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, 2 connectmesupports
~ CONNECTING YOU
8t h July 2026
Thank you for the opportunity to provide this submission.
We are a small family owned rural support service. We have 11 staff and 30 regular NDIS participants. Being in a small rural town, access to services is very often difficult, involves significant travel and a limited number of opportunities for people with disabilities. Many families are forced when having a family member with a disability either to move the whole family away from where they want to live, sometimes giving up generational farms or small businesses to give their family member opportunities or being forced to place their loved ones into SIL accommodation. NDIS participants in rural areas require special considerations in regards to the amount of supports required as well as the amount of travel that can be accessed for both daily living and social supports.
For us personally, we have many participants that have no family, either by parents passing, family breakdown or carers also having disabilities. For these people formal supports may be the only way they can have access to any social interactions or have support for daily living and maintaining independence. We also have participants who’s only contact is support staff. Cutting these social supports would result in extreme isolation, a decline in mental health and may very well be a reason for someone needing to be placed in a SIL, therefore in the long term costing way more to the NDIS than it was before.
I believe that the cutting of social supports should be looked at from the perspective of a participant. Should they be expected to either only have some supports in groups with people that they may not have anything in common or generally get along with or have no supports and be social excluded from their community. Would anyone else want to be put into this situation.
This bill will be of significant detriment to not only the person with the disability but whole famil ies and communities. There is also the emotional, financial and relationship damages this bill will inflict upon already stretched families. Carers having to give a working to stay home with loved ones, loosing, their fami ly homes due to financial strain, marriage breakdowns due to carer burnout and the emotional cost of the above.
As a provider I completely agree with measures to rein in spending and more importantly addressing the aspects of fraud within the industry. I believe there are some very easy fixes to some of the problems, for example ensuring that people supplying support coordination are not also supplying support services, this is a recipe for fraud if participants are managed by only one organisation.
connectmesupports 0 • • CONNECTING YOU
People in regional areas are already disadvantaged in regards to services and opportunities, this bill will add another dimension to the inequality between rural areas and the metropolitan areas.
Please consider the bigger picture in this decision as it is nowhere near as simple as just cutting supports, the effect on many will be life changing in the most detrimental way.
Thank you for your time.
Yours truly,
Director.