Submission 881
Submission to the Senate Community
Affairs Legislation Committee
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment
(Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Table of contents
Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee 1
National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 1 Introduction 2 Overarching concerns about the Bill 4 Functional Capacity and the shift away from real world understanding 5 Schedule 1 Part 1 — new section 9B 5 Permanent impairment and the “All Appropriate Treatment” requirement 6 Schedule 1 Part 8 — sections 24(5), 25(1B), and new section 25A 6 Supports must arise “Directly” from disability 7 Schedule 1 Part 3 — amendments to section 34 7 Removal of Planning Principles and shift in NDIS foundation 7 Repeal/amendment of section 31 7 Amendments to section 3 and section 17B 7 Standardised budgeting and reduced individualisation 8 New Framework Planning model 8 Whole of person budget generation 8 Reassessment restrictions and loss of flexibility 8 Proposed sections 48 and 48A 8 Removal of Deemed Refusals and reduced review rights 9 Amendments to section 48 9 Suspension and revocation powers 10 Schedule 1 Part 7 — sections 40A and 30(1A) 10 Automated Decision-Making and AI 10 Schedule 3 — automated decision-making provisions 10 Compliance, surveillance and expanded enforcement powers 11 Schedule 2 — compliance and enforcement reforms 11 Self-Management, small providers, self-directed arrangements 12 Schedule 2 — provider and intermediary reforms 12 Removal of market choice in Support Coordination 12 Centralised support coordination reforms 12 Ministerial powers to restrict or exclude supports 15 Schedule 1 Part 4 — amendments to sections 10, 10A, 10B and NDIS Rules powers 15
Submission 881
Introduction
My name is . I am the sister of an NDIS participant, , who is a man with significantintellectual disability and autism.
is 55 years old lives with significant intellectual disability, autism, significant communication disability, sensory regulation difficulties, trauma-related dysregulation, and behaviours of concern that emerge when he becomes overwhelmed, confused, frightened, overstimulated, or disconnected from trusted relationships.
’s support needs are highly relational and deeply individualised.
His safety, regulation, participation, and wellbeing depend heavily on consistency, trusted relationships, sensory supports, predictable routines, community participation and workers who understand him deeply over time.
has limited communication ability and requires significant scaffolding, reassurance, and relational support in order to participate meaningfully in everyday life.
When becomes dysregulated, he can experience significant distress and behaviours of concern including agitation, self-injurious behaviour and behaviours that may place himself or others at risk. His support framework relies heavily on early intervention, proactive support, and relational co-regulation to help him remain safe and connected.
The people supporting are not interchangeable.
His support depends on workers understanding his communication, his sensory profile, his triggers, the subtle signs of distress, and the relational approaches that help him feel safe.
The supports that work for are often small, flexible, highly customised, and relationship-based.
This is why I am so concerned about reforms that move the NDIS toward standardisation,rigid budgeting, administrative categorisation, compliance-heavy systems for those who self-direct their NDIS supports like us, and interchangeable provider models.
We operate a direct employment model built specifically around ’s needs. We employ and train workers who know him well and understand how he communicates, what triggers distress, how to keep him safe, how to prevent escalation, and how to help him participate successfully in the community.
This has taken years and years to build. My mother is now in her mid 80s. She and we created this system for the future so she can be assured of the quality of his care when she dies.
Submission 881
This is not a service we can just go and purchase elsewhere at a cheaper rate. Large traditional provider models are often not suitable for people with severe and complex disability like . Essentially they tell us they can’t support him safely and they exit him or we don’t even make it past the first assessments for service. High staff turnover, unfamiliar workers, rigid systems and lack of relationship-based support can increase risk significantly.
For , supports are not simply “services.” They are the difference between:
● regulation and crisis ● participation and isolation ● safety and escalation ● Social and economic participation and institutionalisation.
’s life works because supports are individualised, relational, flexible, and deeply responsive to his needs.
I think this legislation moves the NDIS away from exactly the kinds of supports that allow people like my brother to live safely and meaningfully in the community.
