Submission 952
Securing NDIS for Future Generations NDIS Bill 2026
24/05/2026
The proposed changes raise serious concerns about the future accessibility, fairness, and sustainability of the NDIS for people with significant disabilities.
While the Government states the reforms are intended to “secure the NDIS for future generations,” many participants are already experiencing substantial reductions in supports, increased refusals, and escalating barriers to access. Participants who are bedbound, wheelchair-dependent, or living with severe psychosocial and physical disabilities are already reporting widespread declines of essential supports and are increasingly forced into lengthy Administrative Review Tribunal proceedings simply to obtain basic assistance.
There is concern that the reforms prioritise cost containment over participant wellbeing and functional needs.
For example, the Scheme frequently funds long-term equipment hire arrangements that may ultimately cost substantially more than purchasing equipment outright. At the same time, participants report being denied essential assistive technology, home supports, and capacity-building services despite clear evidence of need. This raises legitimate questions about whether current decision-making is achieving genuine efficiency or simply shifting costs and burdens onto participants, carers, hospitals, emergency systems, and tribunals.
The proposed amendments may further restrict access and reduce participant protections in several significant ways:
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Narrowing access criteria through stricter definitions of “functional capacity” and “permanence”
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Requiring participants to exhaust all possible treatments before qualifying, even where treatments may be inaccessible, unaffordable, unsuitable, traumatic, or unlikely to result in meaningful recovery
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Restricting plan reassessments even when participants experience deterioration or crisis
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Allowing funding reductions through Ministerial determinations affecting broad categories of supports
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Preventing unspent funds from rolling over between plans, potentially disadvantaging participants who experience hospitalisation, fluctuating disability, service shortages, or delayed access to providers
Submission 952
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Increasing emphasis on “scheme sustainability” in reasonable and necessary decisions, potentially shifting focus away from individualised supports and participant rights
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Expanding suspension and revocation powers where participants fail to respond to NDIA contact attempts, despite many participants living with cognitive, psychosocial, communication, executive functioning, homelessness, trauma-related, or accessibility barriers
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Tightening eligibility where individuals interact with other systems such as workers compensation or motor vehicle schemes, even when those systems may not adequately meet long-term disability support needs
Many participants fear these reforms will reduce choice and control, increase adversarial decision-making, and make it harder for people with complex or fluctuating disabilities to obtain the supports they require to live safely and participate in the community.
The concern is not simply about financial sustainability. It is about ensuring sustainability without undermining the rights, dignity, safety, and functional independence of people with disability.
“Please do not pass the NDIS Amendment Bill in its current form. It removes rights, reduces choice and control, and risks causing serious harm to people with disability in our communities.”
The long-term sustainability of the NDIS should focus primarily on reducing fraud, misuse, poor oversight, and non-evidence-based spending, while protecting participants with profound and genuine disability-related needs.
There are widespread concerns that the current system allows significant waste, inconsistent oversight, inflated invoicing, and supports that are poorly monitored or disconnected from measurable outcomes. At the same time, many participants with severe disabilities continue to struggle to access essential supports, equipment, housing, continence products, home modifications, and complex care.
Reform efforts should prioritise stronger integrity and accountability measures before reducing access for participants with legitimate and substantial disability needs.
Examples of reforms that could improve sustainability include:
Stronger anti-fraud measures, including real-time auditing, electronic attendance verification, GPS or digital check-in systems for mobile support services where appropriate and lawful, and tougher penalties for false invoicing, ghost shifts, or fraudulent providers
Submission 952
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Enforcing mandatory qualifications, registrations, and Working With Children Checks for disability support workers, particularly for those working with vulnerable children and participants with complex behavioural or medical needs
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Improved oversight of Supported Independent Living (SIL) and Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA), including concerns regarding inflated costs, excessive staffing models, poor participant outcomes, and conflicts of interest
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Greater scrutiny of supports that lack strong evidence of functional benefit or measurable outcomes, particularly where supports are funded indefinitely without demonstrated progress or accountability
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Stronger review of behavioural support implementation, including whether Behaviour Support Plans are actually being read, implemented, monitored, or understood by carers, schools, or providers
Clearer boundaries between disability supports and ordinary parental responsibility, particularly regarding domestic tasks, supervision, transport, and routine parenting responsibilities for children capable of age-appropriate functioning
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Tighter eligibility and oversight for Short Term Accommodation (STR), overnight supports, before-and-after-school supports, and high-frequency therapy programs where there is limited evidence these supports are necessary or achieving functional outcomes
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Caps and outcome-based reviews for therapies where children are capable of attending school and participating in daily activities without substantial functional impairment
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Stronger controls on consumables and everyday household items that are not genuinely disability-related expenses
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Better regulation of therapy claims where supports may effectively function as recreational or ordinary activities rather than clinically necessary disability interventions
At the same time, reforms must not overlook children and adults with severe, profound, or “invisible” disabilities who require intensive and lifelong support.
Particular concern should remain for children who are genuinely incapable of attending school due to severe disability, medical complexity, psychosocial impairment, intellectual disability, behavioural risk, or profound functional limitations. These participants and families often require extremely high levels of support and should not be disadvantaged by broad cost-cutting measures aimed at reducing misuse elsewhere in the system.
The focus should be on distinguishing genuine need from system exploitation — not reducing supports indiscriminately across the disability community.
Submission 952
Sustainability is important, but sustainability must come from accountability, proper regulation, evidence-based supports, fraud prevention, and fair allocation of resources — not by making access harder for participants with significant disabilities.
Yours sincerely,
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