Concerns Regarding the Right to Independent Living (Individual advocacy)

Submission 548

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future

Generations) Bill 2026

Senate Community Affair’s Legislation Committee

KIN Disability Advocacy

132 Main Street

Osborne Park, 6017

Phone: (08) 9388 7455

Email: admin@kinadvocacy.org.au

Website: www.kinadvocacy.org.au

May 2026

President: Angelo Cianciosi

Chief Executive Officer: Libby Cramer

Author: Siyat Abdi

1

Submission 548

Contents

About KIN Disability Advocacy (formerly EDAC): ……………………………………………………………….. 3

Executive Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4

Core Issues of Concern …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4

1. The Bill Attempts to Abstract Disability from Lived Reality ……………………………………………. 4

2. Expansion of Ministerial Powers Creates Structural Risks……………………………………………….. 5

3. “Sustainability” Has Become a Euphemism for Restriction ……………………………………………… 6

4. Functional Capacity Assessments Risk Becoming Instruments of Exclusion ……………………… 6

5. Informal Care Assumptions Externalise State Responsibility …………………………………………… 7

6. Automated Decision-Making Risks Industrialising Harm ………………………………………………… 8

7. The Bill Appears Structurally Ethnocentric ……………………………………………………………………. 9

8. The Legislation Risks Creating Circular Evidence Systems …………………………………………….. 9

9. Proposed Cuts to Community Participation Supports and Expansion of Mandatory Registration ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 10

10. The Bill –Mistakes Cost Transfer Misrepresenting as Sustainability ……………………………….. 11

11. Increasing Anxiety, Confusion and Demand for Advocacy ……………………………………………. 12

12. The Function of Foundational Supports Requiring Significant Clarity and Investment ………. 12 Human Rights Concerns …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14

13. Concerns Regarding the Right to Independent Living ……………………………………………………. 14

14. Human Rights Should Not Become Conditional on Budgetary Tolerance ………………………… 15

15. Failure to Recognise that Equality Requires Support …………………………………………………….. 16

16. Violation of Human Dignity should not Occur through Functional Capacity Models ………… 17

17. Rights-Based Protection Against Institutionalisation …………………………………………………….. 18

18. Lack of Recognition of Carers as Human Rights Holders ………………………………………………. 19

19. Dehumanisation Arising from Administrative Automation Systems ……………………………….. 20

20. The Mentality of Redefining Disability as Economic Risk …………………………………………….. 20 2

Submission 548

About KIN Disability Advocacy (formerly EDAC):

KIN  Disability Advocacy formerly (EDAC)  is Western  Australia's peak  not-for-profit

organisation advocating for the rights of people with disability, from a Culturally and

Linguistically Diverse (CALD) background and their family and carers.

KIN Disability Advocacy currently receives recurrent funding from the Australian Department

of Social Services (DSS) and the WA Department of Communities Disability Services (DS).

KIN Disability Advocacy delivers individual and systemic advocacy services in WA’s

metropolitan, regional, and remote areas. This includes state-wide CALD advocacy services

and individual generalist advocacy to WA’s North -West region (Kimberley and Pilbara).

Additional project funding is used to deliver Human Rights-based self-advocacy training for

people with disability and their families/carers.

KIN Disability Advocacy operates a Digital Communication Project funded by the DSS, which

addresses the intersection of disability and ethnicity in relation to various aspects such as

services, policies, legislation, and more.

KIN Disability Advocacy generates additional income by providing cultural competency

training to the disability services sector. The delivery of this training adheres to the National

Disability Services Standards.

3

Submission 548

Executive Introduction

Thank you for the opportunity to provide this submission regarding the proposed reforms to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the accompanying legislative detail.

Kin Disability Advocacy recognises the critical importance of safeguarding the long-term sustainability of the NDIS. At the same time, we wish to draw attention to a number of significant concerns and emerging risks consistently raised by people with disability, their families, carers, and advocacy organisations across Western Australia.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future

Generations) Bill 2026 represents a substantial shift in the Scheme’s underlying philosophical framework. While the language of “sustainability” conveys an impression of administrative responsibility, the practical implications suggest a movement away from a rights-based social insurance model toward a more actuarially driven system of rationed supports.

