PWDA evidence at Public Hearings for Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry into National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Thursday 11 June
On Wednesday 12 June, PWDA gave evidence at the Public Hearings for Community Affairs Legislation Committee Inquiry into National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.
PWDA representatives, Acting CEO Megan Spindler-Smith and Senior Policy Officer Clara Pirani, told the Inquiry that while we support reform and long-term sustainability of the NDIS, the proposed legislation should not proceed in its current form due to the significant risks it poses to people with disability and insufficient evidence about the likely consequences.
PWDA’s evidence was centred on the voices of our members with key themes relating to human rights, economic participation, the risks of “cut first, design later” reform, and the need for proper consultation and evidence.
Disability reform should be evidence-based, disability-affirming and co-designed with people with disability. Any reform should not be implemented before the impacts are properly understood.
Opening Statement from PWDA’s Megan Spindler-Smith.
I am Megan Spindler-Smith. The pronouns that I use are they/them and I am the Acting CEO of People with Disability Australia, or PWDA for short. As noted, Clara is a Senior Policy Officer who is joining me via teleconference today.
PWDA is a national disability rights advocacy organisation. We are led by and for people with disability, representing the diversity of 5.5 million Australians with disability.
When we advocate for our community, we speak from lived experience, from deep community connections, and from the everyday realities of navigating systems that too often ignore, exploit or exclude us from our ordinary lives.
Our work combines individual, systemic and member-led advocacy, giving us a deep understanding of what is happening in our communities and what needs to change for people with disability to be in an autonomous space of choice, control and genuine inclusion.
The NDIS is a world-leading social infrastructure. It has transformed the lives of people with disability who are now able to work, study, leave the house, participate in their communities and, in many cases, simply stay alive because of the support it enables people to access.
PWDA supports the long-term sustainability of the NDIS, but there is a difference between sustaining the scheme and restricting disabled people’s access to the support we need to live ordinary lives.
Our concern is that this bill uses the language of sustainability to justify narrowing access, reducing support and pushing people towards systems that do not yet exist.
The question is not whether these reforms save money, but who is being asked to absorb the consequences. The answer is people with disability.
When support is withdrawn, the need does not disappear and neither do the costs. They are shifted elsewhere into hospitals, crisis systems, exhausted families and carers.
People will have to leave work and community life, with an increased likelihood of preventable harm caused by the withdrawal of support.
In its current form, the bill represents the most significant restructure of the NDIS since its inception.
Yet these reforms are being advanced without the transparent evidence base needed to properly understand their broader economic and social consequences.
Parliament is being asked to legislate major changes before foundational supports are funded, designed or operational, and without a clear understanding of where people will go, who will carry the costs, and what pressures will shift onto healthcare, housing, mental health and informal care systems.
Proceeding without this information risks significant and potentially irreversible harm, including cost-shifting to already overstretched systems and reduced economic participation for people with disability, families and their carers.
In response to the initial announcement of these changes, PWDA launched a campaign asking our members to share what the NDIS makes possible in their everyday life.
People told us about being able to work, leave the house, avoid hospitalisation, participate in their communities and survive.
They also told us they were frightened by the proposed changes and the devastating impact the legislation could have on their independence, families and futures.
As one of our members told us:
“Because of NDIS supports I have been able to achieve and maintain mainstream employment. I work full time and perform very well according to my employer. My hospitalisations have been reduced from 35-plus admissions in a six-year period to zero admissions, all presentations in the past 12 months when I have been well supported by a range of NDIS clinicians, nurse practitioners, OT, psychologist and dietitian.”
Since the introduction of the bill, almost 22,000 people have signed PWDA’s petition opposing the cuts to the NDIS proposed in the legislation.
Today we represent them, our members and my community, and their very real and fair concerns about what these reforms mean for our lives.
Our submission identifies several key risks with the bill.
First, there is a very real risk of removing people from the NDIS before adequate alternatives exist.
Foundational supports are not funded. They are, in effect, a cut-first, design-later model of reform.
This bill assumes the gaps can be managed. It is people with disability who will be forced to live in those gaps through losing support workers, relying on exhausted family members, worsening health, deepening poverty and exclusion from community life.
The NDIS was established because the previous state-based system was, in the words of the Productivity Commission, underfunded, unfair, fragmented and inefficient. Reform should not recreate the very system the NDIS was designed to replace.
Second, the bill introduces measures that narrow access and reduce supports in ways that do not reflect lived experience of disability.
This includes functional capacity assessments that disregard supports people rely on and tighter links between impairment and supports.
If this bill proceeds in its current form, the risk is a system that measures what people can do on their best day while ignoring the support they need every day to participate equally in society.
The bill also facilitates a 50 per cent cut to social, civic and community participation funding, which will impact not only participants but also their families and the broader economy.
As one PWDA member told us:
“My daughter was born with Down syndrome and congenital cataracts. She has a moderate intellectual disability and cannot access the community or the activities she loves without supports. She does not have the capacity to travel independently and needs support for most of her activities.