Submission 881
Overarching concerns about the Bill
I am writing this submission because I am deeply concerned about the direction, scale, and impact of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
This is the third NDIS Bill in 2 years. The NDIS was intended to increase the agency, inclusion, and citizenship of disabled people. A reform environment that requires constant vigilance, policy analysis, and bureaucratic adaptation simply to protect existing supports risks undermining those goals. The disability community is repeatedly being asked to rapidly absorb and respond to highly complex legislation while simultaneously:
● managing disability ● providing care ● navigating unstable service systems ● managing workforce shortages ● and sustaining ordinary life.
There is also a significant inequity in whose voices are ultimately heard.
People with policy experience, professional backgrounds and educational privilege like myself, strong networks, or organisational support are far more able to engage with reform processes than people already overwhelmed by survival, crisis, poverty, isolation, or complex disability support needs.
I ask the Committee to carefully consider not only the content of this Bill, but also the cumulative human impact of continual large scale legislative reform on the disability community itself.
I am concerned not only about individual provisions within the Bill, but about the broader structural and philosophical shift the reforms represent.
The NDIS was originally established as a personalised, rights-based scheme built around:
● individualisation ● inclusion ● choice and control ● flexibility ● and social and economic participation.
The definition of “reasonable and necessary supports” which is the legal foundation of NDIS funding is being fundamentally rewritten to prioritise the financial sustainability of the scheme.
While the objects and principles have not guaranteed particular individual outcomes, they provide a framework under which planning decisions should be based on individual
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circumstances, personal goals, choice and control, with plans shaped by participants. Courts have used the NDIS Act’s objects and principles to guide how the Scheme should be applied.
In addition, the Bill gives the Minister the ability to make transitional rules for a 12 month period which could, in effect, change the Scheme. This allows a government to act without the usual accountability to Parliament and the public. It has been two years since we had the ‘transitional lists’ defining what an NDIS support is and isn’t with no information about when these will be consulted on and reviewed to make the final lists.
I am concerned the proposed reforms instead move the scheme toward:
● standardised budgeting ● centralised regulation ● automated administration ● increased surveillance and compliance ● narrower eligibility
I am also concerned about the speed and process of these reforms. This Bill represents the most significant restructuring of the NDIS since its creation, yet the inquiry and consultation timeframe has been extremely compressed, limiting meaningful community scrutiny and genuine co-design with disabled people.
Submission 881
Functional Capacity and the shift away from real world understanding
Schedule 1 Part 1 — new section 9B
I am deeply concerned about the proposed changes to the assessment of functional capacity.
Under the newly inserted Section 9B, a person’s functional capacity in relation to an activity—such as communication, social interaction, learning, mobility, self-care, or self-management—is defined strictly as their intrinsic ability to undertake the activity without assistance from other people, assistive technology, or home modifications.
Crucially, the assessment must be conducted in a context that excludes, as far as possible, the impact of the person’s environmental and personal circumstances, such as geographical location or financial resources.
To support this framework, Section 24(1)(c) is amended to require that the assessment of functional capacity focus on the “activity as a whole,” preventing the fragmentation of activities into isolated tasks. Similarly, Section 25(1)(c)(i) is amended to clarify that the NDIA must assess the impact of impairments upon the person’s overall functional capacity in relation to undertaking major activities.
I am concerned this creates an artificial and unrealistic understanding of disability.
Disability does not exist in isolation from a person’s environment, relationships, supports, housing, poverty, geography, or access to services.
In reality, people function because of supports or lack of them, not separately from this.
I am concerned this approach moves the NDIS away from the social model of disability and back toward a narrow medicalised model focused only on impairment.
I am also concerned this may disadvantage people who have successfully stabilised their lives through strong supports, because those supports may effectively be ignored during assessment.
This approach risks disproportionately harming:
● people in regional and remote communities ● people with psychosocial disability ● Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities ● people experiencing homelessness ● and people without strong informal supports.
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Changes:
● amend the Bill so assessments must consider environmental and social realities ● preserve holistic assessment approaches ● and ensure disability is assessed in the context of a person’s actual life circumstances.