This submission outlines Kin Disability Advocacy’s concerns across several key areas, with particular emphasis on the inconsistent and, at times, insufficient consideration of core Human Rights obligations.

Core Issues of Concern

The shortcomings of the Bill are not merely technical. They are conceptual, ethical, legal, and structural.

1. The Bill Attempts to Abstract Disability from Lived Reality A particularly concerning element is the Bill’s apparent intention to assess disability “as far as possible” without reference to environmental or personal circumstances.

Such an approach may appear administratively tidy. In practice, it is untenable.

Human  beings do  not  live  in  controlled  laboratory  conditions.  Disability  cannot be

meaningfully separated from housing, transport, poverty, supervision, communication barriers, trauma, social isolation, assistive technology, family fatigue, geography, or cultural exclusion.

An individual may appear “independent” only because:

• they are under continuous supervision;
• another person manages their medication;
• external supports maintain their routines;
• family members provide substantial unpaid labour;
• their environment has been progressively adapted over many years. If those supports are withdrawn, the person’s apparent “capacity” rapidly deteriorates.

4

Submission 548

The Bill risks conflating supported functioning with intrinsic functioning. This is not objective assessment; it is methodological distortion.

Contemporary disability frameworks — including those of the World Health Organization —

explicitly  reject such an  isolated model, recognising  that  disability  arises through the

interaction between the individual and their environment.

In this respect, the legislation appears to regress toward a pre-social, outdated understanding of disability.

2. Expansion of Ministerial Powers Creates Structural Risks The bill, as reported, confers significantly expanded ministerial authority to determine support categories and associated funding rules. This is not a minor administrative adjustment; it represents a substantial reallocation of power within the Scheme’s governance architecture.

A framework originally designed to be individualised and anchored in legislation becomes increasingly susceptible to political or fiscal recalibration through delegated instruments. Such a shift introduces several structural risks, including:

• diminished parliamentary scrutiny;

• instability in the definition and scope of support categories;

• heightened susceptibility to political influence in eligibility and funding decisions;

• the potential for rapid contraction of supports without full legislative debate;

• reduced predictability and certainty for participants. The concentration of discretionary authority is particularly concerning in the context of

  prevailing narratives of fiscal constraint. When sustainability is framed primarily as

  expenditure reduction, broad ministerial powers can readily become mechanisms for

administrative retrenchment. In this regard, new powers enabling reductions in funding pose the most significant danger.

The proposed power for the Minister to reduce funding for groups of supports across the Scheme is retrogressive and constitutes a major departure from the foundational principles of the NDIS.

The NDIS was established on the premise of individual need, recognising that each person’s supports must reflect their disability, life circumstances, family situation, home environment, culture, community and personal goals. A broad power to reduce funding for entire categories of support risks replacing individualised decision-making with blunt budgetary control.

Such an approach permeates funding reductions without regard to each person’s circumstances or community living situation. It could result in cuts being made through generalised decisions rather than through proper assessments of what a person requires to live safely and with dignity.

5

Submission 548

This is dangerous because, once conferred, such a power may not only be used to reduce social and community participation or therapy supports, but could also be applied to other essential supports or groups of supports across the Scheme.

People with disability and their families should not have their lives shaped by broad funding decisions made behind closed doors.

Any power to reduce funding must therefore be subject to strict limits, transparent reasoning and clear review rights. Participants must be able to challenge decisions that affect the supports on which they rely.

3. “Sustainability” Has Become a Euphemism for Restriction The discourse surrounding the bill repeatedly invokes the language of “future generations” and “scheme sustainability”. While this framing presents as prudent and responsible, the underlying logic is increasingly punitive.