Having the NDIS to help her means that I can go to work part-time and be a productive part of society as a registered nurse, and that my husband can also work full-time and we can pay our taxes and support the economy that helps support us.”
Social, civic and community participation enables the informal safeguards that keep people connected to community, visible to others and safer from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Both the Disability Royal Commission and the NDIS Review recognise that isolation creates risk and that genuine community inclusion is a critical protective factor for people with disability.
One of the more concerning changes in the bill is the proposal to restrict access to people whose impairment is not considered permanent until all appropriate treatments have been exhausted.
This risks excluding people with episodic, fluctuating and complex conditions while failing to account for inequities in access to healthcare for people in rural and regional areas or on low incomes.
Disabled people should not have to medically exhaust themselves, financially ruin themselves, or experience preventable harm before they are considered deserving of support.
The Bill also hands significant powers to ministers and administrative rules that Parliament and the disability community have not yet seen.
Decisions about eligibility, funding and support should be transparent, disability-relevant, evidence-based and subject to proper oversight.
The Disability Royal Commission made clear that people with disability must be meaningfully involved in the design, leadership and oversight of the systems that affect our lives.
Rebuilding trust in these reforms requires consultation. It requires governments to directly employ and empower people with disability in senior positions where they can provide deep, community-based lived experience advice that can support reform to be set up for success.
The DROs have an important role, but we are not a substitute for genuine disability leadership embedded in government itself.
Importantly, our position is not that reform should not occur.
It is that reform must be sequenced, disability-affirming, evidence-based and genuinely co-designed with people with disability, without compromising safety, dignity or our ability to participate in an ordinary life.
The NDIS was established to replace a system that failed people. Reform should strengthen that promise, not erode it.
We welcome the opportunity to assist the committee in improving the legislation.
Thank you.
Evidence Given During Questioning
In questioning led by Senator Steele-John, Megan and Clara raised concerns about proposals requiring people to exhaust all appropriate treatments before being considered eligible for the NDIS. They argued that key terms such as “available”, “appropriate” and “evidence-based” treatment remain undefined, creating uncertainty and potential inequity.
Concerns about “exhausting all treatments”
Questioning focused heavily on the proposal that people may need to exhaust all appropriate treatments before being considered eligible for the NDIS.
Megan argued the legislation does not clearly define key terms such as “available”, “appropriate” and “evidence-based” treatment. They raised concerns that people could effectively be denied access to the NDIS due to a lack of access to treatments that are unaffordable, unavailable in their region or otherwise inaccessible.
She said the changes would disproportionately affect people with episodic, fluctuating and complex conditions whose disability cannot be easily measured through a permanent or stable impairment model.
Inequality based on postcode and income
Megan and PWDA policy officer Clara highlighted concerns that access to support could become dependent on where a person lives and their financial circumstances.
They argued that people in rural and regional areas, or those on low incomes, may be unable to access treatments that could become prerequisites for NDIS eligibility.
PWDA described this as creating a “postcode lottery” or “income lottery”.
Risk of harmful or unwanted treatments
The committee explored concerns that people could feel pressured to undertake treatments, procedures or interventions in order to gain or retain access to supports.
Megan argued that evidence about disability is often based on medical outcomes rather than quality of life outcomes. As a result, treatments that improve a clinical measure may not improve a person’s ability to participate in their community or live the life they choose.
She warned that some treatments could carry risks or long-term harms while offering limited benefit.
What’s if Parliament gets it wrong
One of the strongest moments in the hearing came when Megan was asked what was at stake if the legislation proceeds without sufficient safeguards.
They responded that the consequences could affect people’s lives, futures and children’s futures.
Megan warned of potential long-term consequences for people’s lives, futures and ability to participate fully in society. They argued that legislation of this scale should not proceed without clear evidence, economic modelling and a thorough understanding of its impacts.
Without appropriate supports, people may lose the ability to work, participate in community life and live safely and independently.
Community fear and loss of trust
The discussion also explored the significant anxiety being experienced across the disability community.
Clara told the committee that many people with disability are experiencing significant fear and anxiety about the proposed reforms, which she linked to a lack of trust in government and concerns that people with disability have not been meaningfully consulted during the development of the legislation.
The level of fear in the community is just incredible. A lot of it is coming from a lack of trust in the government. That is exacerbated when you have a situation like we’re in at the moment with this incredibly significant bill, which will change almost every element of the NDIS, and yet there was no consultation with DROs in the lead-up to the federal budget and this legislation being introduced. That’s why people in the community are so afraid. They don’t feel heard.
PWDA Policy Officer Clara Pirani
Megan argued that many people feel decisions are being made about their lives without their voices being heard.
Foundational supports and exiting the NDIS
When asked what safeguards should exist before people are removed from the NDIS, Megan argued that foundational supports must first be fully funded, operational and available in every state and territory.
Our position is that people should not lose NDIS supports until genuine alternatives are in place.
Find more about the Public Hearings and transcripts at Australian Parliament website.
