to 30 years (2017) before NDIS was living in conditions worse than we provide for our most heinous criminals in prison. Without 1-1 supports she was left for days in small rooms to overheat, not given enough fluids and not given appropriate food or medication, on multiple occasions she was dropped on her face and received a broken nose, broken teeth and a 5cm scar that is still obvious across her beautiful face today. was abused and was a contributor to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploration of People with a Disability 2019. was unable to communicate with anyone and was not provided with her communication tools or appropriate mobility equipment. Most hurtful to was she dreamed of becoming an artist and establishing an art business but it was a dream, during the years prior to NDIS she could not leave her house or have any choice and control on who she spent any of her life with. ’s disability means she requires 1-1 supports for all of her needs. has
THIRIVED since becoming an NDIS participant in 2017. contributes to her community and society by working full time. She chooses to volunteer at the Salvation Army to help others and at the tourist Sovereign Hill Museum where she has actively changed attitudes of the community there without disabilities. Even ’s community participation in the local Bingo each Thursday evening changes perceptions and improves the lives of those with disability and those without. ’s Social and Community Participation funding is her life, it gives her a life and it improves the life of the people she chooses to employ and the non disabled community she connects with everyday. Additionally, has social and community participation 1-1 support to create art and to work on her art business ( ), to sell her art products on consignment, online and at her market stall each week.
Importantly recruits and interviews and employs her Social and Community Participation herself so she has choice and control in who she lives her life with and who touches her body.
Without full time 1-1 support workers can do nothing.
At her disability support accommodation, shared with 5 other adults with severe disability (who all have nothing in common other than a disability diagnosis), does not have any choice and control in the staff that work there. She doesn’t know who will walk into her bedroom in the morning, she has no choice in asking males not to touch her naked body each day; in having to be with 80% of support staff who have English as a second language so the communication challenges are impaired further; very low skilled, poor house management; support staff that see themselves as cooks and cleaners and ignore her for full days at a time when she has to stay home.
Because of the EXCELLENT 1-1 support workers employs using her Social and Community Participation funding she’s able to be out of her house everyday engaged in meaningful work, actively participating in society. is only able to ‘white knuckle it through’ the lonely, frustrating and humiliating support with the daily living support in her house, that she does not have choice and control in because of the Social and Community Participation funding that she does have choice and control in who she employs and what she does.
ANY REDUCTION IN ’S SOCIAL AND COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
FUNDING FOR ANY AMOUNT OF TIME MEANS :
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Will lose long term support staff we have spent hours and hours of time and NDIS funds training and who are specialised in communicating and supporting her. That has relationships with. A precedent - in 2020 during Covid lockdown when we couldn’t give good staff work. They go.
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Will cease to be able to actively participate in any activity of choice and be discriminated against not being able to go to work like other non disabled 39 year olds.
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Will cease to be contributing to the economy and her community by working and socialising.
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Will create severe mental health, behaviours of concern and physical health issues that will put greater demands on health services. will not want to continue to live if her life is taken away from her by her Social and Community Participation funding being reduced at all. She will become nothing.
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.