Melba calls for thoughtful NDIS reform in Senate Inquiry submission

Melba has made a submission to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee’s inquiry into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026. We also contributed to joint submissions through Ability First Australia and National Disability Services. 

In our submission, we support reforms that strengthen the sustainability and integrity of the NDIS. This includes improving safeguards, addressing fraud and making sure funding is used effectively. 

At the same time, we are calling for a careful, evidence-informed approach to change so people are not put at risk. 

As a provider supporting people with complex and lifelong disability, we see every day how the right supports keep people safe, connected and living well. Our submission highlights serious concerns about proposed reductions to funding for Social, Civic and Community Participation supports. 

We want to be clear. These supports are not optional extras. For many people, they are essential. 

Community participation supports help people build relationships, develop skills, maintain their health and feel part of their community. For people living in Supported Independent Living, they also play a critical role in maintaining safety, stability and emotional wellbeing.  

When these supports are reduced, the impact can be immediate. People may become more isolated, less visible in their communities and more reliant on a smaller circle of paid support. This increases the risk that distress, deterioration or unsafe situations go unnoticed until they reach crisis point.  

Our submission also highlights the broader system impacts. Reducing preventative supports does not remove cost. Instead, it often shifts it elsewhere, into crisis responses, hospital admissions and more intensive supports. This creates what we describe as a false economy, where both human outcomes and overall system costs are worsened.  

We are also concerned about the impact on provider sustainability. Specialist providers supporting people with the most complex needs are already under significant pressure. Further funding reductions risk destabilising services and reducing choice, a key premise of the NDIS, for people. 

Based on this experience, our submission makes a number of recommendations. These include: 

• maintaining choice and control through individualised assessment 

• ensuring funding decisions are based on functional need, not broad cuts 

• protecting people with high and complex support needs from blanket reductions 

• strengthening fairness, transparency and access to review 

• involving people with disability, families and providers in genuine co-design 

• assessing the real-world impacts of reforms before they are implemented 

At the heart of our submission are a range of practice examples that show what these changes look like in real life. They highlight the risk of increased distress, reduced independence and avoidable crisis when supports are taken away. 

We support a sustainable NDIS. But sustainability cannot come at the cost of people’s safety, wellbeing or human rights. 

We are calling on the Australian Government to ensure reforms are grounded in the lived reality of how support works, and to protect the supports that help people live full and connected lives.