Yes, this version now includes the family cost burden and avoids the repetitive list style.

2026 NDIS REFORM BILL:

Roll Back to 2010: What Life Looked Like Before the NDIS

Cutting NDIS participant numbers will not reduce disability need. It will push that need back into state systems, postcode lotteries, thin markets, private costs, unpaid care and crisis services.

The federal government NDIS keeps talking about reducing NDIS participant numbers as if fewer participants means less disability need.

It does not.

Removing people from the NDIS does not remove their need for support. It removes the funded pathway that currently makes some of that support possible.

That distinction matters.

A child who needs communication support will still need communication support. A person who needs help with personal care will still need personal care. A family managing behavioural risk, school refusal, sleep deprivation, mobility limitations, psychosocial distress, transport barriers or carer burnout will not suddenly become fine because the Commonwealth changes an eligibility rule.

The need remains.

The question is where it goes.

And if the answer is “back to the states,” then Australia needs to be very honest about what we are rolling back into.

Because we have been here before.

Before the NDIS, disability support in Australia was fragmented, rationed, inconsistent, expensive for families, and heavily dependent on postcode. People did not simply receive support because they needed it. They had to fit the right program, in the right location, at the right time, with the right diagnosis, while a service still had capacity.

The Productivity Commission said the old disability support arrangements were inequitable, underfunded, fragmented and inefficient, gave people with disability little choice, and provided no certainty that people could access appropriate supports when needed. (SSRN)

That is the system the NDIS was created to replace.

So before government removes people from the NDIS, it needs to prove the alternative exists.

Not announce it.

Prove it.

The old system was not a safety net

Before the NDIS, disability support was a patchwork of state programs, charity services, health systems, school adjustments, family labour, private costs and long waiting lists.

Some people received support. Many did not. Access depended heavily on where people lived, what diagnosis they had, how well their family could advocate, whether a local service existed, and whether that service had capacity.

That is not a national disability system.

That is a lottery.

Families had to ring around, chase referrals, repeat their story, find assessments, wait for reports, prove need, meet program criteria and hope there was funding left. People with complex needs were often too difficult for under-resourced services. People in rural and regional areas were told services existed in theory, but not in their town. Adults with psychosocial disability were bounced between mental health, housing, Centrelink, emergency departments and family care.

The old system did not always reject people clearly. Often, it just made them wait until they disappeared from view.

That is the danger now.

If people are pushed out of the NDIS before the replacement system is built, the unmet need will not show up neatly in Commonwealth budget papers. It will appear later as hospital presentations, school suspensions, child protection notifications, carer breakdown, housing crisis, unemployment, family violence risk and mental health deterioration.

That is not reform.

That is delayed harm.

The old system pushed costs onto families

The pre-NDIS system did not just make families wait.

It made them pay.

Families living close to the poverty line were often forced to fund private assessments, therapy, equipment, specialist appointments and reports because the public system was too slow, too limited or unavailable in their area.

Many were single-income households because one parent had already left paid work to care for the child. That meant the families with the least capacity to absorb extra costs were often the ones expected to cover the gaps.

A two-year wait for diagnosis is not a neutral delay when a child is missing early intervention.

A four-year wait for surgery is not just a scheduling issue when pain, mobility, development, schooling and family functioning are deteriorating.

Waiting lists have real consequences. They push families into debt, force parents to choose between therapy and bills, and delay support until problems become more complex and expensive.

This is what people forget when they talk about rolling support back to the states. State systems were never free in any meaningful sense if families had to pay privately to survive the wait.

The cost was simply hidden in household budgets, credit cards, second mortgages, unpaid care, lost wages and parental burnout.

The NDIS did not make disability expensive.

Disability was already expensive.

The NDIS made some of those costs visible and shared them through a national insurance scheme instead of leaving exhausted families to carry them alone.

What the states have now is not a replacement NDIS

States and territories still run important public systems. They fund hospitals, schools, community health, child protection, public housing, some mental health services, concessions, transport programs and crisis supports.

But those systems are already under pressure, and they are not the same thing as a specialist disability support system.

