Heidi La Paglia: Disability Rights Advocate & Consultant

17/06/2026

17/06/2026

14/06/2026

NDIS Minister on Insiders this morning: what Mark Butler MP said - and what the evidence and every-man-and-his-dog says

Sunday 14 June 2026

This morning on Insiders ABC, Minister for Health, Ageing and Disability Mark Butler was interviewed by David Speers about the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026.

The Senate committee inquiry into the Bill closed last week after three days of public hearings. The committee report is due Tuesday 17 June 2026.

Below is a full account of the claims made during the interview, and what the evidence actually shows.

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"No, they won't."

- Mark Butler's answer when asked by David Speers whether people will die as a result of these changes.

Witnesses told the Senate inquiry across three days of public hearings last week that people will die as a result of these changes. That evidence is on the public record.

At the close of the inquiry, Opposition NDIS spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh said:

"Throughout the hearings, witnesses have been telling the committee that people will die as a result of these changes. It is our responsibility to listen to their concerns."

No minister can guarantee the outcome that people will not die when such severe support cuts and limitations to rights are drafted into legislation for extremely vulnerable people.

The relevant question is not whether harm is intended. It is whether foreseeable risks have been identified, assessed, and mitigated before the Bill passes.

Have they so far?

No.

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"We've had hundreds of submissions."

More than 4,000 submissions were received by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs, confirmed via the Secretariat. As of 9 June 2026, only 440 had been published on the inquiry website.

Using the word "hundreds" to describe a submission volume of more than 4,000 is significantly understated, especially given the short time frame for the community to respond - only two weeks. Parliament should ask what that level of public response signals, and why the Minister is underplaying it.

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"Return the NDIS to its original purpose."

Early intervention for children, psychosocial disability access, and community participation supports were all part of the original NDIS architecture and purpose, from its commencement under the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013.

Restricting access for groups included from the beginning is difficult to describe as returning to original intent. This framing mischaracterises the legislative history of the scheme.

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"It's grown far too big, it costs too much."

The NDIS was established as a social and economic investment, not a welfare payment with a pre-set ceiling.

Participant numbers grew. Costs grew. Demand grew. This was due to decades of unmet need finally being surfaced.

The relevant question for the nation is whether the supports produce value and outcomes, not whether expenditure increased. Growth is not evidence of waste.

There is significant evidence that the Scheme pays dividends and is already doing so at scale.

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"Paired back to where it was in 2025."

*On community participation budgets.*

2023 followed years of COVID-related isolation and disruption to community participation across Australia. Using a post-pandemic period as the benchmark for future social participation funding requires scrutiny. It is not a neutral baseline, and may be cynically chosen for a starker contrast.

Community participation is not an optional extra. It is often the mechanism through which people maintain relationships, develop skills, access employment, avoid isolation, and remain visible to their communities.

The Disability Discrimination Commissioner raised concerns that reduced participation funding may increase vulnerability to abuse and violence. We echo those concerns.

The Minister's response to that concern pivoted to budget figures. The safety concern was not answered. It remains an open question.

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"That will be the subject of further negotiation and advice in the months going forward."

*When asked who makes decisions about treatment requirements.*

This is the central governance problem in the Bill.

The legal obligation to define who makes decisions exists in the Bill but the decision-maker does not. The criteria do not. The safeguards do not.

Parliament is being asked to legislate first and define the architecture later. That is not how rights-protective legislation works.

Choice and control is a statutory principle under section 4 of the NDIS Act. Participants should not be asked to trust future administrative elaboration of rights that currently exist in law and to do on the basis of no information.

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"We wouldn't expect them to undertake psychotropic treatment that would effectively amount to chemical restraint."

Great!

Then explicitly prohibit it in the Act. Take it off the table, so it no longer is on it.

The Senate inquiry heard that forced chemical restraint is a real and foreseeable risk under the current drafting. Medication use was confirmed by the Department of Health as a form of treatment that may be required. In more cases than we would like to admit, this means chemical restraint.

We also know the NDIA already pushes families to use chemical restraint before approving increased supports.

