Submission 581

SUBMISSION TO THE INQUIRY INTO THE NATIONAL DISABILITY

INSURANCE SCHEME AMENDMENT (SECURING THE NDIS FOR FUTURE

GENERATIONS) BILL 2026

May 2026

Submission Prepared by: Kayla Hill (Disabilities Officer, Students’ Representative Council); Remy Lebreton (Disabilities Officer, Students’ Representative Council); Madeleine Keightley (Member, Disabilities Collective and Caregivers Network); Chiara Reeves (Member, Disabilities Collective and Caregivers Network); Red Ricketson (Member, Disabilities Collective and Caregivors Network).1

1 University of Sydney

Submission 581

Introduction

The University of Sydney Students’ Representative Council (SRC) Disabilities Collective and

Caregivers Network (DisCo) welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to the Inquiry

to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. The University of Sydney SRC represents undergraduate students and hosts various collectives and networks, including disability advocacy groups that work specifically with students who have lived experience of disability and mental health.

The SRC Disabilities Officers represent and advocate for undergraduate students within the SRC’s Disabilities Collective and Caregivers Network at the University of Sydney. As representatives of students with disabilities at the University of Sydney, we present this submission to highlight the detrimental impacts of the proposed changes to the NDIS on current and future student NDIS participants, disabled students, disabled staff, student carers, and staff carers.

We are deeply opposed to this bill and do not support it. In our submission we recommend that tabled changes to the NDIS in Schedules 1 and 3 in particular are ceased, highlighting key areas of concern: lack of appropriate co-design, obscurely narrowed eligibility under the functional capacity framework and reassessment rules, the prioritisation of cost-cutting over support provision, increased risks with automation, the social impact of job cuts, the exacerbation of social disadvantage through the redefinition of permanence and participant suspension powers, and violations to the human rights of disabled people.

Submission 581

Key Issues

Lack of co-design with the disability community

We are deeply concerned by the rushed and restrictive processes in which these cuts have

been proposed, including the lack of transparency surrounding the proposed NDIS changes,

the limited time period to accept bill submissions, and failure to engage in genuine

collaboration with community and industry experts. This approach has been entirely

contradictory to best practice for governmental work based in community consultation,

evidence-based approaches and genuine stakeholder engagement when involving disabled

communities, where there is nothing about us, without us. This approach does not prioritise

safety and accessibility either, despite the latter being a core rationale for these legislative

changes.

Obscurely narrowed eligibility will remove vital access

Access to the NDIS is a life-line for many, given the centralisation of comprehensive

foundational supports from states being redirected from community based supports, and into

the NDIS. We are deeply concerned by the immense harm that will occur as a result of the

proposed cuts, in which over 241,000 people will no longer receive the care they need to

sustain a life that enables inclusion and social participation — a core entity of the NDIS as a

whole. This denial of support will cost lives. The reassessment of all current and future

participants under the new framework creates particular precarity around eligibility for

existing and future participants with psychosocial, developmental, and fluctuating disabilities.

The way in which changes to assessment and access are being made are extremely

untransparent, unclear, and rushed. The complexities, fluctuations, and nuances of disability

Submission 581

are best understood by NDS participants’ health professionals, not standardised assessments

made through currently vague tools. Massive oversights will be made through these

insufficient measures to capture ‘Functional Capacity’, further compromising necessary

access to the NDIS.

Cost-cutting considerations

The changes to cost-cutting considerations and addition to the Objects of the Act to consider

financial sustainability deeply undermine the inherent agency and self-determination of

disabled people. Disabled people will be forced onto cheaper, less effective supports that

lower independence, safety, and community participation — assuming that they can access /support at all. Furthermore, informal support systems such as family, friends, and carers will

be forced to take on increased responsibilities, disregarding sustainability and heightened risk /of burnout.

That cost-cutting is taking precedence over the provision of supports is egregious.

Cost-cutting in the reactionary and rushed manner as is proposed will not achieve the priority /Of long-term sustainability or efficacy Of the NDIS, and will rather cost more money In the ,long run when the 241,000 people who will be cut from the NDIS will seek everyday support /as well as care for more frequent and intense emergencies through the strained public health ,and mental health systems.

This raises the question of the efficacy of this scheme, which operates exactly as it was /designed to without meaningful community consultation efforts from the get-go, and what /out landscape could look like if investments were made into community based mental /heathcare and disability supports, rather than simply postvention Or band-aid solutions Without actually addressing the root of the issue.

