Submission 527
Submission in Response to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
For the first time in my life, I feel genuinely sad about the future of our country.
No one is arguing that the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) doesn’t need reform. It does. But the way the proposed changes are being approached via this Bill is deeply concerning. Instead of fixing the parts of the system that are clearly not working, the burden is being shifted onto people with disability and their families. That is not the right approach & will not fix the systemic issues within the NDIS.
Much of the current public commentary around the NDIS is disconnected from reality. It is very easy to spot those with no lived experience of the Scheme, due to the narrative, proudly promoted by the Federal Government, that funding is currently easy to obtain, or that people are somehow exploiting it. That simply isn’t true. Applying for the NDIS is long, exhausting, and emotionally draining. Families spend years navigating stress, gathering reports from speech pathologists, occupational therapists, psychologists and medical specialists, while trying to hold everything else together at the same time. Even then, decisions routinely take far longer than the NDIA’s own published timeframes. And when a decision does come, it is often a denial or funding that falls well short of what treating professionals have clearly recommended.
I am speaking from lived experience. I am the mother of a 20-year-old son and NDIS participant. My 22 year old daughter is a support worker and cares deeply about the people she supports and does so with empathy and understanding. I have also worked alongside a psychologist supporting NDIS participants. Seeing the system from these different angles has given me a clear view of where the problems actually lie. (Hint: it is not with the participants)
Systemic Issues Within the NDIA
The core issue sits within the NDIA itself. There is an entrenched adversarial culture, an “us versus them” approach, that needs to change. No parent or participant should feel scared and anxious every time a plan review approaches, but most of us do.
Administrative NDIA staff are regularly required to interpret complex clinical evidence that should only be assessed by appropriately qualified professionals. Participants are expected to provide extensive documentation to justify every support, yet that same evidence is often overlooked or discounted. Funding decisions are frequently well below what experienced clinicians recommend, without any meaningful explanation, while sometimes participants are randomly given funding they did not request and do not require. At the very least, the NDIA should be held to the same evidentiary standard it requires of participants.
There is also a significant cost to poor decision-making. Each year, tens of millions of dollars are spent on legal proceedings in the Tribunal. Many of those cases are either settled just before hearing or overturned altogether. The process takes a serious toll on participants and families. It is difficult not to feel that the system relies on people giving up out of sheer exhaustion. That money and energy would be far better spent getting decisions right in the first place rather than on engaging the top lawyers in the country to fight our most vulnerable.
Fraud and Oversight Failures
Fraud does exist within the NDIS, but it is important to be clear about where responsibility lies.
Weak oversight and inconsistent monitoring by the NDIA has created opportunities for misuse. That is a governance issue. It is not the fault of participants.
Submission 527
Cutting supports or reducing access will not address fraud. It will simply make life harder for those who rely on the Scheme appropriately. Holding people with disability accountable for systemic failures within the NDIA (or for the actions of a minority of providers) is not only unfair but also unjust.
Concerns Regarding Functional Capacity Assessments
The proposal to require new Functional Capacity Assessments (FCAs) across the board is also concerning.
These assessments are useful, but for many participants they have already been completed multiple times with consistent results. Requiring them again, without any meaningful change in circumstances, does not make sense.
The reports are expensive, intrusive, and emotionally draining. Billions of dollars in additional spending could be saved in this area alone, by simply using reports already produced within the last 5 years instead of demanding yet another FCA report. It is hard to reconcile this process with the stated goal of reducing costs.
Serious Concerns Regarding Proposed Powers and Impacts
The Bill introduces a number of broad powers that, taken together, raise serious concerns about fairness, transparency, and accountability:
-
Unilateral Funding Reductions The Minister may apply broad cuts to categories of support through legislative instruments, without participants having the ability to seek individual review. This creates a situation where funding already deemed “reasonable and necessary” can be reduced across the board, regardless of individual need.
-
Broad Capping Powers The capacity to impose caps on funding, service levels or even the way supports are delivered is a very blunt tool. It risks overriding clinical recommendations and individual circumstances.
-
Erosion of the “Whole of Person” Approach A particularly concerning change is the requirement that supports must arise directly from a participant’s eligible impairment. Currently, the Scheme recognises that people often have multiple, interacting conditions. That matters because disabilities don’t exist in isolation. The new wording risks stripping away that holistic approach and replacing it with something much narrower and more medicalised and could mean that supports are denied where a person’s needs arise from the combined impact of their conditions, rather than one single diagnosis.
-
Changes to Functional Capacity and Eligibility Assessing people based on how they function without supports does not reflect reality. It risks excluding people who clearly need assistance simply because, with support, they are managing.
-
Transitional Rule-Making Powers The breadth of power to introduce transitional rules that can effectively override the Act is concerning. It creates uncertainty about how the Scheme will operate in practice and gives incredible power to make unilateral decisions without consulting Parliament.
Submission 527
- Limited Transparency and Accountability The ability to set or adjust key funding parameters without full visibility or scrutiny undermines trust in the system.
Human Impact
Living with disability is not easy. Caring for someone with a disability is not easy either.
Like many parents, I sometimes look at my son and grieve the life he might have had. Our family has made significant sacrifices, financially, professionally, and emotionally, to support him.
At the same time, we have been supported by incredible therapists, clinicians, and support workers, who genuinely care and have made an enormous difference in my son’s and our family’s lives. They represent what the NDIS can be at its best.
The NDIS does need reform. But reform must be fair, balanced, and grounded in evidence.
It should focus on:
- improving NDIA decision-making,
- strengthening oversight and accountability,
- addressing pricing issues,
- and ensuring transparency and consistency. • What it should not do is place additional pressure on those the Scheme was designed to support.
The shift in public tone over recent weeks has been difficult to watch. People with disability are increasingly being framed as a problem. That is deeply upsetting, and it risks doing real harm. The Federal Government should hang its head in shame that it has deliberately chosen to encourage the general community to view those less abled as fraudsters and rorters, while attempting to implement a Bill that includes shameful, Dictatorship-type powers. Participants did not choose this life or this system. They should not be made to feel as though they are doing something wrong simply by asking for support.
I ask that changes be made to the Bill so that the much needed reforms address what is genuinely broken, not scapegoating the most vulnerable in our society.