Beaudesert QLD 4285
Phone: 0432 468 100 Email: admin@oahhub.com.au www.oahhub.com.au
ABN: 613 5388 0470
Senator the Hon Jenny McAllister
Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Minister.McAllister@health.gov.au
26/05/2026
Dear Senator McAllister,
I am writing to formally submit my concerns regarding the proposed reforms and funding reductions to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).
As both a small business owner and professional clinician working within the disability sector and the mother of adult children living with disabilities, I have significant concerns about the long-term impact these proposed changes may have on participants, families, carers, providers, and the broader Australian community. My concerns are also informed by lived experience within disability systems spanning decades, including the institutionalisation of my brother following an acquired brain injury in the 1970’s and the devastating lifelong consequences this had on him and our family.
I am deeply concerned that the current direction of proposed reforms risks reducing essential supports, increasing administrative and evidentiary burdens, narrowing access to services, increasing reliance on unpaid carers, and shifting greater pressure onto already underfunded health, mental health, housing, and community systems. I also believe there has been insufficient recognition of the hidden economic and social costs associated with carer burnout, fragmented service systems, repeated reassessments, legal appeals, and the long term consequences of inadequate early and ongoing support.
This submission outlines concerns regarding participant wellbeing, workforce impacts, continuity of care, transparency, economic sustainability, and the broader societal costs that may arise if vulnerable Australians lose access to essential supports. It also highlights the importance of maintaining community-based, person-centred supports that protect dignity, participation, safety, and quality of life.
I respectfully ask that the Government carefully consider the lived experiences of participants, carers, clinicians, providers, and advocacy organisations before proceeding with reforms that may result in significant long-term harm to disabled Australians and their families.
Thank you for taking the time to consider this submission.
Yours sincerely,
Ms Kate Dean MClExPhys (Rehabilitation) AES, AEP (Masters)
Director Our Allied Health Hub
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Beaudesert QLD 4285
Phone: 0432 468 100 Email: admin@oahhub.com.au www.oahhub.com.au
ABN: 613 5388 0470
Submission Regarding Proposed NDIS Reforms and Funding Cuts: 26/05/2026
I am writing to express serious concern regarding the proposed reforms and funding reductions to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). These changes are creating significant fear and distress among participants, families, carers, clinicians, and providers across Australia.
Many participants and their families are living with ongoing anxiety, waiting to see whether “the axe will fall” on them next and whether they will lose access to essential supports that enable them to live safely and participate in their communities. For many people, these supports are not optional extras or luxuries — they are fundamental to daily functioning, dignity, regulation, communication, mobility, safety, and survival.
There appears to be a growing narrative suggesting that reducing access to supports will somehow improve “sustainability.” However, removing supports does not remove disability, illness, or support needs. It simply transfers the burden elsewhere — onto unpaid carers, already overwhelmed families, hospitals, schools, homelessness services, emergency departments, aged care systems, and underfunded community services.
State-based services and alternative support systems are already significantly stretched, underfunded, or no longer available. Mental health systems are utterly overwhelmed. Community supports have been reduced over many years. Families are frequently told there are “no services available” or are placed on waitlists that extend for months or years. In this context, reducing NDIS supports risks pushing vulnerable Australians into crisis situations that will ultimately create greater long-term social and economic costs.
The proposed reforms risk:
- reducing access to essential supports
- increasing reassessment and evidentiary burdens
- forcing participants through inaccessible administrative systems
- increasing reliance on unpaid carers and family members
- narrowing definitions of who is considered “disabled enough”
- making it harder to challenge decisions and seek reviews
- reducing participant choice and control
- limiting access to trusted non-registered providers
- increasing social isolation, crisis presentations, segregation, and institutionalisation Support coordinators, allied health professionals, and community-based providers play a critical role in helping participants navigate an already highly complex system. Support coordinators provide an essential bridge between participants, therapists, service providers, and the NDIA. They help participants understand their plans, connect with appropriate
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Beaudesert QLD 4285
Phone: 0432 468 100 Email: admin@oahhub.com.au www.oahhub.com.au
ABN: 613 5388 0470
supports, gather therapist reports, prepare evidence for reviews, and ensure funding decisions reflect actual participant needs. Reducing access to support coordination risks leaving many vulnerable participants unable to effectively navigate the system or advocate for themselves.
There are also significant concerns regarding the costs associated with NDIA legal processes and appeals. Participants are increasingly forced to challenge decisions in order to retain essential supports, creating substantial legal and administrative costs to government. Greater transparency is needed regarding NDIA expenditure, including legal fees, administrative costs, and internal review processes. Public discourse often portrays participants and providers as the source of financial pressure on the Scheme, while insufficient attention is given to systemic inefficiencies, inconsistent decision-making processes, and the substantial costs associated with defending appeals against participants seeking necessary support.
The Australian Federal Government funds the legal costs incurred by the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) when defending funding decisions and participant appeals through taxpayer-funded federal budget allocations. This includes the engagement of external law firms, barristers, and internal legal teams to represent the NDIA during proceedings at the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART). As a result, participants and families seeking to challenge decisions regarding essential supports are often placed in the difficult position of opposing a government agency with significantly greater legal and financial resources. This raises important questions about transparency, proportionality, and whether public funds are being directed toward adversarial legal processes rather than improving participant outcomes, reducing administrative inefficiencies, and ensuring fair, consistent decision-making from the outset. Greater focus on reducing the substantial costs associated with lengthy legal disputes, repeated reassessments, and administrative duplication may represent a far more effective and humane approach to improving the long-term financial sustainability of the NDIS than reducing essential supports for participants.