Permanent impairment and the “All Appropriate Treatment” requirement
Schedule 1 Part 8 — sections 24(5), 25(1B), and new section 25A
I am deeply concerned about the proposed changes to the meaning of “permanent impairment” and the introduction of the “all appropriate treatment” test.
The Federal Court interpreted “permanent” to mean enduring rather than irreversible, and ruling that “available” and “appropriate” treatments must be evaluated in light of the applicant’s real world financial, personal, and geographical circumstances.
The Bill effectively reverses this existing legal interpretation that considered whether treatment was realistically accessible to an individual person.
Under the proposed changes, people may be required to undertake all “appropriate treatment” before qualifying for the NDIS, even where treatment is inaccessible because of cost, geography, public health waitlists and broader systemic healthcare failures.
I am concerned this creates profound regional and social inequity.
For participants living in thin regional markets, where specialist healthcare waitlists are exceptionally long, this “treatment-first” test represents a severe second-order risk. An applicant can be legally excluded from NDIS access on the grounds that their condition is theoretically treatable, despite having no realistic local or affordable access to that treatment.
The question appears to shift from “Does this person live with substantial lifelong disability?” to “Have they exhausted every possible treatment pathway?”
For example, if a treatment might result in improvements over many years, but the person would still have substantially reduced functional capacity, they may be prevented from accessing the NDIS in the meantime. It could also make it harder for people with progressive conditions to access the NDIS, even where treatment only slows, but does not reverse, the deterioration of their functional capacity.
Submission 881
I believe this risks delaying support, worsening inequality, and forcing people into repeated treatment attempts in order to prove eligibility.
Changes:
● amend the Bill so treatment is only considered “appropriate” if it is genuinely accessible within a reasonable timeframe and cost ● require consideration of financial and geographic barriers ● and ensure people are not excluded because of failures in healthcare systems.
Supports must arise “Directly” from disability
Schedule 1 Part 6 — new section 17B(2)(a)
I am concerned about the proposed requirement that supports must arise “directly” from recognised impairments.
Human lives are complex.
Disability frequently interacts with trauma, chronic illness, mental health, poverty, housing instability, ageing, and social exclusion.
Many disabled people experience multiple overlapping and interacting conditions.
I am concerned the Bill artificially separates support needs into rigid categories and may exclude supports for co-morbidities, secondary impacts, and interconnected needs.
I am particularly concerned that only impairments formally recognised in impairment notices may attract funded supports.
This risks excluding many legitimate disability related needs simply because they do not fit neatly into administrative classifications.
For example if you have a physical impairment as your qualifying impairment but you also have a psychosocial disability that doesn’t meet eligibility, but that also affects your function and potentially significantly, that interaction can stop being funded.
Changes:
● remove the word “directly” from the legislation ● preserve broader interpretation of support needs
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Removal of Planning Principles and shift in NDIS foundation
Schedule 1 Part 6 — paragraph 3(1)(d), new section 17B, and repeal of Division 1 of Part 2 of Chapter 3
I am deeply concerned about the removal of existing planning principles and the embedding of “financial sustainability” as a central legal principle guiding decision making.
I recognise the importance of financial sustainability. However, I am concerned the Bill elevates fiscal management above participant rights and wellbeing.
I am concerned the reforms represent a profound philosophical shift away from participant centred support and toward budget containment and administrative standardisation.
Changes:
● retain existing planning principles, ● preserve strong participant rights protections, ● and ensure sustainability considerations do not override individual human need.
Standardised budgeting and reduced individualisation
New Framework Planning model
Whole of person budget generation
I am concerned about the move away from individualised bottom-up planning toward standardised “whole-of-person” budgeting models.
While consistency may reduce administrative variation, disability support cannot be reduced to formula driven averages. People with similar diagnoses may have very different behavioural risks, communication needs, support networks, environmental barriers, safeguarding requirements, and participation needs.
I am concerned standardised budgeting risks flattening human complexity into administrative categories.
