Submission 827
Bronwyn Northcott
Paediatric OT
BBiomed (Hons), MOTPrac
Submission on the NDIS Amendment Bill, 2026
Name: Bronwyn Northcott
I am a: Clinician ☐
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My connection to this issue I work as a paediatric occupational therapist working in the community in Melbourne with children with complex disabilities such as cerebral palsy. I am a sole trader, and have worked as an OT for almost 10 years; across public health, NDIS and ECIS (prior to the NDIS scheme).
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My overall view of this Bill I oppose the bill as a whole as the bill will place additional burden on NDIS participants and the families that support them to access supports they receive through NDIS funding and ultimately reduce their choice and control.
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My main concerns
- Accessing and engaging with the NDIS o Tighter timeframes for communication for participants to respond to NDIS contact, but blowout in timeframes for the NDIS to respond to participants. This means participants and their families have less time to answer appropriately and gain support from AHPs to support requests (risking their funding being declined/reduced as we are already seeing) but if changes occur to a participants life that will increase support needs, the NDIS can take even longer to respond; so much for crisis response. This will leave disabled Australians in dangerous positions, engaging in crisis with hospital supports for example due to lack of disability supports (costing the government more money from another funding bucket AND clogging up beds). o Contact and engagement rules that will result in participants missing out on supports if they do not respond to NDIS requests on tight timeframes. There are many disabled participants and families who will be affected by these changes. I support many families from CALD backgrounds, those who find the administrative element of the NDIS already hard on top of caring for a complex child and are already not
Submission 827
Bronwyn Northcott
Paediatric OT
BBiomed (Hons), MOTPrac
keeping up with emails etc, those experiencing crisis (medical event resulting in hospital stays, housing instability) and those who struggle to communicate and advocate for their own needs. These will be the participants that will have supports reviewed/paused/negatively affected if they do not respond under tighter timeframes. o Assessments to assess “functional capacity” using an assessment not designed to do what the NDIA are using it for, completed by professionals without disability backgrounds or relevant allied health backgrounds, asking questions that are generic and that won’t capture the individual and complex needs that each NDIS participant has is not the answer. No two people with the same diagnosis are the same, their support needs won’t be the same. This type of approach is what is causing issues in the My Aged Care system, and this should be seen as an example of how something like this does not work. Disability is complex and diverse, and an allotted funding amount will not cover all of the needs to meet a normal and fulfilled life. It also completely disregards a participants treating therapists and specialists; people who know them and their needs well and who have done many years of training in order to make certain recommendations. o Tightening the criteria to allow access to the NDIS and only allowing access once “all treatment options have been exhausted” is barbaric. The NDIS is already very hard to access, with the large proportion of those with disabilities unable to access NDIS supports as it is. Conditions that create great functional impact and that are sometimes sudden in their onset (ie. Functional Neurological Disorder or Long Covid) should be allowed to access the NDIS, just as much as someone with an Acquired Brain Injury. Many people cannot afford to access private therapies and supports, or there are very long public health waitlists that prevent access, or they live regionally/rurally and the support does not exist close to home. This will create an even bigger divide in access basic human rights to disability supports, as those with the money and means will be able to “prove themselves as disabled enough” to access the NDIS. o Changing the criteria for a plan review leaves people in vulnerable positions and will risk injury and death through administrative negligence. Making it harder to have funded supports reviewed doesn’t acknowledge that disability support needs change; informal supports like family can change quickly (sudden death or illness, a family breakdown), progression of a condition occurs without warning, and simply life happens. This sends the message from the government that NDIS participants don’t matter, we don’t care if your needs change, that you may need more support in crisis, that funding is not flexible and you are just another number. This is a key feature for many
Submission 827
Bronwyn Northcott
Paediatric OT
BBiomed (Hons), MOTPrac
people, that as their needs change their funding must reflect this so they can change supports as needed. This again will result in crisis supports being needed, with more participants pushed into hospitals or pushed to neglect and death, because the government doesn’t care if your needs have changed.
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Loss or reduction of supports o Cuts to support worker funding is not the answer to save money for the government. It will be the difference to someone having a shower or having support to access a medical appointment. It will mean many families, already carrying a much higher burden than a typical parent, will be further stressed and be unable to work and earn money that supports the economy (and their family). It will prevent people accessing supported employment, increasing the unemployment rate and increase on disability pension payments (on a group of people already unproportionally represented in unemployment statistics). The government has demonised these supports as luxuries, but they forget that they can go and get a haircut, attend a GP appointment or even go to the movies with ease; why should someone with a disability not be afforded the same basic right. o Cuts to broad categories that are not just individual plans but across the boards is reckless and careless. This shows that the government does not understand how disabilities are different and require HIGHLY TRAINED THERAPISTS to meet their needs.