The legislation appears to recast people with disabilities not as citizens entitled to participation, safety, autonomy, and dignity, but as actuarial risks to be contained. This shift represents a profound conceptual departure.

At the heart of the matter lies a core contradiction:

• the NDIS was publicly presented as a transformational, rights-based reform;
• yet the emerging policy architecture increasingly resembles a regime of managed scarcity. This is not merely an exercise in fiscal management. It reflects a deeper philosophical

repositioning.

The scheme is moving from the foundational question— “What support is required to enable participation?” toward the far narrower calculation— “What level of support can the system financially tolerate?”

That shift alters the purpose and character of the scheme entirely.

4. Functional Capacity Assessments Risk Becoming Instruments of Exclusion The proposed reforms appear to position standardised functional capacity assessments as the central determinant of eligibility, effectively elevating them to gatekeeping mechanisms. The concern is not with assessment itself, but with the assumption that such tools are inherently neutral or universally representative of lived experience.

Standardised assessment frameworks routinely:

• privilege impairments that are visible or easily quantifiable;
• penalise conditions that fluctuate or present episodically; 6

Submission 548

• misinterpret or overlook neurodivergent forms of functioning;
• minimise the realities of psychosocial disability;
• disregard the survival strategies individuals develop to cope;
• reduce complex relational, social, and environmental factors to numerical thresholds. Many people with disability maintain day-to-day functioning only through significant

overcompensation, masking, or reliance on informal and often invisible support structures. Assessment systems frequently misconstrue these adaptive behaviours as evidence of reduced need.

This produces a stark and harmful paradox, which is the greater the effort an individual must expend to remain safe, stable, or functional, the more likely the system is to categorise them as less impaired.

The proposed reforms risk embedding this contradiction within policy and practice, thereby institutionalising forms of exclusion under the guise of objectivity.

We are particularly concerned that tighter eligibility thresholds and increased reliance on standardised functional assessments may unintentionally disadvantage people whose disabilities are:

• fluctuating,
• episodic,
• difficult to quantify within existing assessment tools, or
• compounded by trauma, social disadvantage, housing instability, or mental health challenges.

There is a real risk that some individuals may fall between systems—deemed “not disability enough” for the NDIS, yet continuing to face significant barriers to participation, safety, and wellbeing.

We therefore urge the implementation of strong safeguards, transparent and accessible review pathways, and genuine co-design with people with disability and their representative organisations prior to any reform being enacted.

5. Informal Care Assumptions Externalise State Responsibility The bill reportedly broadens the scope of family and informal supports. This constitutes one of the most significant and concerning structural shifts in contemporary disability policy.

Families are not limitless service systems. Informal care is inherently constrained by:

• physical capacity;
• psychological endurance;
• financial resources; 7

Submission 548

• ageing and declining health;

• the cumulative impact of trauma;

• the availability of willing and able carers. Many carers already experience:

• burnout and exhaustion;

• chronic illness and deteriorating health;

• entrenched poverty;

• social isolation;

• relationship breakdown and family strain. Embedding informal care as an assumed baseline risks converting unpaid survival labour into a default obligation. This shift disproportionately impacts:

• women, who continue to shoulder the majority of unpaid care;

• youth and young people who are drawn into premature caring roles;

• ageing parents whose capacity is diminishing;

• siblings who may be compelled into lifelong caring responsibilities;

• culturally and linguistically diverse households with limited external support;

• single-carer families with no capacity to absorb additional demands. By presuming the availability of informal care, the state effectively reduces public expenditure by absorbing invisible labour from already exhausted households. The financial saving is real. The human cost is merely displaced, borne privately by families who are least able to carry it.

6. Automated Decision-Making Risks Industrialising Harm The rapid expansion of automated and semi-automated administrative systems presents a significant and escalating risk within disability support frameworks.

