National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 571
Dear Members of Parliament,
On behalf of the Beacon of Hope Project Board and Committee, I am writing to provide a vital perspective on the proposed legislative changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). As a peer-led organisation dedicated to supporting primarily women navigating psychosocial disabilities and trauma, we witness daily the life-changing impact of the Scheme and the profound anxiety the current national narrative is causing our community.
While we fully support the necessity of ensuring the NDIS is financially sustainable for future generations, we are deeply concerned by a growing narrative that frames participants as a “burden” to be managed, the problem, routing the system, etc. True sustainability does not come from reducing the essential supports that allow a person to shower, buy groceries, or engage with their community. Rather, the integrity of the Scheme depends on addressing structural challenges, such as:
● Ensuring providers are prioritising participant care over profit margins. ● Implementing faster, more robust investigations into unethical provider practices. ● Reducing the unnecessary complexities that exhaust participants and their support networks to access and manage the scheme.
Beacon of Hope Project thrives because of our volunteers, lived experience is truly invaluable. Many of our team members live with significant disabilities and are only able to contribute their expertise because their NDIS supports are in place. This creates a powerful “multiplier effect”: when a volunteer is supported in their daily life, they are empowered to give back.
Our team provides community-based support that builds capacity and helps keep individuals out of hospitals and crisis support. Effectively, the NDIS enables our volunteers to serve the community and provide support for free. For example reducing funding for these individuals is not a “saving”; it is the dismantling of a vital community safety net. True cost-saving is found in preventing flares, building life long formal support networks, and ensuring individuals do not deteriorate to the point of requiring acute clinical care or emergency services, which ultimately is a much higher cost to the tax payer. Preventive, ongoing, paced and person centred support is what is ultimately cost effective.
We also must acknowledge that disability does not exist in a vacuum. The women we serve navigate a complex intersection of systemic challenges:
● Persistent systemic disadvantages in healthcare and social services. Experiencing high rates of misogyny and lack of active care. ● Psychosocial, neurodivergent and other “invisible” disabilities are often the first to be questioned or marginalized. ● The reality that a bureaucratic system, when perceived as critical rather than supportive, can be deeply re-traumatising and exacerbate already diagnosed disabilities.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 571
We invite you to look beyond the spreadsheets and consider human reality. These supports are not “luxuries”; they are the fundamental building blocks of a life lived with dignity and independence. Disability is the only minority group that any person can join at any time. We ask you to govern with the foresight that you, or your loved ones, may one day rely on this very system.
We urge the Government to pursue sustainability by fixing the system’s structures, rather than targeting participants and the supports that allow us to thrive, participate in things that build a quality of life, and help us belong.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss these insights with you further.
Sincerely,
Samantha Bruce
On behalf of the Beacon of Hope Project Board & Committee