Most state disability programs were reduced, absorbed or reshaped as the NDIS rolled out. That was the agreement. The NDIS would fund reasonable and necessary disability supports for eligible people with significant and permanent disability. States would continue mainstream services such as health, education, housing and child protection.

Now the Commonwealth appears to be moving people back toward those systems without first rebuilding the capacity it expects them to provide.

That is the central problem.

Hospitals are not disability accommodation. Schools are not therapy providers. Child protection is not family support. Public housing is not specialist disability housing. Mental health services are not a complete psychosocial disability system. A website, referral pathway or program name is not support if there are no staff, no funding, no local provider and no appointment available.

The states are warning they are not ready. State and territory ministers have reportedly said they cannot provide like-for-like services for people removed from the NDIS and have criticised the lack of meaningful consultation. (The Guardian)

That should be enough to pause the Bill.

This is cost-shifting, not need reduction

When the Commonwealth reduces NDIS participant numbers, the federal budget may look better. But the person’s need does not vanish.

It moves.

It moves to hospitals when people deteriorate. It moves to schools when children lose therapy, behaviour support or communication support. It moves to housing when people cannot live safely at home. It moves to child protection when families collapse. It moves to Centrelink when carers leave paid work. It moves to police, emergency departments and crisis services when early support is removed.

Most of all, it moves into unpaid family care.

That is what cost-shifting really means.

It is not an accounting concept. It is a mother leaving the workforce. It is a father sleeping in shifts. It is a sibling growing up around constant crisis. It is a grandparent doing lifting they cannot safely do. It is a young person losing capacity because intervention came too late. It is a family being told to try services that either do not exist or have closed books.

The Commonwealth can reduce its line item.

The country still pays.

Postcode exclusion will come back

The NDIS has not solved every access problem. Thin markets still exist, especially in rural, regional and remote areas. But the NDIS created a national funding structure that gave eligible participants a clearer pathway to support.

If people are pushed back into state-based or local programs, postcode exclusion will return quickly.

A child in one state may receive early developmental support while a child with the same needs in another state waits. A family in a metropolitan area may find therapy, while a family two hours away is told the nearest practitioner has a twelve-month waitlist. A person with psychosocial disability may be accepted into one local program but excluded from another because their presentation is too complex, too risky, or does not fit the funding model.

This is how unequal systems work.

They do not always say, “You are excluded.”

They say, “There is no one available.”

They say, “You are not eligible for this program.”

They say, “Try another service.”

They say, “We are not taking new clients.”

They say, “We do not cover your area.”

They say, “The waitlist is closed.”

That is postcode exclusion dressed up as service navigation.

Thin markets will become invisible exclusion

The government can promise foundational supports, but policy does not create workforce.

It does not create speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, behaviour support practitioners, disability-trained educators, accessible transport, respite options or safe housing.

In thin markets, the barrier is not always a lack of demand. It is a lack of providers, workforce, funding certainty, travel viability and service capacity. Some communities already struggle to attract allied health professionals and support workers. Some participants are considered too complex, too risky, too far away or too expensive to serve.

If people are removed from individualised NDIS funding and sent to mainstream or foundational services that do not exist locally, they will not be supported.

They will be parked.

The system can say support is available.

The family will know it is not.

That is one of the most dangerous parts of this reform. The exclusion becomes harder to measure because the person is no longer visible inside an NDIS plan. Their unmet need becomes scattered across waitlists, GP visits, school meetings, emergency departments and exhausted households.

Navigation will become the burden again

Before the NDIS, families spent enormous energy trying to work out where to go. That burden will return if people are moved into a new patchwork of state, health, education, community and foundational services.

Navigation is not a small task. It requires literacy, time, confidence, transport, digital access, documentation, persistence and the ability to keep telling the same story without falling apart.

That advantages families with resources. It punishes families already under pressure.

A parent caring around the clock does not need another website. They need a service that answers the phone, accepts the referral, has capacity, understands the disability, provides the support and stays involved long enough to make a difference.

Without that, “navigation” becomes a polite word for abandonment.

Diagnosis will still be a bottleneck

Governments often talk about support without diagnosis as if that solves access.

In principle, it can help. Children should not have to wait years for a diagnosis before receiving early support.