Decisions concerning disability supports inherently require:

• nuance;
• contextual understanding;
• informed judgement;
• complex communication;
• awareness of trauma histories;
• recognition of fluctuating functional capacity;
• sensitivity to cultural interpretation. 8

Submission 548

Algorithmic systems, by design, struggle with ambiguity and rely on simplification. Yet disability is frequently characterised by complexity, variability, and lived experience that resists reduction to standardised data points.

The increased use of automation therefore risks:

• procedural dehumanisation;
• the appearance of false consistency;
• the embedding of hidden bias;
• accelerated pathways to rejection;
• diminished transparency and accountability;
• the creation of administrative harm that becomes difficult to detect or challenge. In such an environment, individuals’ risk being treated as data profiles rather than human beings navigating precarious and often highly vulnerable circumstances.

7. The Bill Appears Structurally Ethnocentric The proposed reforms appear to be grounded in standardised assumptions about how

individuals and households live, thereby embedding a form of institutional ethnocentrism within the legislative framework.

The framework implicitly presumes:

• stable and secure housing;
• English-language literacy;
• digital access and competency;
• capacity for self-advocacy;
• nuclear family structures;
• consistent service availability;
• reliable transport access;
• assessment processes conducted through culturally familiar modes of communication. Many culturally and linguistically diverse households do not experience disability within these assumed parameters. Migration histories, trauma, interdependence, stigma, racism, language barriers, and fragmented service systems fundamentally shape how disability is experienced, understood, expressed, and navigated within these communities.

A framework presented as “neutral” can therefore operate in a systematically exclusionary manner, disproportionately disadvantaging communities whose lived realities fall outside the dominant cultural assumptions, while still maintaining the appearance of fairness.

8. The Legislation Risks Creating Circular Evidence Systems A central concern with the proposed legislation is its potential to generate a circular and self-reinforcing policy logic. The sequence is predictable:

9

Submission 548

• eligibility criteria are tightened;
• fewer individuals are able to access the scheme;
• expenditure growth consequently slows;
• government then cites reduced outlays as evidence of successful reform. However, diminished access does not equate to diminished need. When administrative visibility narrows, it becomes increasingly detached from the lived reality of the population.

This reflects a well-documented analytical failure across multiple welfare systems, whereby:

• those excluded become statistically invisible;
• unmet need is removed from official reporting;
• governments subsequently present declining participation as proof of policy effectiveness.

In effect, the system begins to manufacture the very evidence base used to justify its own operation.

9. Proposed Cuts to Community Participation Supports and Expansion of

Mandatory Registration

Kin has significant concern regarding the proposed reductions to social and community participation funding under the NDIS. One of the clearest examples of the risks posed by these reforms is the proposed 50 per cent cut to social, civic and community participation supports, alongside a 10 per cent reduction to certain capacity building daily activity supports, including therapeutic services. These proposals have generated deep anxiety among participants and their families.

This funding  is not discretionary.  It  is not a luxury, an optional  extra, or a  lifestyle

enhancement. It is essential support that enables people with disability to be visible, active and included in their communities. It is the support that allows individuals to leave their homes, build relationships, participate in community life, attend events, volunteer, study, work, exercise, shop, develop skills and remain socially connected.

Reducing this funding will cause real and measurable harm. It will result in people with disability spending fewer hours outside the home and experiencing increased isolation. It risks the loss of established routines, relationships, confidence and independence. It may once again force families to fill service gaps, undermining the core NDIS principles of choice and control. Such an outcome is unacceptable and would represent a regression to the isolation many people with disability faced prior to the establishment of the Scheme.

10

Submission 548

The NDIS was created to ensure that people with disability could participate fully in community life. A 50 per cent cut to community participation supports strikes at the heart of that foundational promise.

The proposed expansion of mandatory provider registration raises further concern.

The Scheme is built on the principles of choice and control. This means that people with disability must retain genuine authority over who supports them, how they are supported, and the kind of life they wish to build. Participants have developed trusted relationships with support workers, small service providers, culturally safe services, peer-led supports and flexible, individualised arrangements that respond to their needs.

