03/06/2026
I’ve just finished reading Submission 247, the Department and NDIA’s own submission supporting these proposed NDIS changes, and the more I sit with it, the angrier I get.
How are we still here??
This submission wasn’t written before the Disability Royal Commission. It was written after it. After years of people with disability explaining what exclusion looks like. After years of families explaining what happens when support disappears. After years of carers explaining what happens when all the responsibility gets pushed back onto them because there is nowhere else for it to go. After thousands of people shared their experiences, expertise and, in many cases, some of the most painful moments of their lives because they believed there was value in telling the truth about what was happening.
People told the Royal Commission what isolation looks like. They told it what exclusion looks like. They told it what happens when people become disconnected from their communities. They told it what happens when people lose opportunities, relationships, confidence, purpose and belonging. They told it what happens when systems focus on keeping people alive while forgetting that people also need opportunities to actually live.
Then came the NDIS Review. More consultations. More submissions. More evidence. More opportunities for government to ask people with disability what these supports actually mean in their lives.
And people answered.
Again and again and again.
The information, evidence & findings exist!
The recommendations exist!
People with disability have already spent years explaining why participation matters, why community matters, why belonging matters and what happens when people lose those things.
Then I read Submission 247 supporting a proposed 50% reduction to Social, Civic and Community Participation funding.
I am furious.
When the Department talks about Social, Civic and Community Participation funding, they’re talking about a budget category.
When people with disability talk about Social, Civic and Community Participation funding, they’re talking about their lives.
They’re talking about the support worker who helps them get to work. The support worker who helps them attend TAFE. The support worker who helps them volunteer. The support worker who helps them join a community group, catch public transport independently, build confidence, maintain relationships and participate in the world around them.
They’re talking about the support that turns inclusion from a policy document into something that actually exists.
And I think that’s why so many people are looking at this submission and feeling sick.
The Government was talking about expenditure growth.
People with disability were talking about belonging.
Government was talking about sustainability.
Families were talking about whether their child would have friends.
Government was talking about funding categories.
People with disability were talking about whether they would be able to participate in society.
Lived experience, co-design & consultation were what was promised.
Instead we were left trying to engage with a rushed, complex and inaccessible process just to have their say. People were expected to read complex legislation, understand policy language and prepare submissions within incredibly tight timeframes while managing disability, caring responsibilities, work, appointments, therapies and everyday life. Some people relied on advocates, disability organisations, friends and family members to help them navigate the process. Some people dictated submissions because writing them wasn’t accessible. Some people couldn’t participate at all.
And despite ALL of that, people still showed up.
They still participated.
They still wrote submissions.
They still told their stories.
They still did exactly what they were asked to do.
What more were people with disability supposed to do?
The question isn’t whether government was told. Government was told. Over & over again. The amount of submissions received during this inquiry will never reflect the true amount of information, evidence, expertise and lived experience that already existed before these changes were proposed.
And that’s what makes so much of this so difficult to understand.
For all the discussion about sustainability, expenditure growth and protecting the Scheme, where are the meaningful proposals targeting fraud, exploitation and poor provider behaviour?
Because after reading Submission 247, it’s hard not to notice that most of the proposed solutions seem to involve reducing, restricting, reassessing or scrutinising participants rather than addressing the systemic issues that have allowed fraud, poor practice and exploitation to flourish in the first place.
For a package of reforms supposedly focused on sustainability, there appears to be remarkably little focus on the people and organisations profiting from the Scheme and an extraordinary amount of focus on the people who rely on it.
After EVERYTHING people with disability have contributed over the years, after every consultation, every review, every submission and every promise that lived experience would be at the centre of decision-making, it is impossible to escape the feeling that when it came time to make the decisions that mattered most, the voices of the people most affected were no longer welcome at the table.
Inclusion is not a fluffy feel-good add on.
It’s not the nice extra you fund if there’s money left over.
It’s a human right.
