Submission 970
Introduction and Submission Objection
My submission strongly objects to the sweeping cuts and structural alterations introduced via the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and the accompanying 2026–27 Federal Budget measures. While the government frames these changes as “securing the future of the scheme”, they constitute a devastating $37.8 billion contraction that directly targets the independence and safety of myself and all other vulnerable citizens on the insurance scheme.
By utilising details from my current NDIS plan, I hope this submission will provide Parliament with a clear explanation of how these legislative measures will dismantle the safety of myself and other individuals with high-complex needs. I have a severe intellectual disability, Level 3 autism spectrum disorder with a pathological demand avoidance (PDA) profile, moderate anxiety, and characteristics of PTSD.
My Goal for the NDIS and My Current Plan
Goal – I support that the NDIS needs to be sustainable and last in the long term.
Plan- Currently maintains my life and security for the next 5 years. It was built upon
comprehensive Functional Capacity Reports and Specialised Disability Evidence, by
practitioners who have worked alongside my family, recording and submitting my NDIS required documents. My plan highlights the exact supports that proposed cuts threaten to destroy.
How Changes in this Bill Directly Impact Me
To remove me from this insurance scheme, or to strip away my carefully structured funding and specialised behavioural interventions, will not result in “NDIS sustainability”—it will trigger my immediate regression, severe behavioural escalation, a family collapse, and an inevitable, vastly more expensive crisis transition into state care. Therefore, this Bill, if passed, will create structural shifts that fundamentally undermine my livelihood and security. I am personally concerned about this and believe I will be affected by the following:
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- Threat of Exclusion to Foundational Supports.
- The 50% Reduction to Social and Community Participation Budgets.
- Reduction of 24/7 1:1 Supports.
- Redefining Parental Responsibility.
- The 10% Cut to Capacity Building Daily Activities.
- The Removal of Diagnosis Lists and Transition to Standardised Assessments. The Threat of Exclusion from the Insurance Scheme, and Continued Supports: Under the proposed legislation, the government aims to reduce the number of participants by 160,000 by 2030 and discard trusted practitioners’ diagnoses in favour of rigid automated functional benchmarks. Dangers if Removed: My diagnosis of an Intellectual Disability, Autism 3, paired with a Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) profile, means that when I do not understand a situation or outcome, my anxiety drives an obsessive, neuro-driven resistance to any demands. Standardised, clinical “functional tests” frequently misinterpret this, as I may display surface-level capabilities in a calm, comfortable setting but face total, volatile shutdown and meltdowns when a perceived demand is introduced. Removing me from the NDIS under tightened rules would strip me of my human rights; it would leave me isolated and without a viable alternative pathway. I believe that long-term, this would result in institutional reliance – I do not want this in my future. I work every day to achieve my best to ensure this outcome is not one I am required to face
Dismantling Specialist Behaviour Support: My plan currently allocates dedicated funding for Behaviour Support (Stated/Self-Managed), explicitly provisioning for hours of specialist behaviour intervention, behaviour support plan and training. Dangers if Removed: With the Bill’s severe tightening of “reasonable and necessary” parameters and plan reassessment criteria, proactive behavioural programs are at extreme risk. For myself, a 22-year-old man with high-level anxiety and intellectual disability, these hours are not an optional luxury. They are what allow my specialised practitioners to train my primary carer and my support workers to navigate my triggers and ensure safety for all. Reducing or removing this specialised oversight will directly cause severe behavioural escalations, increasing the risk of potential harm to myself, my family, my supports and the wider community.
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The Destructive 50% Reduction to Core Flexible Funding, which will likely include 24/7, 1:1 Support: For someone with my complexity and support needs, this cut threatens to eliminate my critical flexible independent funding, replacing it with a cheaper 1:2 or group support option. My plan relies heavily on my Core’s Flexible Funding and is utilised across critical line items such as:
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Assistance with Daily Life & Self-Care: Supports that assist or supervise me with personal tasks during day-to-day life to enable me to live independently.