Any changes to registration requirements must not restrict participants’ ability to choose supports that are appropriate, trusted and culturally safe. Reforms must not force individuals into large provider systems that may not meet their needs, nor should they eliminate small

community providers,  self-directed arrangements or innovative models of support  that

participants rely upon.

Amendments to legislation must also acknowledge the administrative burden and systemic delays associated with large provider systems. Excessive bureaucracy and entrenched waiting lists already disadvantage participants in both cost and time. Therefore, reforms must not exacerbate these inequities.

10. The Bill –Mistakes Cost Transfer Misrepresenting as Sustainability A fundamental flaw in the Bill is the assumption that reducing expenditure within the National

    Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) equates to a reduction in overall social cost.

It does not.

When disability supports are withdrawn or restricted, the underlying need does not diminish. It re-emerges across other, often more expensive and less appropriate, parts of the social system, including:

• emergency departments
• psychiatric and acute mental health services
• homelessness and housing crisis services
• aged-care facilities
• family and domestic violence systems
• carer burnout and breakdown
• child protection interventions
• policing and justice responses
• community crisis and outreach services Disability demand does not disappear when funding is removed; it migrates.

11

Submission 548

Any appearance of financial “sustainability” within the NDIS under such an approach is illusory. The cost is not eliminated; it is merely shifted onto families, state systems, hospitals, charities, and already overstretched informal carers. This is not sustainability, but administrative displacement presented as reform.

11. Increasing Anxiety, Confusion and Demand for Advocacy

The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future

Generations) Bill 2026 and the broader NDIS reform agenda have already generated a marked escalation in demand for independent advocacy services. These reforms are contributing to heightened uncertainty and anxiety among participants, families, and carers, particularly in relation to:

• ongoing eligibility for the Scheme,
• continuity and stability of essential supports,
• future plan funding levels,
• the nature and frequency of reassessment processes, and
• the practical implications of proposed changes for daily living and long-term wellbeing. This uncertainty is disproportionately affecting individuals with complex needs, psychosocial disability, intellectual disability, and those with limited informal support networks. As a result, advocacy organisations are experiencing a significant increase in requests for assistance, guidance, and representation.

We anticipate that this demand will continue to grow substantially should the amendments proceed without meaningful revision and without clear, timely implementation detail. Without

commensurate  increases  in  funding  and  workforce  capacity,  independent  advocacy

organisations will face unsustainable pressure, compromising their ability to provide essential, rights-based support to those who rely on them.

12. The Function of Foundational Supports Requiring Significant Clarity and

Investment

We acknowledge the policy intent underpinning foundational supports and their role in delivering essential community-based services. However, substantial uncertainty persists across the community and sector regarding:

• the scope and nature of supports to be included,
• eligibility requirements,
• delineation of funding responsibilities, 12

Submission 548

• the availability and readiness of services,
• consistency of delivery across jurisdictions, and
• anticipated implementation timelines. There is a strong and widely held concern that foundational supports may not be sufficiently funded, operational, or accessible before individuals experience reduced eligibility for, or access to, the NDIS.

Significant attention and investment must be directed toward regional and remote communities, where mainstream and community-based supports are already limited, fragile, or unable to

meet  current  demand.  This  is  particularly  critical  for  Aboriginal  communities  and

geographically isolated areas, where additional challenges include:

• limited or inconsistent service availability,

• persistent workforce shortages,

• travel, distance, and access barriers,

• the need for culturally safe and community-led service provision, and

• the practical absence of viable alternative or community-based supports. Any reduction in individualised supports, without commensurate and timely investment in

  local service systems, risks exacerbating existing inequities for people living outside

metropolitan centres.

The disability sector continues to face workforce shortages, service pressures, and operational uncertainty. Rapid, poorly sequenced, or insufficiently coordinated reform implementation may contribute to:

• provider instability,

• workforce attrition,

• reduced continuity of services, and

• increased pressure on already overstretched advocacy and community organisations. Clear transition planning, staged implementation, and sustained engagement with the sector

  will be essential to ensure reforms are effective, equitable, and do not inadvertently

disadvantage the very individuals they are intended to support.

