Joint communiqué following the Disability Representative Organisation and Legal Roundtable on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Friday 6 August
On Thursday 30 July, at the request of People with Disability Australia (PWDA), a number of Disability Representative Organisations, legal organisations and representatives from the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing met to discuss the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
The roundtable provided an opportunity for participating Disability Representative Organisations and legal organisations to present directly to Australian Government representatives involved in developing and drafting the legislation the evidence of the significant and foreseeable harm this Bill will cause if it passes in its current form.
Participating Disability Representative Organisations and legal organisations were united in their position that the Bill should not pass in its current form.
The organisations shared evidence from advocacy, legal practice and engagement with people with disability demonstrating that the Bill, as drafted, will make it harder for people to access and retain the supports they rely on, weaken review rights and legal safeguards, increase uncertainty about future eligibility and supports, and expose people with disability to significant and foreseeable harm.
The organisations warned that the Bill presents two distinct risks. First, there are policy changes that Disability Representative Organisations and disability legal organisations fundamentally oppose because they will cause harm. Second, there are significant drafting concerns that mean the legislation may not operate in the way the Australian Government has publicly described. Broad drafting, undefined concepts and extensive reliance on future Rules create a real risk that more people with disability will be adversely affected than the already unacceptable number the Government has indicated.
If Parliament chooses to proceed with the legislation despite these risks, it has a responsibility to minimise the foreseeable harm it will cause. At the Roundtable, our organisations presented on a range of legislative amendment opportunities, including strengthening access and permanence provisions, protecting participant choice and autonomy, improving review rights, addressing flaws in the proposed “whole of person” test, removing inappropriate “other support systems” provisions, strengthening participant, parental and informal carer protections and establishing stronger implementation safeguards.
To be clear, these amendments would reduce some of the most serious risks, but those amendments do not resolve the organisations’ fundamental concerns with the Bill. Our organisations stress nonetheless that the evidence is clear. The harm and risks are foreseeable. Parliament now has the opportunity to prevent that harm by rejecting this Bill in its current form.
Participating Organisations:
- Children and Young People with Disability Australia
- Disability Advocacy Network Australia
- Intrepidus Law
- Inclusion Australia
- Justice and Equity Centre
- National Legal Aid
- People with Disability Australia
- Villamanta Disability Rights Legal Service
- Women With Disabilities Australia