Changes:
● preserve genuine individualised planning ● require flexibility within budgeting frameworks
Submission 881
● and ensure participants retain meaningful ability to explain individual circumstances.
Reassessment restrictions and loss of flexibility
Schedule 1 — reassessment and variation provisions
Asking for an unscheduled re-assessment is going to be harder.
I am concerned about stricter reassessment thresholds and reduced flexibility in responding to changing circumstances. Changes may need to be “significant,” “ongoing” or “unanticipated.”
Disability support needs are not static. People’s lives can change rapidly because of ageing carers, behavioural escalation,hospitalisation, housing breakdown, experience of violence or mental health crisis.
Many disabled people experience periods of instability that are temporary but still serious and support intensive. What will be defined as “significant”?
What about anticipated changes that will significantly impact someone - leaving school or moving out of your parent’s home are two clear examples. If you have a 5 year Plan and you are leaving school 3 years into that, this is a major change and can be anticipated, but does it mean that you cannot request a re-assessment?
I am also concerned participants may avoid requesting reassessment because they fear punitive funding reductions.
Changes:
● preserve broader reassessment rights ● clearly define vague thresholds ● ensure temporary crises can still trigger support responses ● and create safeguards against punitive reassessment outcomes.
Removal of Deemed Refusals and reduced review rights
Amendments to section 48
I am deeply concerned about the removal of deemed refusal protections.
Currently, if the NDIA fails to make a decision within required timeframes, participants gain access to review rights.
Submission 881
The Bill removes this safeguard and extends decision making timeframes from 21 days to 90 days.
This means there is no right of appeal because a participant must wait for a response first.
I am concerned participants may be left waiting for long periods without meaningful review pathways.
Disabled people should not lose legal protections simply because of administrative delay.
Changes:
● retain deemed refusal protections ● preserve timely review rights ● and maintain current levels of access to internal and external review.
Suspension and revocation powers
Schedule 1 Part 7 — sections 40A and 30(1A)
I am extremely concerned about expanded suspension and revocation powers.
Many disabled people experience communication barriers, executive dysfunction, trauma, homelessness, hospitalisation and administrative overwhelm.
The Bill also introduces significant civil penalties for failing to comply for a request for information from the CEO. This places participants at financial risk for something they may have no control over.
These circumstances should not result in suspension or complete loss of access to essential supports.
I am especially concerned that participants may be entirely removed from the scheme after prolonged “non-contactability.”
Requiring people to reapply under significantly tightened eligibility rules after revocation creates an extremely serious safeguarding risk.
I am concerned the reforms assume non-response equals non-compliance, when in reality many vulnerable people struggle to engage with complex bureaucratic systems.
Changes:
● strengthen procedural safeguards ● require extensive outreach before suspension
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● require welfare checks and advocacy engagement ● preserve participant protections during crises ● and ensure disability-related barriers are not interpreted as non-compliance.
Automated Decision-Making and AI
Schedule 3 — automated decision-making provisions
I am deeply concerned about expanded automated decision making powers.
Disabled people should not be subjected to opaque automated systems governing essential human supports.
Australia has already seen the devastating consequences of poorly governed automated decision-making through Robodebt.
While the Bill includes some safeguards, I remain concerned about:
● hidden criteria ● opaque classifications ● automated reductions ● procedural unfairness ● and barriers to meaningful review.
Changes:
● prohibit fully automated adverse decisions ● require meaningful human review ● require transparency regarding automated criteria and data sources ● and establish independent oversight and auditing mechanisms.
Compliance, surveillance and expanded enforcement powers
Schedule 2 — compliance and enforcement reforms
I support reasonable fraud prevention measures.
However, I am concerned the Bill increasingly treats participants, nominees, self-managers, and small providers through a lens of suspicion and surveillance rather than support.
Submission 881
I am concerned many participants may face debts or penalties not because of fraud, but because of paperwork errors, administrative overwhelm, disability-related barriers, or periods of crisis.
I am particularly concerned about impacts on:
● self-managed participants ● ageing carers ● nominees ● sole traders ● and small community-based disability businesses.
