Disability advocates have condemned the final report of the parliamentary inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for future generations) Bill 2026, released on August 14.
After an inquiry that lasted more than nine weeks, including six days of hearings and more than 4500 submissions — the vast majority of which opposed the bill — the only recommendation (agreed by the Labor majority and largely supported by the Coalition) was for the Senate to pass the controversial bill.
It proposes to cut $38 billion, remove or block 300,000 people from the scheme and reduce all participants’ funding by 50% for Social and Community Participation and a further 10% for Capacity Building (which funds supports including occupational therapy, physiotherapy and the like).
The cuts to the NDIS are the biggest part of the budget saving Labor is trying to make.
“Thousands of disabled people, families, advocates and organisations told the inquiry this Bill risks causing serious harm. The Government has heard those concerns, and is pushing ahead anyway. Shame on them,” said Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John.
People with Disability Australia (PWDA) also condemned the report’s recommendation to pass the bill. “People with disability have been extraordinarily clear about what is at stake if this Bill passes. We know what these changes would mean in our lives. We provided the deep expertise and evidence. We proposed alternatives,” said Megan Spindler-Smith, PWDA Acting CEO.
“We showed what happens when the supports that make our participation possible are taken away. The harm laid bare through the Disability Royal Commission is not a distant memory.
“This Bill will see us working less hours or stopping work, being unable to engage in our community, seeing friends less, relying more on family, losing independence or simply not being able to do the ordinary things other Australians take for granted. Isolation does not support safety.
“To have that evidence heard and then disregarded through one recommendation is irresponsible and disrespectful.”
Disability Advocacy Network Australia (DANA) warned that if the bill was to become law it “risks causing foreseeable harm to people with disability”. DANA, which incorporates 12 disability advocacy organisations, accepted Labor’s argument that the NDIS is unsustainable and therefore needed to be cut.
However, it said it was “concerned that significant decisions affecting funding and scheme operation are still to be settled, rather than embedded in the primary legislation itself”. The changes must “guarantee that people are not diverted from, or lose, NDIS supports unless alternative supports are funded, operational, accessible and available in practice”.
The bill returns to the Senate and is likely to be voted into law over the next sitting week, despite trenchant opposition from the Greens and concern from the Independent ACT Senator David Pocock.
“If this Bill passes Parliament, it will be devastating to the lives of disabled people and their families”, the Greens said in their dissenting report.
Many of the attacks, including arbitrary cuts to support plans, are scheduled to start in October.
This bill is a big setback for people living with disability and their families, but the campaign to save NDIS must continue.
People living with disability, and our allies, must continue to demand our rights to live like anyone else in this society; we must be able to work, raise a family and participate in the community just like anyone else. We must continue to demand our right to receive support to allow us to be part of our community and enjoy our lives, just like anyone else.
Labor must not have the last word. Our lives are worth more than their budgets.
[Graham Matthews is the Socialist Alliance spokesperson on disability.]