A Perfect Storm for Psychosocial Disability in the NDIS — We Were Ignored

We have been warning about this for years.

As NDIS participants with psychosocial disability, and as members of the Australian Psychosocial Disability Collective (APDC), we have repeatedly raised concerns about the direction of reform. We have spoken in submissions, consultations, hearings, and in the media about the risks of narrowing access, standardising assessment, and shifting people out of the scheme without real alternatives in place.

We were told to be patient.
We were told the system would be improved.
We were told that NDIS participants with psychosocial disability would not be impacted by these reforms.

We were not listened to.

What is now being announced is not reform in the abstract, nor is it a neutral policy adjustment. It is a set of decisions that place thousands of us at risk of losing supports, being reassessed, or being removed from the NDIS altogether—a situation which for many of us will determine whether we remain housed, connected, and able to survive.

We know what happens when support is reduced.

We have lived it.
We have cycled through crisis systems.
We have experienced hospitalisation, homelessness, and isolation.

When support disappears, people do not recover.
They fall out of the system.
They return in crisis.

This is not a theory.
This is our reality.

What we are seeing now is the perfect storm we warned about.

Not one change.
But many.

Each one narrowing access.
Each one reducing support.
Each one increasing risk.

All happening at once.

We are now being told that access to the NDIS, and the level of support we receive, will be determined through standardised assessments of “functional capacity”, with every participant subject to reassessment.

We have seen this before.

We fought against “Independent” Assessments because we knew what they would do.
They reduce lives to scores.
They reduce complexity to numbers.
They make it easier to exclude people.

Those proposals were withdrawn because the disability community rejected them.

What is now being introduced follows the same logic, but these so-called assessments are worse.

We are again being asked to trust a system that has already shown us how it works.

We are told these tools have been developed in consultation.

Our experience tells us that consultation does not mean we have been heard.

At the same time, access is being tightened.
Participant numbers are expected to fall.
Plans are being reduced.

This is being described as sustainability.

We experience it as loss.

Loss of support.
Loss of stability.
Loss of certainty.

We are being pushed toward systems that cannot meet our needs.

We are also seeing cuts to supports for social and community participation.

These are not optional extras.

They are what keep us connected.
They are what prevent isolation.
They are what stop things from getting far worse.

Reducing these supports does not improve outcomes.

It increases risk.

We are also being told that most supports will need to be delivered by registered providers.

For many of us, this removes the people we trust.

We rely on non-registered providers because they are flexible, relational, and responsive.
They work with us, not on us.

There is no clear evidence that registered providers deliver better or safer care.
There is no evidence they are free from poor practice or exploitation.

Removing choice does not improve quality. It limits it.

And it disconnects us from support altogether.

We are also being told that if we leave the NDIS, the broader system will support us.

We know this system, and it has further harmed so many of us.

We know what it is like to rely on it.

It does not provide consistent or person-centred support.
It responds to crisis.
It does not prevent it.
And sometimes makes things much worse.

It leaves people waiting.
It leaves people without help.

It leaves people falling through the gaps.

Moving people out of the NDIS into this system does not solve anything.

It creates those gaps.

And those gaps are where people disappear.

Taken together, these changes do exactly what we have been warning about.

They reduce who can access support.
They reduce what support looks like.
They reduce who can provide it.

And they remove our rights to appeal decisions, which profoundly affect our lives.

This is not one reform.

This is a major shift in the system itself.

We are fed up with not being listened to.

We are further disabled by decisions being made about our lives, without understanding how we live them.

We are sickened by being framed as a cost problem instead of recognised as people with rights.

We are furious at watching reforms move forward while the consequences are ignored.

People with psychosocial disability are not a problem to be managed.

We are participants in a scheme that was meant to support us to live with dignity.

Disinvestment is not reform.

It is abandonment of a human rights-based scheme.

No efficiency goal justifies pushing people toward crisis, homelessness, or worse.

We have been warning about this for years.

What is happening now is exactly what we said would happen.

The perfect storm is no longer approaching.

It has arrived.