13

Submission 548

Human Rights Concerns

The proposed National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 raises significant and far-reaching human rights concerns. In its current form, the Bill appears to reorient disability support away from a substantive, rights based framework and toward a conditional, administratively mediated entitlement model shaped predominantly by fiscal parameters and actuarial oversight.

The central human rights issue extends well beyond the possibility of reduced funding allocations. The deeper concern lies in the Bill’s structural reframing of disability itself, shifting it from a matter grounded in inherent rights, equality, and social inclusion to a problem to be managed through cost containment and budgetary discipline.

The proposed reforms raise serious questions regarding their compatibility with established United Nations Human Rights standards, including those articulated in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The concern is not merely the risk of diminished supports; rather, it is the emergence of conditional rights. If essential supports such as participation, communication, supervision, mobility, and personal safety are rendered contingent upon actuarial thresholds or fiscal tolerances, those rights cease to function as rights in any

meaningful  sense. They become  discretionary  expenditures,  vulnerable  to  budgetary

fluctuation rather than anchored in the inherent dignity of persons with disability.

A genuine rights-based framework cannot comfortably coexist with a system whose primary organising principle is fiscal containment. Inevitably, one logic will prevail over the other. The current structure and orientation of this proposed Bill indicate which logic is currently ascendant.

The following sections outline the key human rights concerns arising from this legislative approach.

1. Concerns Regarding the Right to Independent Living We wish to raise significant concerns that the proposed NDIS reforms appear inconsistent with Article 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which affirms the right of people with disability to live independently and to participate fully and equally in the community.

Reports indicate that the emerging framework places increased emphasis on:

• informal supports;
• family responsibility;
• assessments of intrinsic capacity; 14

Submission 548

• narrower and more restrictive definitions of support. Such shifts create a substantial risk that people with disability may remain physically sustained yet socially confined. Independent living is not limited to mere survival. It encompasses:

• autonomy;

• choice and control;

• mobility;

• community participation;

• personal safety;

• relational connection;

• freedom from institutional dependence and surveillance. When eligibility thresholds tighten or support are reduced, individuals commonly lose access to:

• community engagement opportunities;

• social participation;

• transport;

• support coordination;

• communication supports;

• essential supervision required for safe and meaningful involvement in daily life. The consequence is not improved “efficiency”. The consequence is isolation, exclusion, and the effective invisibility of people with disability within their own communities.

Participants hold the Right to Independent Living as equal citizens, entitled to the same freedoms, opportunities, and social presence as people without disability. Any reform must uphold not diminish this fundamental right.

2. Human Rights Should Not Become Conditional on Budgetary Tolerance Human Rights frameworks rest on the foundational principle that human dignity is inherent and non-negotiable.

The bill, however, appears to shift the underlying architecture of support toward a model in which access becomes contingent upon:

• actuarial sustainability;
• projected expenditure growth; 15

Submission 548

• administrative efficiency;
• cost-offset calculations. Such a shift represents a significant departure from the original philosophical basis of the NDIS.

The risk is that governments may begin to implicitly redefine rights as merely “supports affordable within fiscal settings” rather than “supports necessary to ensure equal participation and dignity”.

We are concerned that once rights are made conditional upon financial comfort, they cease to

operate as  rights  in any meaningful sense. They instead become  discretionary policy

instruments, vulnerable to budgetary pressures rather than grounded in principles of justice and equality.

Rigid financial constraints, when applied to essential supports and government services, can impose severe and unjust burdens on participants who rely on them for their basic wellbeing and inclusion.

3. Failure to Recognise that Equality Requires Support It is essential to distinguish between formal equality and substantive equality. The Bill, as currently drafted, appears to risk conflating equality with sameness, rather than recognising that genuine equity requires differentiated support.