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Assistance with Social, Economic, and Community Participation: Funding that facilitates community, social, and civic connections.
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Short Term Respite: My plan explicitly allocates funds for short-term respite to allow me to skill extend, alongside allowing my primary informal support network (parents) a vital circuit-breaker.
Dangers if Removed: The policy to slash community participation budgets by an average of 50% starting October 2026 is cruel and counterproductive. My community access is used to prevent bouts of profound depression and institutional cabin fever. Having my flexible core budget restricted or rolled back would mean the short-term respite that sustains my family unit will disappear. Without this respite, my informal family arrangements will inevitably fracture under the weight of managing my complex, high-anxiety disability 24/7 and alone. Moving away from my 1:1 care will also present the following significant risks:
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Severe Safety & Health Risks: I am relying on 1:1 care. Sharing a worker (1:2 ratio) or being forced into group settings can trigger my behavioural responses and may lead to emergencies.
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Institutionalisation and Isolation: Cutting my 1:1 community support will force me to stay indoors and at home, stripping away my independence and severely limiting my ability to participate in any community involvement.
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Forced Group Living: I am not ready to leave my parents as yet. When I am, it would be unsafe to force me into a Supported Independent Living (SIL) arrangement with people I do not know. This as my only option completely compromises my choice, control, and everyone’s safety.
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Increased Burden on Unpaid Carers: If my formal NDIS funding is reduced, the burden of care falls back on my aging parents. This has previously and
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will again lead to severe carer burnout, forced withdrawal from any workforce options, and result in reliance on costlier mainstream services (e.g., hospitals).
Redefining Parental Responsibility: These proposed legislative amendments heavily narrow what the scheme deems “reasonable and necessary” disability funding. By explicitly defining “substantial care,” the legislation likely dictates that the following must be provided by informal supports rather than the NDIS: Personal Care (showering, dressing, toileting), Daily Supervision and Emotional Regulation Support, Transport and Behavioural Support, and even day-to-day Household Requirements. Dangers if Removed: The practical implementation of these expanded “parental and informal care” clauses threatens to dismantle my family’s core safety net, leading to several dangers:
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Financial Destitution: My primary carer is already unable to work due to the weight of my care. My Dad also neurodiverse, is increasingly forced to work harder and longer, and at times cut back on hours to support Mum in the requirement of my around-the-clock supervision. The unpaid burden of all this disproportionately falls on my Neurodiverse Mum.
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The “Ageing Parent”: We have seen highlighted horrific scenarios where parents are expected to provide high-level 24/7 care to children with disabilities, like me. This can result in a crisis where there are no winners.
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Expansion to Broader Networks: We are already increasingly seeing the definition of “family/informal responsibility” expanding beyond parents to include siblings, housemates, and local community networks. I do not freely have access to any of these options, not now or in my care future.
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Severe Risk of Burnout & Abuse: When my informal care parent reaches breaking point and cannot fulfil the proposed legally expected levels of their support, we all become vulnerable.
The Support Worker Registration: The flagged future mandatory registration for providers of personal care, daily living supports, and services in closed settings. Dangers if Removed: My independent support workers, some of whom have worked alongside me for 8 years, absolutely do not want to go through a complex,
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costly process of registering as an independent entity (which can involve intense business audits). Because of this, I am at risk of the following:
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Erosion of My Choice and Control: A cornerstone of the NDIS is the ability to choose WHO supports me. Onerous registration requirements and compliance costs may force my trusted, independent support workers out of the industry, pushing me to use larger agencies that are proven not to meet my needs.
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Driving Industry into a Severe Workforce Shortage: Registration involves rigorous audits, training, and documentation. The independent sole traders that work with me and cater to my diverse needs have discussed that these requirements will be unattainable, and they may need to leave the industry.
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Threat to Self-Managed Participants: How my primary carer can best contribute to my care and participate in “reducing costs to the NDIS” is to self manage my plan. Self-managing has allowed me the flexibility to hire the independent workers I require, outside of the standard systems. Universal worker registration risks ending this self-directed model and forcing those like me into the rigid, bureaucratic provider systems.