Submission 581

Increased risks via automation

We are extremely concerned by the lack of transparency and current vagueness around which

tasks, decisions, and actions will be automated. The automation of administrative decisions

would place disabled people in an extremely precarious and otherwise avoidable position.

These automations would substantially increase the frequency and impact of errors due to the

widened scale of automated processes, as seen with Robodebt. This is an extremely risky

change which, when corrected, again, costs more money in the long run.

Impact on jobs

Tightened controls and spending will take away hundreds of jobs, uprooting the livelihoods

of families who rely on employment at the NDIA. Additionally, these cuts will increase

psychosocial hazard risks for workers in the face of job insecurity and exposure to more

distressed participants, carers, and disability workers.

Social disadvantage embedded in and exacerbated by the redefinition of

permanence and participant suspension powers

The redefinition of permanence will significantly exacerbate disadvantage to the disability

community and their support networks. It is completely unreasonable to require disabled

people — who are already more likely to experience financial disadvantage, such as those on

the DSP — to have exhausted all appropriate treatments for NDIS eligibility to be

considered, even if such treatments are inaccessible due to cost or geographic location. The

right to live a life based in dignity, autonomy, and self-determination through access to

services and support should not be contingent on one’s ability to “exhaust all other avenues of

support.” This is a deeply flawed premise which assumes both financial privilege and service

Submission 581

availability, and will simply work to further entrench inequality for those already excluded from access within Australia’s siloed systems. In the future context of the burgeoning cost of living where people are forced to choose between housing, food, specialist appointments, and fuel, financial feasibility is carelessly excluded in conversations about access.

Similarly, the proposal to suspend a participant’s plan on the basis of not being contactable dismisses the immense difficulty of technology and internet access for people under various social and/or physical circumstances. This may include people located in rural and regional Australia, people who are homeless, people experiencing domestic violence, people in hospital, and people with fluctuating disabilities such as ME/CFS.

Both such proposed changes effectively limit access to support to those who can afford it, thereby reproducing the cycle of disability and poverty alike.

Violations of the UN CRPD

The rights of disabled people are already fraught by virtue of not having a federally enshrined Human Rights Act or a Constitutional Charter of Rights to recognise fundamental rights to things such as dignity, autonomy, and equality. This lack of protection is further damaged by these proposed cuts. The proposed cuts present severe violations to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), notably Articles 25–30 which outline the right to health, habilitation, and rehabilitation, opportunity to work and employment, an adequate standard of living, participation in political and public life, and participation in cultural, creative, and recreational life and leisure.

Submission 581

Recommendations

• Remove the Functional Capacity framework as the primary measure of eligibility; and

• remove the standardised assessment tool (proposed s 9B of the NDIS Act; cl 4 of sch

• 1 to the Bill).

• Remove the requirement for all appropriate treatments to be considered in order for

• permanence to be considered (part 8 of sch 1 to the Bill).

• Remove the value for money considerations and keep existing legislation that requires

• consideration of whether a lower-cost option would achieve the same or substantially

• similar outcome (proposed ss 34(1A) and 34(1B) of the NDIS Act; cl 73 of sch 1 to

• the Bill).

• Remove “so far as is consistent with the financial sustainability of the scheme”

• (proposed s 3(1)(d), cl 60 of sch 1 to the Bill).

• Remove the automation of administrative action (proposed s 59B of the NDIS Act; cl

• 11 of sch 3 to the Bill).

• Remove the ability to suspend a participant from the NDIS on the basis of non-contact

• (proposed s 30(1A)(a)(i) of the NDIS Act; cl 70 of sch 1 to the Bill).

• Engage in thorough, comprehensive consultation and co-design with the disability and

• carers community for all present and future changes to the NDIS and other relevant

• programs.

Concluding Statement

Overall, the proposed cuts to the NDIS fundamentally undermine the crucial, widespread

eed for access to support which has come to only be accessible through the NDIS itself.

These cuts also undermine broader social goods of equality and self-determination for people

with disabilities, and in extension violate existing protections to disabled people under the

CRPD. Furthermore, the cuts were made with no proper consultation and co-design with the

disability community.

The extreme and far-reaching harms directly associated with The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 make it egregious to pass. We absolutely oppose this bill, particularly Schedules 1 and 3 of the Bill, and do not support it as it stands.