The NDIS is founded on the principle of individualised support. If equality is interpreted

narrowly  as  “everyone  receives  the  same,”  particularly  through  uniform  budgetary

adjustments, the Scheme ceases to function as originally intended. Such an approach carries significant risks, including:

• Insufficient support for people with higher or more complex needs.
• Failure to address structural barriers that limit participation.
• Reinforcement of discrimination rather than its removal.
• Undermining the core purpose of individualised funding.
• Excluding participants who do not conform to a “standardised” model of disability. Where a person is denied essential supports such as supervision, communication assistance, mobility support, psychosocial or behavioural supports, accessible transport, or culturally appropriate navigation their capacity to participate equally is fundamentally compromised, even if the law appears to apply uniformly on the surface.

We must not disregard the reality that people begin from different positions and face different barriers. Substantive equality requires supports that actively compensate for those structural disadvantages. Equal opportunity is only possible when individuals receive the specific supports they need, to participate on an equal footing.

16

Submission 548

In the absence of such supports, “equality” becomes a rhetorical gesture rather than a lived

experience.  It  is  equity not sameness  that enables  the NDIS  to  function  effectively.

Accordingly, the focus of these legislative amendments should be to restore and uphold the dignity of participants by ensuring that the Scheme continues to provide tailored, needs-based support.

4. Violation of Human Dignity should not Occur through Functional

Capacity Models

The proposed assessment approach appears to artificially separate an individual’s so called “intrinsic” functioning from the environmental, relational, cultural, and social contexts in which all human beings exist. Such an approach risks producing a profoundly reductionist understanding of disability.

Human beings do not function in isolation from the conditions that shape their daily lives.

A person’s functional capacity is inseparable from factors such as housing, relationships, assistive technology, communication systems, carers, cultural identity, trauma history, and personal safety. When these elements are excluded from assessment, the result is an abstract administrative model that bears little resemblance to lived human reality.

Under such a model, the system effectively asks, “What can this person do in theory?” rather than the far more appropriate and rights aligned question, “What does this person require to live safely and participate with dignity?” This distinction is not merely technical; it carries profound human rights implications.

The anticipated legislative shift within the NDIS toward the guiding question “What does this person require to live safely and participate with dignity?” represents a significant and necessary reframing of how disability supports are conceptualised, assessed, and delivered. This shift moves the Scheme away from a narrow, transactional interpretation of “reasonable and necessary” supports and toward a rights-based, person-centred standard consistent with Australia’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

At  its  core,  this  reframing  recognises  that  safety and  dignity  are  not  discretionary

considerations; they are fundamental human rights.

When assessments focus on what a person requires to live safely and participate with dignity, the lens naturally broadens beyond minimal functional survival.

It encompasses the full spectrum of what it means to live a life of equal citizenship, autonomy, inclusion, choice, control, and meaningful participation in community life.

A system that asks only, “What is the minimum support this person needs?” risks perpetuating inequality, institutional thinking, and dependency. In contrast, a system that asks, “What is required for this person to live with dignity?” affirms that people with disability are entitled to

17

Submission 548

the same opportunities, freedoms, and social participation as all other Australians. Supports are thereby understood not as welfare concessions but as essential enablers of Human Rights.

This approach also requires decision-makers to consider the broader context of a person’s life:

their   cultural   identity,   relationships,   aspirations,   safety,  psychosocial   wellbeing,

communication needs, and their right to live free from neglect, isolation, or harm. It promotes a holistic understanding of need, one that recognises that dignity is achieved not through minimal compliance but through meaningful participation.

A person’s ability to engage in work, education, family life, and community activities is inseparable from their sense of identity, purpose, and belonging. Supports that enable these outcomes are not optional; they are central to upholding human dignity.

Accordingly,  the  proposed  legislative amendments  should  not be viewed merely  as

administrative or economic adjustments. They represent a necessary recalibration of the Scheme’s moral and legal compass. They signal a commitment to ensuring that every NDIS participant is supported not only to function, but to flourish, live safely, autonomously, and with the dignity to which every human being is inherently entitled.

