Submission 573 — Name Withheld (573.1 Supplementary to submission 573) — NDIS Future Generations Bill

Submission the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future

Generations) Bill 2026

Submitted by:

1. Why I’m Writing This I’m writing this submission as both an NDIS participant and someone who now works professionally in disability access and inclusion. I live with a lifelong physical disability and have relied on the NDIS to access the supports that allow me to work, run my own business, participate in my community and maintain my independence. I also spend my working life helping people with disability navigate systems that are often complex, inconsistent and difficult to understand.

That means I see these reforms from two perspectives. I understand what the legislation says on paper, but I also understand what happens when those words become someone’s everyday reality. I see the impact policy has on people trying to keep their jobs, attend medical appointments, participate in their communities and simply live ordinary lives.

I’m not opposed to reform. The Scheme needs to be sustainable and public confidence in it matters. Fraud should be addressed, and funding should be used responsibly. But sustainability shouldn’t come from making access harder for the people the Scheme was designed to support.

As drafted, this Bill solves a budget problem by shifting much of the risk back onto people with disability before the systems intended to replace existing supports are even operational. That is my greatest concern.

Three parts of the Bill concern me most: the proposed functional capacity assessment and eligibility framework, the expansion of automated decision-making and delegated Ministerial powers, and the tightening of reassessment and review rights. I’ll address each of those in turn and outline the amendments I believe are necessary.

I’m not asking the Committee to choose between sustainability and people with disability. We should never have to make that choice. Good policy should achieve both.

The NDIS absolutely needs to be sustainable. But sustainability cannot be measured only by what the Government saves. It also needs to be measured by whether people with disability can continue to work, study, contribute to their communities and live independently. If these reforms simply shift costs onto families, hospitals, carers and other systems, they haven’t solved the problem—they’ve just moved it somewhere less visible.

I ask the Committee to amend this Bill so that reform strengthens the Scheme without undermining the very people it exists to support. Disability policy should be built around real lives, not theoretical models.

2. What’s at Stake if Nothing Changes I want to be upfront about the fiscal reality, because pretending it doesn’t exist undermines the credibility of everything that follows. The NDIS cost more than $50 billion this year. Without significant changes, the scheme could grow at rates as high as 22% a year, against a National Cabinet target of 8%. Left unmoderated, scheme spending has been projected to climb to as much as 6.3% of GDP by 2062 — a bigger share than projected health spending over the same period. That’s not sustainable, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help participants either: a scheme that loses public and budgetary confidence is a scheme that gets cut harder, faster, and with less consultation than reform done properly now.

But the flip side matters just as much, and it’s the part missing from the Government’s framing. If this Bill passes as written, the official modelling behind it confirms around 160,000 people will be removed from or denied access to the scheme over the next four years, and the average plan will lose roughly $5,000 in funding within two years. Those aren’t abstract numbers. Behind each one is someone who loses a support that lets them work, or a therapy that keeps a condition from deteriorating, or the only respite that keeps a family functioning. The government’s own modelling shows these savings come overwhelmingly from tightening access and cutting existing participants’ supports — not from the fraud measures the Bill is publicly framed around.

The honest problem is sequencing, not the goal. The Foundational Supports system meant to catch people pushed off the NDIS isn’t designed, funded, or operating yet. The functional capacity framework that will decide who’s still eligible doesn’t commence until January 2028. Cuts start in October 2026. There is no point in the next two years where the alternative is actually ready to receive the people this Bill moves off the Scheme. That gap doesn’t save the government money — it just moves the cost onto families, carers, hospitals, homelessness services, and the justice system, none of which are funded to absorb it and all of which cost more per person than the NDIS support being cut.

3. Functional Capacity Assessment and Eligibility Changes Schedule 1 sets up a new legal test for access to the NDIS based on “substantially reduced functional capacity.” The detail — the threshold and the assessment process — is being left to a Technical Advisory Group and a legislative instrument that don’t exist yet. That sequencing is the first problem.

• The assessment framework doesn’t commence until January 2028. The funding resets and tighter reassessment criteria start in October 2026. People will be living with the consequences of a framework that hasn’t been built yet.

• As drafted, capacity can be assessed in the absence of the supports, assistive technology, or environmental adjustments a person currently uses — not their real world circumstances.

• There’s no mechanism for episodic, fluctuating, or complex/co-occurring impairments. A single point-in-time assessment will miss these every time.

• My own life demonstrates exactly why this matters. I don’t drive. The independence I have today exists because of a combination of formal supports, assistive equipment, and environmental adjustments. I don’t have access to reliable ongoing informal supports. On paper, someone could look at my life and conclude that I function independently — I work, run my own business, travel, contribute to my

community, and live independently. What they wouldn’t see is that every one of those things relies on supports already being in place. Without them, my functional capacity changes significantly. Assessing me without considering the supports I already use doesn’t measure my actual capacity - it measures what would happen if those supports were taken away. The issue with the decision to change access to certain things because the NDIA deems someone ‘independent’ in their eyes is also dangerous because there are a lot like me who have no choice but to live how we do, in our own home, as we don’t qualify for SDA or SIL, but ultimately we will end up becoming more disabled if we no longer have access to short term respite which 9 times out of 10 actually means accessing specialised therapies that are not available in a lot of regional areas.

