National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 590
24/05/2026 NDIS Future Generations Bill 2026 — submission
My name is and I care deeply about the NDIS. Until August 2025, I had been an Early Childhood Teacher for five years. I worked in Craigieburn for a council managed kindergarten and served a community that experienced significant disadvantage. Most years between 30-50% of my students were accessing support through the NDIS, because conditions such as neurodivergence, rare genetic syndromes, developmental delays and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder are collectively more common than most people realise. I am now a disability support worker, working with adults with cognitive disabilities. I also work at a therapeutic camp that supports children and teens who live in out-of-home care and have a disability. I have witnessed the suffering that can be caused by a psychosocial disability and have had the privilege to see how continuous, well-funded supports can protect and improve people’s lives.
I oppose the NDIS Future Generations Bill. I oppose all proposed changes to the NDIS that are included in the NDIS Future Generations Bill. I am particularly concerned about the proposed 50% cut to social and community participation funding from October 2026. Disabled people deserve to be supported to experience social inclusion and meaningful participation in their community. The adults that I support have complex diagnoses of psychosocial and intellectual disabilities. These people may volunteer one day a week or are unable to work at all due to their disabilities, and without significant funding to engage in social and community participation, their lives are meaningless. The community is where people thrive, where they are able to practice and develop the skills that they have learned in therapy. If you only got two hours each week to choose where you went and what you did, would you be able to make friends? Would you feel like your life was worth living?
I support a person in their 70’s, who lived their entire life with an intellectual disability and without adequate social and community support. Everyday this person says “I am stupid”, “no one wants me here”, “I wish I was dead”, because they lived a life in which they were excluded from society. I support another person with complex intellectual, physical and psychosocial disabilities who was forced to live in residential aged care in their 20’s as there was nowhere else for them to go. This person now needs a support worker to supervise them 1:1 at every meal to ensure that they do not force feed themselves too quickly and cause themselves to vomit. This is because in the residential aged care facility the person only had a short period to eat their meals and is afraid that their food will be taken from them. This person now lives in Supported Residential Services Housing, but the trauma from their time in residential aged care is permanent.
The NDIS as it currently operates does not provide enough support. These proposed changes mean that people will receive significantly less support. Not a single person with a
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 590
disability will have their quality of life improved or their functional capacity increased by receiving less support. When people with cognitive and psychosocial disabilities do not receive enough support they engage in behaviours that risk the safety of themselves and others, as this is their only way to express their unmet needs. I work with NDIS participants and their families who for decades did not receive adequate support, and the result of this is suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, self-harming and poor mental health for both participants and their loved ones. Not receiving enough support means that the person with a disability and their entire family will never experience a good quality of life and reach their full capacity. The proposed changes to the NDIS will cause serious harm and lead to the deaths of people with disabilities and the loved ones that care for them.
I request that the committee recommend that the NDIS Future Generations Bill is not accepted or allowed to be presented to Parliament. I request that the committee acknowledges that the NDIS Future Generations Bill as it is currently written is damaging and will have significant negative effects on people with disabilities and their families. The NDIS Future Generations Bill should not be passed by Parliament.