5. Rights-Based Protection Against Institutionalisation A significant yet insufficiently examined risk facing people with disability is the emergence of re-institutionalisation through systemic neglect, rather than through traditional, physical institutional settings.

Contemporary forms of institutionalisation need not resemble large residential facilities. They can manifest through a range of structural and social failures, including:

• enforced dependence on carers who are themselves exhausted or unsupported;
• de facto confinement to the home resulting from reductions in accessible transport;
• inability to obtain essential community-based supports;
• exclusion from meaningful social participation;
• reliance on surveillance-intensive service systems that undermine autonomy;
• erosion or removal of relational and informal support networks. A person may reside physically within the community yet remain institutionally excluded, socially isolated, deprived of agency, and unable to exercise their rights on an equal basis with others.

These risks are particularly acute for:

• people with psychosocial disability; 18

Submission 548

• autistic people;
• people with intellectual disability;
• individuals requiring supervision or high-level support;
• people with disability from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds;
• people living alone or without strong informal networks. A rights-based approach must therefore recognise and prevent these modern forms of institutionalisation, ensuring that community living is not merely a matter of physical location but of genuine inclusion, autonomy, visibility and participation.

6. Lack of Recognition of Carers as Human Rights Holders The proposed legislative expansion of informal care obligations raises significant Human Rights concerns for carers themselves. While the framework appears to broaden consideration of informal care, it does so without adequately recognising carers as rights holders in their own capacity.

Carers cannot be presumed to be:

• infinitely available;

• medically invulnerable;

• financially secure;

• emotionally inexhaustible. In reality, many carers experience:

• chronic illness;

• burnout and exhaustion;

• depression and psychological distress;

• social isolation;

• financial hardship;

• relationship strain and breakdown. When government systems implicitly assume that families will absorb unmet need,

responsibility is transferred without corresponding protections. This shift disproportionately impacts women, ageing parents, and migrant families, who are already overrepresented in unpaid care roles.

The cumulative effect is a quiet but profound transfer of the rights burden from the state onto private households. Such an approach risks undermining carers’ dignity, autonomy, and equal enjoyment of Human Rights.

19

Submission 548

7. Dehumanisation Arising from Administrative Automation Systems The increasing reliance on automated decision-making within NDIS administrative systems raises significant Human Rights concerns.

   Established Human Rights frameworks require procedural fairness, transparency,

meaningful avenues for review, contextual understanding, and genuine participation in decision-making processes.

It  is  a  general knowledge  that  Algorithmic  systems, however,  routinely  struggle  to

accommodate the nuance and relational dimensions inherent in human circumstances. They are ill equipped to recognise fluctuating disability, cultural complexity, and nonlinear or evolving support needs.

As a result, administrative automation risks reducing deeply human experiences to simplified categories of compliance. While such simplification may increase processing speed, it does not necessarily enhance fairness, dignity, or justice.

8. The Mentality of Redefining Disability as Economic Risk A profound Human Rights concern is emerging within the evolving policy narrative

surrounding disability. Increasingly, reforms are framed through the lenses of:

• sustainability pressures,
• fiscal exposure,
• expenditure growth,
• fraud prevention, and
• system burden. This shift has contributed to a troubling tendency: people with disability are being represented less as citizens entitled to rights and more as cost vectors to be contained or managed.

Such reframing is not incidental and matters deeply.

When disability is primarily conceptualised as an economic risk, the protection of rights becomes vulnerable to erosion under fiscal pressure. The danger extends far beyond reduced supports. The greater danger lies in the gradual normalisation of conditional humanity within administrative and policy systems.

This trajectory is not sitting well with people with disability who rely on the NDIS. The emerging architecture of reform appears to be drifting away from the Scheme’s original purpose and intent. That departure is of profound concern to us, and it is imperative that this

20

Submission 548

Senate recognises the implications of this shift for the dignity, rights, and full citizenship of people with disability.

21