Changes:
● strengthen proportionality safeguards ● include broad “reasonable excuse” protections ● reduce administrative burden on participants ● and ensure compliance frameworks remain supportive rather than punitive.
Self-Management, small providers, self-directed arrangements
Schedule 2 — provider and intermediary reforms
I am deeply concerned the reforms increasingly assume large scale standardised provider models are preferable to small, relationship-based supports.
Many people with complex disability depend on highly customised arrangements because mainstream provider models are often unsafe or unsuitable.
Consistency, trust, and relationship-based support are often essential safeguarding mechanisms.
I am concerned the proposed registration, compliance, and conflict-of-interest rules may unintentionally dismantle small disability businesses, sole trader models,consumer and family-governed supports and highly customised arrangements built over many years.
This may significantly reduce participant choice, workforce flexibility, continuity of support, and safeguarding.
Changes:
● protect self-management ● preserve pathways for small providers
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● and ensure reforms do not unintentionally force participants into unsuitable provider models.
Removal of market choice in Support Coordination
Centralised support coordination reforms
I am concerned about the proposed removal of support coordination as an individualised funded support and its replacement with centrally commissioned coordination systems.
Support coordination often depends on trust, local knowledge, continuity, and deep understanding of a participant’s life and risks.
I am concerned centralised panel systems may reduce flexibility, continuity, responsiveness, and participant choice.
This may particularly disadvantage:
● people with complex disability, ● people in rural areas, ● and people who rely on relationship-based coordination.
Changes:
● Preserve current levels of participant choice in support coordination
Rewriting “Reasonable and Necessary”
The definition of “reasonable and necessary supports” is being fundamentally rewritten to prioritise the financial sustainability of the scheme.
Under current settings, Section 34 of the NDIS Act outlines principles based criteria for reasonable and necessary supports, but these are applied on an individual, needs-focused basis without an overriding fiscal constraint.
The Bill amends Section 3(1)(d) to explicitly state that the NDIS provides supports “that are reasonable and necessary, so far as is consistent with the financial sustainability of the scheme”.
To address inconsistency in how delegates evaluate allied health and clinical reports, the proposed Section 34(1E) establishes a strict hierarchy of evidence that the CEO must consider in order of importance:
1. Research and evidence in relation to the support that is published, peer-reviewed, and generalisable
Submission 881
2. Evidence as to the effectiveness of the support having regard to the participant’s specific circumstances, including age and impairment. 3. Evidence as to individual outcomes for the participant, arising from their use of the support in previous plans, in maintaining or reducing a decline in functional capacity.
Under Section 34(1F), the CEO may decide that a support is not effective and beneficial if there is limited or no published, peer-reviewed research, even if there is strong individualised clinical evidence or a history of positive personal outcomes.
It represents one of the single biggest risks to my brother’s supports.
This fundamentally disadvantages:
● highly individualised supports ● innovative supports ● emerging practices ● trauma-informed approaches ● sensory regulation supports ● relationship-based supports ● and supports for people with complex communication or behavioural needs.
Many effective disability supports do not yet have extensive published peer-reviewed evidence because:
● disability research is underfunded ● participants with complex disability are frequently excluded from formal studies ● highly customised supports are difficult to standardise ● and relational supports are inherently individualised.
For , supports are effective because they are tailored specifically to his communication style, regulation needs, trauma responses, and behavioural presentation.
These approaches may not always fit neatly within traditional evidence hierarchies, yet they are critical to maintaining his safety, participation, and emotional regulation.
I am deeply concerned that section 34(1F) allows supports to be rejected purely because there is “limited or no published peer-reviewed research,” even where:
● experienced clinicians support the intervention ● participants have demonstrated clear benefit ● families and support teams provide consistent evidence ● and the support has prevented decline, crisis, or institutionalisation.
It risks locking the NDIS into rigid and conservative support models that fail to reflect the complexity of disability support in real life.
