Reducing capabilities and opportunities for NDIS participants (Individual advocacy) | External submission

Submission 702

Attention:

Committee Secretary

Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Submission: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future

Generations) Bill 2026

Protecting Capability, Participation and Inclusion within the NDIS

Dear Committee Secretary,

I am writing as an occupational therapist and disability advocate in response to the National

Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill

I am deeply concerned that the Bill will reduce the capabilities, opportunities, resources and environments available to NDIS participants. The CORE approach (Capabilities, Opportunities, Resources and Environments) recognises that these are not optional extras, but the conditions that enable people with disability to participate meaningfully in everyday life, exercise choice and control, and experience inclusion and occupational justice.

My concerns particularly relate to the proposed definition and use of functional capacity, the proposed reductions to capacity building and social and community participation supports, restrictions to reassessment pathways, and the expansion of ministerial and automated decision-making powers.

My professional body, Occupational Therapy Australia, has informed its members of concerns regarding proposed reductions to capacity building supports and a 50% reduction to social, civic and community participation supports, alongside concerns regarding increasing reliance on automation, narrowed access pathways, and restrictions to reassessment and review processes within the proposed reforms.

From an occupational therapy perspective, functional capacity cannot be understood by looking only at impairment, deficits or what a person can or cannot do in isolation. Functional capacity is always shaped by the interaction between the person, their occupations, their supports, and their physical, social, cultural, economic and institutional environments.

I am concerned that the proposed approach risks pathologising people with disability. In practice, this may move beyond even a narrow medical model of disability toward a more punitive and pathologising framework, where people are assessed primarily through deficits, risk and cost containment. This is inconsistent with contemporary occupational therapy practice, the social model of disability, occupational justice principles, and

Submission 702

Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

The proposed framing of functional capacity appears to insufficiently account for environmental barriers, social exclusion, trauma, poverty, communication access, sensory environments, discrimination, transport inequities, and the broader contextual factors that significantly shape occupational participation and support needs. Occupational therapists understand disability through a transactional relationship between the person, the environment and occupation, rather than as a deficit residing solely within the individual. This is also supported by international best practice models, including the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health.

A person’s need for support to leave home, maintain routines, communicate, participate socially, engage in education, build work potential or sustain relationships is not simply a personal deficit. These difficulties are often intensified by inaccessible systems, unsupported environments, inadequate reasonable adjustments, lack of transport, stigma, fragmented services, or insufficient community supports.

The proposed reductions to social and community participation supports are especially concerning. These supports are not luxuries. They are often the very supports that prevent isolation, deterioration in mental health, family breakdown, behavioural escalation, hospitalisation and long-term unemployment. They are also directly connected to future work potential and community inclusion.

For many NDIS participants, supported community participation is the pathway through which they develop confidence, communication skills, emotional regulation, routines, transport skills, volunteering experience, social connection and readiness for employment. Reducing these supports risks undermining the very outcomes the Scheme claims to promote. Social and economic participation have always been the backbone ethos of the entire NDIS since its inception.

The CORE approach provides a useful lens through which to understand these impacts.

Reducing capabilities means reducing the real freedoms and necessary conditions that enable people to develop skills, make choices, communicate, self-regulate, participate, learn and work.

Reducing opportunities means reducing access to ordinary life experiences such as friendships, community groups, sport, volunteering, education pathways, work experience and civic participation.

Reducing resources means removing the funded supports, therapy, transport assistance, capacity building and skilled support workers that make participation possible.

Submission 702

Reducing access to environments means leaving people excluded from the physical, social and institutional spaces where other Australians live, learn, belong and connect.

In particular, if capabilities are “those conditions, abilities, possibilities, and freedoms that enable people to say, and do and believe that ‘I can/We can’ and that ‘I matter/We matter’ in the world” (Pereira, 2025), then the proposed reforms risk undermining these very conditions for NDIS Participants, and people who desperately need NDIS-funded supports so that they can equitably live a life that they have reason to value.

Occupational therapists understand that participation is not achieved solely through “treatment” of impairment. Participation occurs when people are adequately supported to engage meaningfully within their environments and communities. The Bill risks narrowing disability support toward impairment management while disregarding the environmental and occupational conditions that enable participation, wellbeing and inclusion.

I am also concerned that proposed foundational supports and community-based alternatives may be relied upon to justify reductions in individualised supports before such systems are fully operational, equitable and accessible. Community inclusion cannot be achieved simply by removing supports and expecting generic systems to absorb unmet need.