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Children / families / early intervention o Foundational supports and Thriving Kids will push more responsibilities on sectors already overwhelmed. In the early intervention space with children, this will move disability support on early childhood educators and teachers; professionals already overloaded with work and who are not taught on how to manage disability in their professional courses/degrees. These are professionals already struggling with the increased number of children with developmental delays, they do not have more time and capacity to support these kids more. The proposed system will then allow access to therapists in a key worker model, at a “top tier” intervention level. The old system under ECIS in Victoria was limited to support children with multiple needs ie. a child with autism level 2 will have emotional regulation issues, gross and fine motor delays and potential speech and language concerns. This child under the current NDIS system benefits from access multiple different disciplines to support their varied needs. One therapist cannot do it all, and history showed us this.
Submission 827
Bronwyn Northcott
Paediatric OT
BBiomed (Hons), MOTPrac
o Moving Thriving Kids funding to non-for-profits relies on an entire workforce to be re-assigned and reshuffled into new structure. It does not acknowledge private practices and sole-trader business that risk losing their livelihoods, which often have experienced therapists that have specialist knowledge. It takes away choice and control for families, who will go back to being allocated a place and not being able to find therapists who suit their child the best and provide specialist knowledge for their child’s disability needs. For example I am trained in upper limb therapy for children with cerebral palsy and have done further study in complex disabilities; I would not serve a child with developmental delay well. o New Medicare line items or going back to FACSIA funding does not allow equal access to therapists for all children. It will price out one family to another, as gap payments are still too expensive for some. o Who is to decide what is a mild to moderate disability, and this does not match the diagnostic criteria for autism under the DSM V. No automated questionnaire or untrained assessor can look at someone’s diagnosis alone and state they are complex or not. No 2 children are the same and “just because” a level 2 autistic child may not have a cerebral palsy diagnosis, doesn’t mean they aren’t as “complex” and don’t have high support needs.
- What I want the committee to understand There has been absolute demonisation of allied health professionals who support disabled NDIS participants in recent times. Yes, like any industry, there are a few bad apples doing the wrong thing, but the majority of AHPs who work in the NDIS are well meaning, highly trained therapists who want the best for our clients. We have not gotten in to this line of work to make money (because we all know that the $193.99 hourly rate that has not changed in years, does not match inflation and is not my take-home pay after taking tax, administration and professional registration and insurance costs out), we do this work because we care. We already pay professional registrations to AHPRA, and have ongoing CPD requirements to upheld to keep our professional registrations, we have gone to university to study for years and are more trained than many politicians to decide how the NDIS should run. We should be allowed to do the job we are needed to do, and support disabled Australian’s in their homes and communities so they can have a normal life. I invite any politician to come and spend a day with me as a mobile therapist, and see the complexities my clients and their families live with every day, and question if this government funding is needed or not.
Submission 827
Bronwyn Northcott
Paediatric OT
BBiomed (Hons), MOTPrac
The government will marginalise an already marginalised group if the proposed bill goes through parliament and is approved. For every $1 spent on the NDIS, $2.50 GOES BACK into the economy; through employment of one of the biggest sectors in the workforce and through those with disabilities and their families that support them being able to do more than they have ever been able to. I have seen the transition across from state based funding to the NDIS, and have seen the immense positive effect it has had on clients and their families. Parents who have not worked in years, returning to the work force and having improved mental health because they have consistent support for their kids with disabilities. Children avoiding severe extremes of their conditions, because they have received targeted multi-disciplinary therapeutic supports to meet their needs. Such as; children having less extreme challenging behaviours so they can stay in their family homes and access the community safely, children with conditions like SMA and Cerebral Palsy, having better mobility outcomes leading to decreased disability support needs and an increased quality of life. Yes it is an insurance scheme, and cannot continue to grow exponentially, but it is still in its infancy as a scheme. The NDIS is still picking up the pieces of years and years of state-based funding models that truly limited access and choice and control. That did not adequately support therapy, provide appropriate assistive technology and allow for tailored support. It is natural to expect that the first 10 years of a scheme was going to increase in its cost to catch up and fill the needs that a previous system did not.
Please consider your vote to changing the NDIS, as changing it with the proposed variations will detrimentally affect thousands of disabled Australian’s whose lives are already hard enough.