For children, the Bill codifies a strict presumption under Section 34(1G) and (1H) that parents
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are responsible for providing substantial care and support, including personal care, supervision, transport, and behavioral support that is reasonably expected for a child of a similar age without a disability.
Furthermore, Section 34(1J) explicitly prohibits funding any support if its primary purpose is to reduce the burden on parental time below reasonable expectations, improve general household efficiency, or accommodate a parent’s personal preference for formal care over parental care.
Care needs to be provided by someone.
This means it will be done by unpaid women.
Changes: ● amend section 3(1)(d) to ensure financial sustainability cannot override the individual rights, safety, participation, and support needs of participants ● Amend sections 34(1E) and 34(1F) to: ● give equal weight to lived participant outcomes ● recognise individualised clinical evidence ● recognise practice-based evidence and trauma-informed approaches ● and ensure absence of peer-reviewed evidence alone cannot justify refusal of support.
Ministerial powers to restrict or exclude supports
Schedule 1 Part 6 — sections 10(4), 33(2EA), and NDIS Rules powers under section 209
I am deeply concerned about the expanded Ministerial powers to determine, through Rules and legislative instruments, what kinds of supports are:
● “NDIS supports” ● excluded supports ● replacement supports ● or supports subject to funding limitations and restrictions.
I am particularly concerned that these powers allow whole categories of supports, or whole groups of participants, to be effectively reclassified or restricted without full parliamentary scrutiny, or it being a reviewable decision.
The practical effect is that large scale funding reductions can occur through Rules and administrative classification systems rather than through transparent primary legislation.
The Bill is written so it can apply to any support category and any percentage cut in the future.
Submission 881
For example, the Minister can just decide that only 10 hours of speech therapy is ever funded for any participant.
The legal document that contains the cap is public, however the Bill lets the actual cap value in a separate document which can be raised or lowered without public notification.
We can already see that the use of these powers is being flagged to limit or cap community participation supports from 1st October 2026 if the Bill goes through.
Community participation is not an optional extra for people with disability.
For many participants, these supports are preventative, safeguarding and essential to maintaining emotional stability, connection, and quality of life.
I am deeply concerned about proposals that would allow community participation funding to be reduced or capped through broad administrative classifications or “standardised” support categories.
Participants with very different lives and support needs may be grouped into broad cohorts and subjected to blanket assumptions about what level of support is “reasonable.”
I am concerned these powers create a system where governments can progressively narrow supports over time through Rules and Ministerial instruments rather than returning to Parliament for full debate and scrutiny.
I am also concerned there are inadequate safeguards requiring:
● co-design with disabled people ● transparent evidence ● independent review ● or human rights assessment before categories of support are restricted.
The risk is that supports critical to community inclusion, emotional regulation, capacity building, relationship maintenance, and safeguarding may increasingly be characterised as “lifestyle” supports rather than essential disability supports.
For people with complex disability, reducing these supports does not reduce need.
It simply shifts costs elsewhere into crisis systems, emergency healthcare, restrictive practices, family burnout institutionalisation and justice systems.
Changes:
● substantially limit Ministerial powers to exclude or restrict categories of support ● require full parliamentary scrutiny for major changes to support categories ● require mandatory consultation with disability representative organisations ● prohibit blanket cohort based funding reductions
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● and preserve genuinely individualised assessment of supports
Plan Renewals and Removal of Rollover Funds
Schedule 1 Part 5 — plan renewal and funding period provisions
I am deeply concerned about the removal of unpent funding under section 50A.
Many participants underspend budgets not because they do not need supports, but because:
● providers are unavailable ● the supply of an item takes time ● workers cannot be recruited ● therapies have multi-year waitlists ● or thin markets make services inaccessible.
A plan will now be auto renewed when it ends and unspent funds will be taken back.
Importantly, one off items won’t carry over. The Bill doesn’t distinguish between one off funding that you’ve used or spent and one off funding that you haven’t used yet - for example you had a wheelchair written into your plan but you are only at the quote stage by the time your Plan is up for renewal. The Bill is written so that this funding disappears and a Plan Variation won’t fix that.