National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026
Senator FARUQI (New South Wales—Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens) (12:10): The Greens unequivocally, strongly and unapologetically oppose this cruel and heartless bill. Disabled people will suffer, and they will die, if this bill passes. The courageous and brave people that came to give evidence to the Senate inquiry into this bill made that crystal clear.
When actor, speaker, media personality and disability advocate Hannah Diviney gave evidence to the Senate inquiry, she said this: The number-crunchers around here seem to have deluded themselves into thinking that disabled people daring to live costs too much; that our lives can be reduced to lines on a budget that simply must be balanced, forgetting all those zeros represent actual human beings … She went on to conclude her powerful testimony with the following warning: You may cast me as a frightened little girl, but hear this: when disabled people die as a direct result of this bill—and they will—their blood will be on your hands.
Those of us in this place have the absolute privilege of representing the people of this country and our states, and this bill totally and utterly betrays what we were sent here by the Australian people to do. It sells out the marginalised while protecting the powerful. It extinguishes the humanity of the marginalised.
Labor, yet again, is blatantly betraying the people who have put them here. Disabled people shouldn't suffer just because Labor wants to prove that they can be just as callous as the Liberals and One Nation. This government is morally bankrupt—this bill is proof enough of that—but we already knew that.
Time and again, the Albanese Labor government has shown that they are more interested in caving to misleading clickbait from right-wing media barons and protecting their corporate donors than looking after people. There's a reason that we're seeing a crackdown—or a so-called crackdown—on the NDIS before we see any meaningful gambling reform pass. There's a reason that this government wants the so-called NDIS reform to pass quickly to save money, but they won't impose a tax on gas imports.
There's a reason that the government is more comfortable with pouring an endless stream of money into the war machine than properly funding life-saving disability care. They are working for big business and the billionaire and corporate donors that keep the door revolving. They are not working for people, and disabled people will indeed pay the price.
The media in this country has not helped either, with pages upon pages dedicated to demonising and scapegoating disabled people to serve their own needs. Where is the outrage over the $268 billion that this government is spending with AUKUS on nuclear subs that will never arrive? Where is it when the government forks out billions to subsidise and bail out fossil fuel corporations that are profiting off the destruction of our environment?
This bill just shows that the Albanese Labor government fundamentally misunderstands the NDIS and fundamentally misunderstands the reality of living with a disability. This misunderstanding is pretty wilful, from where I sit, because disabled people do not leave any stone unturned to tell you over and over and over what the impacts of this bill will be on their lives.
They shouldn't have had to tell you over and over and over again. But they have, and still you completely disregard and ignore them. Some of the biggest cuts will come from budgets for social participation.
The impact of this will be devastating, and it will be costly. Kim Berry, whose son Oscar receives NDIS funding, has said that these cuts will be 'death by boredom' for her son. But the price isn't just boredom for participants and the loss of independence for family carers.
There will be a longer term cost borne by our healthcare system and our justice system, because people are no longer able to live the lives that they deserve and that they have a right to live. Hannah Diviney, in her evidence, pointed out that, in the absence of social and community funding, she won't be able to work and will no longer be a taxpayer. She went on to say: The mental health crisis will escalate, as will the strain on our healthcare system.
You will find the workforce shrink as our support systems have no choice but to leave to ensure our safety and survival. That'll mean more people rely on other government support—Centrelink and the like. But those systems won't be able to handle the load … The government says this bill is about saving money.
The government will throw around words like 'financial sustainability' and even has the audacity to call this bill 'securing the future of the NDIS', but all it does is shuffle those costs onto disabled people, their communities and their supports, and on to other parts of our social services infrastructure—and these costs will be significantly higher. These are costs that people cannot afford, costs that will leave them without support.
What is happening here today is utterly, utterly shameful. This is not only terrible policymaking, but it is also unimaginably cruel. To be honest, we could be here for days outlining the problems and flaws in this bill.
My colleague Senator Steele-John has done an excellent job, but I also want to highlight a few flaws. A critical flaw in this bill is the requirement that disabled people show they have tried all publicly available treatments before accessing the NDIS. While this provision has been slightly ameliorated by the work of Senator Steele-John, it is still deeply flawed.
People aren't going on the NDIS because they have a broken leg which can be fixed through a few weeks on crutches and some physical therapy. To ask someone to jump through hoops, to exhaust treatment options for disabilities that we know are permanent, is demoralising, dehumanising and downright cruel. This provision ignores long waitlists for public services.
It fails to address accessibility issues around availability of specialists and location of services. It also assumes that people have the capacity and/or the support to access these treatments and to care for themselves while they wait for treatments and assessments—and maybe, one day, eventually access the NDIS. There's not only that.
This bill is throwing people off the side of a boat into raging waters without a life jacket. The government has ignored repeated warnings that services for people kicked off the NDIS won't be ready and won't necessarily even make up for the services that will be lost. This is also a completely backwards step for disability care.
The NDIS was all about moving away from a 'one size fits all' approach to care and moving to a system where people have the right to choice and control, choosing the services to best support them and controlling how these services were provided. It was about agency. It was about independence.
Any Labor, Liberal or One Nation senator supporting the passage of this bill today should be so ashamed of themselves, but I'm not sure if you have the moral conscience left in you anymore to even feel that emotion. Only three years have passed since the robodebt royal commission found that the automated robodebt scheme was cruel and unlawful, yet this bill grants the government the power to automate key decision-making for people receiving NDIS support, showing how willing they are to gamble with people's lives all over again.
The government is trying to sell this bill as a response to the witch-hunt that has gone on in recent years over NDIS fraud, yet the bill barely even addresses fraud, noncompliance and misconduct by mainly corporate providers and other actors within the scheme. The vast majority of this bill is about restricting, or entirely removing, support for disabled people.
To be clear, the Greens do not oppose reforming or changing the NDIS. We support a scheme that delivers the best possible outcomes for disabled people and that is protected from fraud, exploitation and wasteful spending. But this bill ain't it.
This bill pretends to address financial sustainability while sacrificing disabled people. In case you haven't seen it already, this Labor government is a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing. They pretend to be progressive and talk a big game on equity and inclusion, but, if you're paying attention, they are just the same—upholding a political system that delivers for the top end, for endless wars, for genocide, for climate-destroying fossil fuel companies, while cutting and culling from the people who need it most.
This bill comes only two years after a round of significant NDIS cuts that have already left people struggling to access support and scared of when the next round of cuts will hit. Disabled people deserve to thrive. They have a right to thrive, to live lives like everybody else, with opportunities for joy, for work, for fun, for participation in community and with fulfilment.
We live in a country that is wealthy enough to provide all of that, yet here we are with this bill, which is not about what the government can and cannot afford; it is about where they choose to put those public funds. Your choice, I'm afraid, today, is a completely wrong choice. It is a cruel choice.
It is a disgraceful choice. To once more reference Hannah Diviney's incredible testimony in the bill inquiry, she told the committee that while a lack of social participation funding might leave her unemployed, that would give her 'even more time to be a thorn in the government's side'. Disabled people have been fighting for their rights for centuries, and they will not give up.
The Greens will be right alongside them in this fight.