• Through both my lived experience and my professional life, I’ve also seen how disability doesn’t fit neatly into a single assessment. Pain, fatigue, medical complications, and secondary conditions fluctuate. Many people have good days and bad days. A one-off assessment conducted on a good day risks creating an entirely inaccurate picture of what that person’s life actually looks like over weeks and months.

What needs to change:

• Assess functional capacity with current supports, assistive technology, and environmental adjustments in place - not capacity in their absence.

• Build in a mechanism for fluctuating and episodic impairments. One point-in-time test is not good enough.

• Publish draft assessment tools, thresholds, and the Technical Advisory Group’s terms of reference for public comment before the framework is finalised, with genuine co-design involving people with disability.

• Grandfather existing participants so they aren’t retrospectively reassessed against a threshold that hasn’t been tested.

4. Automated Decision-Making and Delegated Ministerial Powers Schedule 3 lets the NDIA automate specified administrative actions, including parts of claims processing and, as currently framed, decisions that touch a participant’s plan. Separately, the Bill gives the Commonwealth Minister power to make Rules that change how the Act operates in practice, and to set pricing and funding for groups of supports, without each change going back through Parliament.

I acknowledge that the Government has since agreed with the Greens to limit ministerial power over categories such as Daily Living, Transport, Consumables, Assistive Technology, and Home Modifications, and to increase transparency around automated decision-making before it is implemented. Those changes are welcome, but they don’t address the fundamental issue

• Automated systems are appropriate for low-risk administrative functions such as payment processing and claims matching. They are not appropriate for decisions about eligibility, support levels, reassessments, or funding where context matters.

• I’ve personally spent hours over multiple days explaining my circumstances to the NDIA because my situation didn’t fit neatly within policy language. Those conversations required judgement, context, and an understanding of how disability affects real-life. Even then, it often took several conversations before someone truly

understood the issue. An automated system cannot ask follow-up questions, recognise nuance, or understand when someone’s circumstances fall outside the standard pathway.

• Through my work supporting participants and consulting within the disability sector, I’ve seen decisions change simply because another person reviewed the same information and understood the broader context. That demonstrates exactly why meaningful human decision-making remains essential. Disability is rarely straightforward, and people’s lives should never be determined solely by whether they fit into a predefined algorithm.

• The participants most likely to be disadvantaged by automated decisions are also the least likely to be able to identify errors or navigate complex review processes. People with communication barriers, psychosocial disability, cognitive impairment,or limited informal supports are particularly vulnerable.

What needs to change:

• Limit automated decision-making to low-risk administrative functions only. Require human decision-making for any decision affecting access, eligibility, funding, or debt.

• Publish decision-making frameworks and any algorithm used in evaluative decisions, including sample outputs, before implementation.

• Create a clear, accessible, and timely pathway for participants to obtain human review of any automated decision, with supports continuing while that review takes place.

• Sunset the Minister’s Rule-making power or, at minimum, require Rules to remain subject to full parliamentary disallowance.

5. Plan Reassessment and Review Rights Schedule 1, Part 2 tightens who can ask for an unscheduled plan reassessment only the participant, a plan nominee, or a guardian - and narrows the grounds to a significant, ongoing change in functional capacity or an unanticipated, significant change in living, education, work, or informal support arrangements. The Bill also expands when a plan can be suspended, including where “reasonable” contact attempts have failed, and allows participant status to be revoked after 90 days of suspension.

• Narrowing who can trigger a reassessment leaves no room for circumstances that don’t fit neatly within legislative definitions but still place someone at immediate risk, including carer breakdown, family violence, hospitalisation, or homelessness.

• My own independence depends heavily on formal supports because I have limited informal supports available. Paid supports are not a substitute for family — they are what allow me to function independently. If those supports were disrupted, my ability to continue working, attend medical appointments, participate in my community, and maintain my independence would change almost overnight, despite my disability itself remaining exactly the same. The reassessment framework needs to recognise that changes in support circumstances can have just as much impact as changes in impairment.

• Throughout my work, I’ve supported people whose lives changed dramatically because an informal support was no longer available or because circumstances outside their disability suddenly changed. Those changes often create immediate risks, yet they don’t necessarily meet a narrow functional capacity threshold.

• The proposed suspension and revocation provisions also place too much faith in communication systems that many participants already struggle to access. A missed letter, outdated contact details, or inaccessible communication should never result in someone losing access to essential supports.

What needs to change:

• Introduce a risk-based reassessment pathway allowing the NDIA to initiate reassessment and provide interim supports where there is evidence of risk of harm, homelessness, hospitalisation, family violence, or carer breakdown.

• Require documented, accessible, and multi-channel attempts to contact participants before any suspension proceeds, with mandatory engagement of nominees, guardians, or advocates where known.

• Guarantee independent review of reassessment, suspension, and revocation decisions, with existing supports continuing until the review is complete.

Where I Stand

I’m not against reform. The Scheme has to last. But reform that shifts cost and risk onto the people it exists to protect, ahead of the alternative supports being ready, isn’t reform — it’s a transfer. The sequencing problem running through this Bill isthe real issue: cuts and tighter criteria from October 2026, against a Foundational Supports system and an eligibility framework that aren’t built yet. That’s the biggest risk to participants over the next two years. I’m asking the Committee to recommend the amendments above, with priority on three things: assessing functional capacity in real-world conditions, not in the absence of supports; a hard limit on automated decision-making for consequential decisions, with guaranteed human review; and a risk-based reassessment pathway so no one in crisis is stranded on a technicality.