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Administrative Burdens and Increased “Tax”: How can this high cost of passing registration audits not be passed onto participants, exacerbating “NDIS Spending”, rather than reducing it? Services would have to increase costs to cover financial audit payments. Therefore, plans would need to absorb the burden. And being charged more by providers leaves me with less funding for my actual care.
Removal of Diagnosis Lists and Transition to Standardised Assessments: The
shift from diagnosis-based entry acceptance to standardised functional assessments by 2028 means I will require a reassessment to determine if I meet the “significant reduction in functional capacity” criteria. These changes risk excluding participants like me, with fluctuating conditions, and misrepresenting our real-world support needs. I am very concerned about the phasing in of such things as the Removal of the Diagnosis lists for Standardised Assessments. Dangers if Removed: Replacing my specialised, multi-disciplinary health team with broad, standardised functional capacity tools ignores the nuanced realities of my neurodivergent profile, and my
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Autistic Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) will make participating in such Standardised Assessments near impossible.
Federal Takeover of Support Coordination: My current plan utilises Agency managed Support Coordination. The May 2026 reforms outline a transition where participants will no longer have individualised control over support coordination within their budgets, shifting instead to block-funded, government-commissioned services. Dangers if Removed: For a participant like me, trust, consistency, and highly customised care are paramount. Being forced into a centralised, block-funded government roster completely strips away my choice and control and places me in a revolving door of outsourced coordinators who do not intimately comprehend my anxiety, sensory profile and diagnosis. This could cause immediate systemic friction, and for me to reject support entirely.
Expansion of Ministerial Rules and Legislative Instruments: Sections 34 A & 45 C; Under the proposed legislation, it lists that the government is aiming to expand the Ministerial Rules and Legislative Instruments. This is a major red flag, an erosion of procedural fairness and natural justice. Dangers if Removed:
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Loss of Choice and Control. The original NDIS Act was built around individual needs. Giving the Minister power to make blanket cuts to entire categories of support moves the scheme away from individualised care and toward a top down, bureaucratic model.
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Lack of Transparency- Because these rules are made via legislative instruments, they bypass the intense public scrutiny of parliamentary debates.
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Shifting Goalposts- Creating an environment where participants could wake up to find that something we desperately rely on has now been removed from the approved list overnight by a ministerial stroke of a pen.
Conclusion
I strongly believe that ‘The Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026’ is a fiscally driven attack on the lives of young disabled adults like me. A Government cannot responsibly extract $37.8 billion from a scheme that handles critical human infrastructure before an equivalent, fully operational, and accessible state-based
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system is built. The devil is in YOUR details, and currently, those details threaten to trap a generation of young disabled Australians in their homes, isolated, unsupported, and causing families to break down.
I urge the Committee to make the following recommendations to Parliament:
Withdraw this Bill. Focus on the intended; Systematic Fraud. Not eligibility and plan cuts. If not withdrawn, extend the Senate Committee process. Conduct an impact-driven Human Rights Review. Release all modelling re: Access, Funding, System Change Impacts, and Workforce Impacts. Remove or Heavily Restrict Determination Powers. Do Not Cut Social and Community Participation Budgets. When considering eligibility or change, do not do so using Automated Decision-Making Systems; retain a holistic individual support requirement approach. Preserve all Current plan end dates, Lifelong Disability Cover and Reassessment Rights. Remove Suspension or Revocation harsh provisions. Do not commence access changes until replacement supports are Evaluated and Functional. Release Information re: cost shifting from Federal to States and Territories. Protect Self-Management and the choice of trusted Support Care Employment Arrangements. Do Not Reduce Participant Choice and Control. Ensure further and future NDIS reforms or change consultation involves Independent Disability Community Advocacy Persons and Groups.
Respectfully submitted by,
(Participant NDIS, 26 May 2026)
(Primary Carer and Family Representative, 26 May 2026)
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