I am also concerned by the broader policy priorities reflected in the recent Federal Budget announcements. The Government has reportedly allocated approximately $2 billion of federal funding over two years toward additional front-facing staffing and administrative implementation within Services Australia, while the Thriving Kids initiative involves a Commonwealth contribution of approximately $2 billion of federal funding over five years as part of a jointly funded $5 billion initiative with the States. This raises serious questions about whether the reforms are genuinely prioritising capability enablement, inclusion and long-term developmental outcomes for children with disability, compared to administrative oversight and system control.

From a CORE approach perspective, meaningful capability development requires sustained investment in the environments, relationships, therapies, participation opportunities, educational supports and community systems that allow children with disability to develop, belong and thrive. The relative scale and timing of these investments risk signalling that greater priority is being placed on administration and gatekeeping than on the actual enabling conditions children and families require to participate meaningfully in everyday life.

Occupational Therapy Australia has also identified concerns regarding increasing reliance on automation, algorithms and standardised tools in decision-making processes, and the risk that participant supports may become shaped by rigid frameworks rather than high-quality assessments undertaken by appropriately qualified professionals.

Submission 702

Functional capacity and support needs assessments must be undertaken by appropriately qualified allied health professionals, including occupational therapists, whose professional reasoning incorporates environmental impacts on functioning, occupational participation, sensory needs, psychosocial factors, and contextual barriers. Disability cannot be meaningfully reduced to a tick-box process or automated scoring framework.

The Bill should not proceed in a form that reduces individualised access before genuine, rights-based and adequately funded alternatives exist.

I respectfully ask Parliament to:

Remove or substantially constrain powers that allow broad reductions across categories of NDIS supports.
Reverse proposed reductions to capacity building and social and community participation supports.
Ensure that functional capacity is defined in a way that explicitly incorporates environmental, social, occupational and contextual factors.
Require functional capacity and support needs assessments to be conducted or overseen by appropriately qualified allied health professionals, including occupational therapists.
Prohibit fully automated eligibility, planning or funding decisions.
Maintain accessible reassessment and review pathways when a participant’s circumstances, risks, environments or support needs change.
Ensure the legislation does not narrow access for people with psychosocial disability, intellectual disability, developmental disability, fluctuating conditions, or complex environmental support needs that may not be adequately captured through standardised assessment processes.
Recognise that social and community participation supports are essential human rights supports that enable inclusion, dignity, connection and citizenship.

The NDIS should not be redesigned around deficit, exclusion and cost containment. It should remain a social insurance scheme grounded in inclusion, participation, human rights and occupational justice, enabling people with disability to live meaningful and self-directed lives within their communities.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Robert Pereira, PhD

Director and Occupational Therapist, Pear Tree Occupational Therapy

Adjunct Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy, University of Canberra

References

Pereira, R. B. (2017). Towards inclusive occupational therapy: Introducing the CORE approach for inclusive and occupation-focused practice. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 64(6), 429–435. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1630.12394

Submission 702

Pereira, R. B. (2025). Doing occupational justice work to amplify consumer voice, choice and action. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 72(S1), 36. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440 1630.70023 Pereira, R. B., & Brown, T. L. (2023). Promoting an inclusive and values-based lens in mental health nursing through applying the CORE approach. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 32(S1), 54. https://doi.org/10.1111/inm.13210 Pereira, R. B., & Whiteford, G. E. (2021). Capabilities, opportunities, resources and environments (CORE) approach. In P. Liamputtong (Ed.), Handbook of social inclusion: Research and practices in health and social sciences (pp. 697–707). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48277-0_97-1 Pereira, R. B., & Whiteford, G. E. (2025). The Capabilities, Opportunities, Resources and Environments (CORE) approach for inclusive and occupation-centred practice. In M. N. Ikiugu, S. D. Taff, S. Kantartzis, & N. Pollard (Eds.), Routledge companion to occupational therapy: Theories, concepts and models (pp. 156–169). Routledge. Pereira, R. B., Whiteford, G., Hyett, N., Weekes, G., Di Tommaso, A., & Naismith, J. (2020). Capabilities, Opportunities, Resources and Environments (CORE): Using the CORE approach for inclusive, occupation-centred practice. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 67(2), 162–171. https://doi.org/10.1111/1440-1630.12642