The issue is not what this Minister intends. The issue is what future decision-makers are legally permitted to require under the powers created by this Bill.

Ministerial intention does not substitute for statutory protection.

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"We'd take a deeply ethical approach."

Ethical intentions are not legal protections. If a protection matters, it should be legislated.

Future governments, future ministers, and future officials are not bound by this minister's ethical framing. Rights should not depend on the disposition of the person in office.

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"There's a bit of posturing going on."

*On state and territory government concerns.*

Every state and territory government raised concerns in their Senate inquiry submission, warning that jurisdictions are not prepared and that many participants will fall through the cracks. These are the same governments expected to build and operate the replacement support systems.

Characterising that as posturing requires accepting that all state and territory governments, the Disability Discrimination Commissioner, disability peak organisations, clinicians, academics, and legal experts are simultaneously mistaken.

That is not a persuasive account of the breadth of opposition. Are we really expected to believe the Minister is right and everyone else is just misguided or misinformed?

Really?

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"Of course we're not going to leave people without support."

This is an assurance, not a safeguard. 241,000 people are projected to be moved off the scheme by mid-2031, with a further 110,000 who were expecting to join the NDIS also moved to other programs.

40,000 children were left without support last year alone. People have already died. This is not a future concern, but something that is already happening broadly.

If Parliament accepts the principle that no one should be left without support, that principle should be written into the legislation as an enforceable obligation with clear triggers, timelines, and accountability mechanisms.

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"The direction of travel, the need to make big changes ... I'm convinced is the right direction of travel."

Parliament does not vote on directions. Parliament votes on legal powers, rights, safeguards, and consequences. Ministerial certainty has no evidentiary standing.

The appropriate test is whether the powers, safeguards, and implementation architecture in the Bill are adequate. That is a question for Parliament, not for the minister to resolve by conviction.

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The pattern

The recurring pattern across this interview is that the Minister offers assurances where Parliament should be demanding legislated safeguards.

The Bill asks Parliament to approve treatment requirements before they are defined, decision-making powers before safeguards are defined, participant exits before replacement supports are operational, and structural reform before workforce capacity is demonstrated.

The Senate committee report is due Tuesday 17 June 2026.

The Senate's task now is not to decide whether reform is desirable.

It is to decide whether these powers should be granted before clear and explicit protections are in place.

14/06/2026

Public hearings are underway this week to highlight the impacts of the government’s new National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) bill to tighten eligibility and save costs. Over the past two days, the Senate inquiry heard that if the bill passes in its current form, it risks entrenching gen...

11/06/2026

We would like to share a statement written by our outgoing Vice President and Board Director Ash Smith. Ash is a proud Wiradjuri woman, social worker, late diagnosed Autistic person and mother to an Autistic child.

She has shared her view on the draft bill below.

The statement from Ash begins:

"As a First Nations neurodivergent woman, parent, and practitioner working alongside Aboriginal children, families and communities across remote and very remote NSW, I hold grave concerns about the profound harm this Bill will cause if passed.

First Nations children and families are already disproportionately impacted by systemic barriers to diagnosis, early intervention and culturally safe support. Removing or restricting access to supports will increase vulnerability to chemical restraint practices and further entrench pathways into child protection systems rather than providing timely, preventative care.

For First Nations neurodivergent children and psychosocially disabled parents, this represents a significant risk of family separation, institutionalisation and lifelong disadvantage.

In my FIFO work across remote communities, I regularly witness the over-prescription of mood stabilising and psychotropic medications being used as a de facto response to distress, disability and behavioural support needs. These medications are often prescribed off-label for autistic and ADHD children, with limited monitoring, review or access to alternative supports. The result is a form of cognitive and physical chemical restraint that negatively impacts physical health, educational engagement, autonomy and quality of life.

As a registered NDIS Specialist Behaviour Support Practitioner, I have repeatedly been advised by public outpatient services that there is no capacity to accept new referrals for up to two years and little to no capacity to undertake behavioural reassessments for existing patients to inform medication reviews. Families are left with medication as the only available intervention.

