National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee
Inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submitted by: Nathan Organ
Capacity: NDIS participant, single parent, neurodivergent advocate, systems architect and writer
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
- Introduction
My name is Nathan Organ. I am an NDIS participant, single parent, writer, systems architect and neurodivergent advocate living with autism and ADHD. I make this submission from lived experience navigating the NDIS and adjacent systems, including support coordination, provider engagement, complaints pathways, tribunals and public agencies.
I support the goal of protecting the NDIS for future generations. Fraud, exploitation and unsustainable cost growth should be addressed. However, this Bill risks strengthening procedural control while failing to address one of the deeper causes of system cost and participant harm: a compliance-heavy service architecture that consumes participant capacity, destabilises people, increases crisis risk and reduces autonomy.
My central submission is this:
“The greatest threat to the future sustainability of the NDIS is not only participant misuse or provider fraud. It is system design that consumes participant capacity faster than it restores autonomy.”
This submission addresses specific aspects of the Bill, especially Schedules 1 to 3, and proposes practical amendments to protect both participants and the long-term sustainability of the Scheme.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
- Executive Summary
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 is framed as protecting the Scheme by responding to rapid cost growth and fraud.
The Bill contains measures that may assist integrity and consistency. However, many of its core mechanisms increase centralised control, tighten access and planning, restrict flexibility and expand compliance obligations.
My concern is that these measures reinforce a procedural model in which participants must survive more rigid rules, evidence demands and administrative deadlines, rather than being supported through accessible, stable and personalised systems.
For neurodivergent participants, especially those with executive-function disability, autism, ADHD, trauma-related dysregulation or psychosocial complexity, administrative burden is not a neutral inconvenience. It can be functionally disabling.
If reforms treat those disability effects as non-compliance, the Bill may increase the very instability and downstream cost it seeks to reduce.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
- Administrative Burden as Functional Discrimination
Many NDIS processes assume that participants can:
• Track multiple deadlines;
• Respond quickly to formal communication;
• Manage complex forms and evidence requests;
• Repeatedly retell personal and traumatic information;
• Coordinate professionals, reports and invoices;
• Self-advocate consistently without deterioration.
For many participants with autism, ADHD, cognitive disability, psychosocial disability or trauma history, these assumptions are unsafe. The issue is not merely that paperwork is inconvenient. The issue is that the structure itself may disable the person.
The Bill should not assume that a participant who fails to respond, misses a deadline, struggles with paperwork or becomes dysregulated is acting dishonestly or refusing to cooperate.
- Key Concerns With the Bill
Functional Capacity and Evidence Burden
Schedule 1 introduces a definition of functional capacity that risks abstracting disability away from real-world functioning. Neurodivergent and psychosocial disability frequently fluctuates depending on sensory load, executive-function demand, communication context and environmental pressure.
Limits on Unscheduled Plan Reassessments
The proposed changes may trap participants whose needs fluctuate due to burnout, provider loss, housing instability, trauma, psychosocial deterioration or loss of informal supports.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
Support Determinations and Blanket Funding Reductions
Broad category-level reductions risk cutting stabilising supports such as social participation, support coordination and capacity-building, despite these often preventing much higher downstream costs.
Plan Renewals, End Dates and No Rollover
Participants may underspend due to provider shortages, burnout, crisis, hospitalisation or inability to access suitable supports. Removing rollover entirely risks punishing participants for market failure or disability-related access barriers.
Suspension and Revocation for Non-Contact
This is one of the highest-risk provisions for neurodivergent participants. Executive dysfunction, autistic shutdown, crisis, trauma, homelessness, hospitalisation or provider abandonment may all contribute to loss of contact.
Civil Penalties and Record Keeping
Fraud prevention is important, but the Bill must distinguish between deliberate fraud and disability-related administrative failure.
90-Day Claims Timeframe
A rigid 90-day claims period may disproportionately affect participants with executive- function disability, crisis instability or support coordination failures.
Automated Administrative Action
Automation may improve efficiency, but participants must not be subjected to unexplained automated decisions affecting supports, claims or funding without meaningful human review.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
- Industrialisation of Care
The NDIS market is increasingly affected by what I describe as the industrialisation of care: a shift from relational, adaptive, participant-centred support toward transactional, compliance-driven and administratively defensive service delivery.
This contributes to:
• Provider churn;
• Repeated re-explanation of needs;
• Fragmented support delivery;
• Administrative outsourcing of responsibility;
• Avoidance of complex participants;
• Increased participant instability and crisis escalation.
Support coordination is especially exposed to this problem. Participants with complex needs may spend large portions of their funded support capacity merely trying to stabilise the support system itself.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
- Economic Sustainability
The Government’s sustainability concern is legitimate. However, sustainability should be measured by whole-of-system outcomes, not simply by reducing NDIS expenditure in isolation.
When NDIS supports fail, costs do not disappear. They shift to:
• Hospitals;
• Emergency departments;
• Police;
• Homelessness systems;
• Crisis mental health systems;
• Family breakdown;
• Informal carers.
Routine supports can prevent much more expensive crisis interventions. A reform that reduces plan costs while increasing crisis costs is not sustainable. It is cost shifting.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
- Recommendations
I recommend the Committee consider:
• Formal recognition of cognitive and executive-function accessibility;
• Legally enforceable communication accommodations;
• Stronger protections before suspension or revocation;
• Protection against punitive treatment for disability-related procedural failure;
• Continuity and handover obligations for providers and coordinators;
• Limited rollover protections where underspending is caused by disability or market failure;
• Strong safeguards around automated decision-making;
• Protection against repetitive evidence demands;
• Preservation of participant choice in plan management;
• Sustainability metrics based on outcomes, not only expenditure.
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 Submission 705
- Conclusion
The NDIS must be protected. Fraud must be addressed. Public funding must be used responsibly.
However, reforms that increase administrative burden, reduce flexibility and punish disability-related non-compliance risk damaging the very participants the Scheme exists to support.
The future of the NDIS depends on whether it can become more accessible, coherent, continuous and stabilising for the people who rely on it.
A support system that consumes participant capacity faster than it restores autonomy is not sustainable.
Thank you for considering this submission.
Nathan Organ