As a businessperson, I also question the logic of creating multiple separate agencies and fragmented systems when one adequately funded, streamlined system could potentially provide more efficient and coordinated support delivery. The proposed expansion of separate “foundational supports” may simply shift costs between systems rather than genuinely reducing expenditure, while increasing complexity for families attempting to access help. There are also substantial hidden emotional and psychological costs to participants and their families when people are required to transition between different agencies or systems based on age, disability type, diagnosis, or functional capacity. These transitions often involve repeating assessments, retelling traumatic personal histories, navigating new eligibility criteria, rebuilding therapeutic relationships, and managing additional administrative burdens, all of which create disruption, stress, delays in care, and increased risk of participants falling through gaps in the system. Frequent changes between systems can also negatively impact
3
Beaudesert QLD 4285
Phone: 0432 468 100 Email: admin@oahhub.com.au www.oahhub.com.au
ABN: 613 5388 0470
continuity of care, therapeutic progress, participant trust, and overall health and functional outcomes, ultimately creating greater long-term costs both financially and socially.
Many disabled people only appear to be “coping” because parents, carers, and family members — the majority of whom are often women — are absorbing enormous invisible labour behind closed doors. Families are sacrificing their own health, finances, relationships, employment (the ability to expand their careers, earn a living, grow their superannuation and pay their taxes), and wellbeing to keep loved one’s safe and functioning. This unpaid labour remains largely invisible within policy discussions about “sustainability.”
That is not sustainability. That is systemic neglect shifted onto families.
Carer burnout has significant social and economic consequences that ultimately increase costs to government and the broader healthcare system. When family members and unpaid carers become physically, emotionally, and financially exhausted from providing constant support without adequate assistance, the sustainability of care arrangements breaks down. This can result in increased hospital admissions, mental health interventions, crisis accommodation, emergency respite, workforce withdrawal, and higher long-term support needs for both the person living with disability and the carer themselves. Preventative supports through the NDIS not only assist participants directly but also reduce the likelihood of carer burnout, helping families remain stable, reducing pressure on already overstretched health and community systems, and avoiding far greater downstream costs associated with crisis-based care and carer collapse.
There are deeply troubling reports emerging from disability communities of people expressing fear, hopelessness, and despair about losing access to supports they rely on for basic care, mobility, safety, and independence. Policymakers must understand the profound psychological impact these reforms are already having on vulnerable Australians.
The NDIS also supports a substantial workforce of therapists, support workers, coordinators, administrative staff, and small businesses who provide essential services to participants across Australia. These workers and businesses contribute directly to the economy through income tax, business tax, superannuation, payroll tax, and local economic activity. Reducing participant access to funding is therefore likely to have broader economic consequences beyond the disability sector itself, including reduced employment opportunities, business closures, workforce instability, and increased reliance on welfare systems. Cuts to participant supports may ultimately increase the overall taxpayer burden by reducing workforce participation for both disability sector employees and unpaid family carers who are forced to leave employment to provide additional care when formal supports are removed.
4
Beaudesert QLD 4285
Phone: 0432 468 100 Email: admin@oahhub.com.au www.oahhub.com.au
ABN: 613 5388 0470
If Government is genuinely committed to long-term sustainability, then solutions should focus on:
- properly funding foundational and preventative supports
- improving health, housing, education, and community systems
- reducing administrative inefficiency and duplication
- addressing provider misconduct appropriately without penalising participants
- implementing transparent and consistent decision-making
- ensuring genuine co-design with disabled people and advocacy organisations
- creating accessible, trauma-informed planning and review processes Disabled Australians deserve safety, dignity, inclusion, and the opportunity to participate meaningfully in society. Any reforms to the NDIS must strengthen these outcomes, not undermine them.
My concerns regarding these proposed reforms are both deeply personal and professional. My brother sustained an acquired brain injury following a motor vehicle accident in the 1970s at just 18 years of age and was subsequently institutionalised for the remainder of his life. The care he experienced was, at times, appalling and deplorable, with devastating long term effects not only on him but on our entire family. He died prematurely in his 50s after spending his entire adult life within institutional care systems. I have also raised adult children living with disabilities, one of whom currently receives support through the NDIS while others do not. As both the mother of adult children with disabilities, professionally qualified clinician and a small business owner working within this space, I understand the complexities, gaps, pressures, and consequences discussed throughout this submission on both a deeply personal and professional level. These experiences have given me firsthand insight into the importance of maintaining accessible, compassionate, community-based supports that protect dignity, wellbeing, participation, and quality of life for people living with disability and their families.
I urge the Government to carefully reconsider these proposed reforms and genuinely listen to disabled people, families, carers, clinicians, advocacy organisations, and community providers regarding the likely long-term consequences of reducing supports and increasing barriers to access.
Prepared by:
Ms Kate Dean MClExPhys (Rehabilitation) AES, AEP (Masters)
Director Our Allied Health Hub
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