The impact on remote and very remote communities will be particularly severe. Reduced access to disability supports will further widen existing inequities and undermine Closing the Gap commitments, placing First Nations children, families and communities at imminent risk of significant and preventable harm.

I have also personally experienced the profound lack of understanding that continues to exist within mainstream systems regarding the impacts of colonisation on First Nations families. Following my son’s autism and adhd diagnosis at 14.5 years of age, I was repeatedly questioned by medical practitioners as to why he had been diagnosed “so late”.

These questions were asked without any recognition of the historical and ongoing impacts of Australia’s policies of genocide, assimilation, family separation and cultural degradation. There was no acknowledgement of the systemic barriers that First Nations families face in accessing culturally safe assessment pathways, nor the intergenerational mistrust of systems that have historically harmed our communities.

The implication that responsibility rests solely with parents ignores the reality that late diagnosis is often the direct consequence of structural inequity, racism, geographic disadvantage and service failure.

Legislation that further reduces access to disability supports will only deepen these harms, increasing the number of First Nations children who remain unidentified, unsupported and vulnerable to poorer lifelong health, education and social outcomes.'

Thank-you Ash for standing strong for First Nations Neurodivergent kids, parents and kin.

We have tabled the statement Ash has shared with the Committee today, and it will be a part of the record of the inquiry and part of our submission as an Association on this dangerous bill.

Ash is stepping down from Vice Presidency to focus on her health and family, and is remaining on our Board as a Director. We are so glad Ash will remain part of our Board, not only because she is our friend and comrade, but because she brings an extremely important lived experience of Neurodivergence - which must far more often be centred in conversations about Neurodivergence and Disability.

[Image Description: A photo of Ash, facing the camera and smiling. She is wearing dark burgundy lipstick and a maroon patterned top. She has dark black hair with silver streaks. She is wearing sunglasses. She has tattoos on her neck and chest. She is outside on a sunny day with bright blue sky behind her.]

10/06/2026

This afternoon, I spoke at the Senate hearing on the NDIS Bill with Every Australian Counts, alongside EAC Chair, Dr George Taleporos and disability advocate, Sam Petersen.

I focused on the gendered impact of this Bill - especially the expansion of “parental responsibility” and what it means for disabled children, families, mothers and carers.

This Bill risks shifting disability support back onto families. And we need to be honest about who is expected to absorb that labour: overwhelmingly mothers, grandmothers, sisters. Women, many of whom are disabled parents themselves.

It effectively says parents should provide substantial care, supervision, transport, personal care, emotional support, behavioural support and daily living support before the NDIS steps in.

That is not choice and control. That is the system telling families - especially mothers - to keep absorbing risk, providing unpaid care and holding everything together, no matter the cost.

I also raised concerns about requirements to exhaust “all other treatments” before accessing NDIS support. In practice, this risks pressuring families to try inappropriate, unsafe or non-affirming interventions before disabled children get the support they actually need.

That is government telling parents how to parent their disabled children.

Disabled children should not have to be harmed, pathologised or pushed through unsafe practices before they are supported.

And parents should not be forced into impossible choices between protecting their child and satisfying bureaucratic requirements.

The question is not whether families love their children enough to provide the support. Of course we do.

The question is whether Parliament should legislate a system that makes disabled people’s safety depend on how much unpaid care the women in their lives can survive providing.

That is not a rights-based NDIS.

It is a return to the old system by another name.

This Bill must not pass.



[Image: Screenshot of an online Senate committee hearing via video call. The screen shows six tiles: Heidi La Paglia appearing by video; Committee Senator speaking from the hearing room; a Committee Secretariat tile with “aph.gov.au”; Sam Peterson appearing by video; a black tile with the Australian coat of arms; and Dr George Taleporos appearing via video. The meeting title at the top reads “SLC Community Affairs 2S1 900-1730 10 June 2026.”]

10/06/2026

Exhausted families could be plunged further into crisis and have greater interaction with child protection services under the proposed overhaul of the NDIS, advocates say.

📲 Read national disability affairs reporter Nas Campanella, with the Specialist Reporting Team's Evan Young and Mary Lloyd's full story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-09/warning-ndis-changes-could-push-families-into-crisis/106776534