National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 542

Committee Secretary Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

Submitted online via My Parliament.

Dear Secretary,

Submission to NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

This submission responds to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and highlights potential implications for Autistic people and their families and carers. We strongly support submissions made by the Australian Autism Alliance and Disability Representative Organisations and endorse their concerns regarding both the substance of the Bill and the process through which it is being progressed.

To be clear, we recognise the need to address scheme sustainability, fraud, exploitation and poor-quality service provision. Efforts to improve sustainability should focus on addressing system inefficiencies and strengthening scheme integrity. We support targeted reforms to this end, including high-risk provider registration where appropriately designed, separation of plan management from other supports to reduce conflicts of interest, and greater pricing transparency.

However, we are deeply concerned by the significant aspects of the Bill that undermine the fundamental purpose of the NDIS: to provide individualised supports that enable people with disability to live safely, with dignity, participate in their community, and exercise choice and control. The Bill’s increased emphasis on financial sustainability signals a sizable shift away from an individualised and rights-based model toward one that prioritises cost containment, centralised discretion and system-level affordability. This fundamentally reframes the Scheme from a guarantee of reasonable and necessary supports to a capped system, where access is constrained by budgetary limits and out-of-pocket costs apply.

Our submission, which is endorsed by the I CAN Network, Yellow Ladybugs, Different Journeys and Autism Valued, makes recommendations to:

• Strengthen scrutiny and co-design across the reform process.
• Centre participants and their individual needs in decision making.
• Strengthen safeguards on decision-making powers and processes.
• Protect flexibility, review rights and timely access to supports.
• Maintain rights to reasonable and necessary supports, without gaps.
• Strengthen system readiness prior to any transitions.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 542

1. Narrowed access and supports risk excluding people with significant and permanent disability from the NDIS or leaving them without adequate support, compromising safety and inclusion.

• The proposed definition of ‘functional capacity’ that excludes environmental context risks an incomplete and inaccurate picture of lived experience. For many people with disability, particularly Autistic people, the impact of disability is shaped by environment, relationships, trauma and intersectional disadvantage. It can also fluctuate across environments and contexts, reflect Autistic burnout, or be masked. Assessing capacity in isolation risks significant misunderstandings. Assessments must reflect real-world functioning over time and be meaningfully informed by both lived experience and practitioner evidence.

• Tightened ‘permanence’ criteria may require people to pursue ongoing or speculative treatments to establish eligibility, even where these are burdensome, may not be neuro-affirming or personally appropriate, or are unlikely to change long term needs. Excluding personal and environmental factors also creates a significant equity risk, as a person’s ability to access or afford treatment (including in regional or remote areas) may make treatment unattainable. In practice, this will delay access and early intervention, compromise equity and risk excluding people with significant, lifelong support needs. It is vital that a practical approach is taken and that personal and environmental factors are required to be taken into consideration.

• The proposed requirement that supports must ‘arise directly from impairments’ does not reflect the reality of complex and intersecting conditions. Many Autistic people experience, and require support for interacting, co-occurring conditions. These commonly include intellectual disability, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive and related disorders, anxiety, depression and eating disorders. Recognising this, supports should remain fundable wherever a participant’s disability is a substantial contributing factor, supports prevent deterioration and/or supports maintain participation and safety.

• Changes to ‘reasonable and necessary’ (including what is reasonable for families, informal supports and communities to provide, and how supports are assessed as value for money, effective and beneficial) risk narrowing access, prioritising cost over individual need, and shifting responsibility to families where informal supports may be insufficient, not coping or unsafe. Determinations of reasonable and necessary must be holistic and reflect the individual needs of each participant, informed by their lived experience and medical and allied health reports (not generalised evidence only).

• Without adequate safeguards, people with permanent and significant disability risk exclusion from the Scheme or receiving inadequate supports that undermine safety, dignity, community participation and choice and control.

2. Reduced flexibility, choice and review rights will undermine scheme integrity and participant rights.

• Tightened criteria for plan reassessments, alongside extended decision-making timeframes, will make it more difficult for plans to respond to changing circumstances. This is particularly concerning where informal supports collapse, school exclusion occurs, housing needs change, services become unavailable, or participants’ support needs have not been adequately reflected in their plans.

• Extending reassessment timeframes from 21 to 90 days could directly lead to participants experiencing homelessness, family breakdowns, unsafe levels of support, a loss of schooling, work or capacity for work, and/or a significant escalation in health and mental health conditions. 3 months is too long to be left without urgently needed support. Current reassessment timeframes should remain.

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Submission 542

3. The shift to automatic plan renewals, without the right to seek review of renewed plans, represents a significant erosion of individualised planning and participants’ choice and control. Participants may find themselves locked in plans that no longer meet their needs, without clear pathways to challenge or amend decisions. Renewals must be easily and quickly reviewable, in close consultation with participants.

• Automated decision-making risks oversimplifying and misrepresenting the support needs of participants. While it may be beneficial for administrative efficiency, oversight is crucial. It must not replace human judgment, and review rights are critical, particularly where automated decisions impact eligibility, support, reassessments or safeguarding.

4. Centralised funding powers undermine fairness, equity, transparency and participant safety.

• ‘Support determinations’, enabling the Minister to set funding limits across categories and specific supports, risk significantly undermining equity, participants’ rights to reasonable and necessary supports and individualised decision-making.

• Applying these powers at a scheme-wide level, without review rights or limits on reductions, represents a significant concentration of unfettered decision-making power. This overwhelmingly risks undermining the safety, dignity and inclusion of participants. We are particularly concerned by the Ministers intention to use this power to reduce social, civic and community participation supports by 50% and capacity building daily activity funding by 10%, which would leave participants without critical supports.

• Support determinations will embed significant inequity across the scheme. The proposed power to reduce supports for particular cohorts, such as Autistic people, risks significant inequity in supports based on disability. The need for participants to pay the gap between reasonable and necessary, and funded supports poses significant risks to the support and safety of participants that cannot afford to pay.

• If a centralised approach is to be taken (which we do not support), it should not lead to any reductions in the absence of a robust and independent impact assessment, disability-led consultation, no harm protections/certification, parliamentary scrutiny and review rights. A limit must be placed on the percentage reduction and caps the Minister may determine.

• The power to make support determinations appears to apply only to old framework plans given new framework plans will not include support categories. Urgent clarity is needed to ensure this power is not retained in the longer term.

4. Reforms risk support gaps unless accessible and quality systems are in place.

• Many elements of the proposed reforms rely on future rules, operational guidance and systems that are not yet available, creating significant uncertainty about how the new framework will operate. It risks shifting people to other systems for support before these systems are ready to receive them.

• Without well-designed transition arrangements and sufficient investment in alternatives (including Foundational Supports and mainstream services), there is a significant risk that people will fall through the gaps, particularly given the scale and pace of reform and the central role of the NDIS in participants’ lives.

• To safeguard safety and inclusion, no participant should have supports reduced, removed or replaced until alternative systems are fully operational, workforce-ready, affordable, accessible, autism- and trauma-informed, and independently trialled and evaluated.

Submission 542