But systems that are underfunded still ration access. They ration by age, severity, diagnosis, postcode, program criteria, waiting lists, group suitability, service capacity and whether a family can keep attending appointments during business hours.

So unless the new system has clear eligibility, functional triage, funded capacity and maximum waiting times, removing people from the NDIS may simply move them into a different queue.

Families will still need paediatricians, speech therapists, occupational therapists, psychologists, behaviour support and reports. They will still need someone to recognise that “low to moderate” does not always mean simple, stable or safe.

And many will still wait.

Schools cannot become the replacement NDIS

Schools are already carrying more disability need than they are resourced to manage.

Teachers are dealing with complex classrooms, trauma, sensory overload, communication needs, learning disability, behavioural risk, anxiety, attendance problems and family stress. Schools can provide educational adjustments and should be part of a child’s support ecosystem.

But schools cannot replace the NDIS.

A classroom adjustment does not provide personal care at home. It does not provide parent respite, home routines, community access, transport to appointments, assistive technology, behavioural support, communication therapy or daily living assistance.

If government intends to move children out of the NDIS and point to schools as part of the solution, it must be honest about what schools can actually do.

Inclusion without support is not inclusion.

It is another way of shifting the problem.

Young people in nursing homes should be the warning

Before the NDIS, thousands of younger people with disability lived in residential aged care because there were not enough suitable disability housing and support options.

That was not appropriate care.

It was system failure.

Younger people were placed with aged residents because the right disability supports and housing pathways did not exist. The system did not solve their need. It hid it in the wrong setting.

The NDIS has not fixed every housing problem, but it has become the main pathway for many younger people with disability to access more appropriate support and accommodation.

If people are removed from the NDIS without real alternatives, Australia risks repeating the same pattern: wrong place, wrong support, but the only option left.

That is what happens when governments reduce one system before building the next.

Employment does not improve when supports are cut

Disabled people are not excluded from work simply because they lack motivation. Many are locked out by practical barriers: transport, personal care, communication needs, assistive technology, education exclusion, workplace discrimination, fatigue, anxiety, health instability and lack of support to build capacity.

The NDIS is not an employment program, but it often funds the foundation that makes participation possible. Daily routines, mobility, communication, community access, therapy, psychosocial support and carer relief all sit underneath employment capacity.

Cut those foundations and employment does not become easier.

A person who loses transport misses training. A person who loses psychosocial support cycles back into crisis. A child who loses therapy falls further behind before work is even realistic. A carer who loses respite leaves paid work. A young person who loses community access becomes more isolated.

You cannot cut the foundations and then blame people for not building a life.

What must exist before people are removed

If governments genuinely want people supported outside the NDIS, states need a functioning disability support system in place before anyone is removed.

That means actual services across early childhood, psychosocial disability, behaviour support, personal care, communication, assistive technology, respite, safe housing and school-linked supports. It also means regional workforce plans, transparent eligibility rules, waiting-time limits, public reporting by postcode, review rights and funding attached to real need rather than vague service availability.

Not brochures.

Not referral pathways.

Not future promises.

Actual support.

If that system is not ready, people should not be exited into it.

The bottom line

Australia built the NDIS because the old system failed.

It failed people with disability, families, carers, children waiting for support, adults bounced between systems, young people trapped in aged care, rural communities, schools and hospitals.

It failed because access depended too much on postcode, diagnosis, waiting lists, family advocacy and luck.

Now the Commonwealth appears to be moving toward reforms that could reduce NDIS participant numbers before the alternative support system is ready.

That is not reform.

That is rollback.

Reducing NDIS participation may make the federal budget look better, but it will not make disabled people less disabled. It will not make families less exhausted, schools more resourced, hospitals less pressured, housing more accessible or thin markets thicker.

It will only move the crisis.

Before anyone is removed from the NDIS, government must show the services, the workforce, the funding, the state agreements, the waiting times, the postcode coverage and the safeguards.

Otherwise Australia is not building the future of disability support.

It is rolling back to 2010.

And we already know how that story ends.

Preparing for reassessment or review?

NDIS reform may shift more responsibility back onto families and state systems. Ability Pathways can help participants and carers prepare evidence, identify support gaps and advocate for the right supports.