National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Submission 743
SUBMISSION: National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS
for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Whilst I recognize the importance of promoting the long-term sustainability of the NDIS, sustainability cannot be achieved by reducing access to essential supports. A sustainable NDIS must ensure inclusive eligibility criteria, strengthen safeguards, and responsibly manage costs without transferring undue burdens onto people with disabilities, unpaid caregivers, public systems, or healthcare services.
I am concerned that the Bill significantly deviates from the core principles upon which it is based: 1) supporting people with disabilities to pursue their goals; 2) facilitate Participant choice and control; 3) provide reasonable and necessary supports based on individual need.
The proposed amendments shift the Scheme away from client-centred and personalized decision-making further toward simplistic, standardised, and financially driven strategies for evaluating disability and distributing support resources.
The proposed amendments create significant risks for disabled Australians. Risks will increase by constricting eligibility criteria; increasing dependence on unpaid informal support networks; reviewing definitions of permanence and functional capacity; having limited oversight of expanded Ministerial authority; implementing widespread funding reductions; announcing decision-making processes that are automated and depersonalised; reducing access to therapy and community engagement services; destabilizing reassessment safeguards; and establishing pathways for participants to lose access to the Scheme without adequate procedural protections.
I submit that the Bill should not proceed in its current form.