Help defend the rights of Australia's most vulnerable autistic children

Proposed Getting the NDIS Back on Track bill

We need your help to defend the rights of Australia’s most vulnerable autistic children.

Autism Partnership is deeply concerned that the Federal Government’s proposed NDIS bill will have a devastating impact on preschool-aged autistic children who require intensive early intervention. While we support any move to combat NDIS fraud, we believe the bill will have unintended consequences for the profoundly autistic children and their families who need the funding most.

Securing funding for intensive early intervention is already challenging, with most families having to fight their cases through the NDIS review and appeals process.

We fear this proposed legislation will further empower the NDIA to impose plan restrictions, including control over plan management, restricting what services can be accessed and imposing monthly spending limits. We are at a critical juncture, and there is a genuine risk that intensive services for children in Australia will no longer be available.

Amendments to the bill

To protect the rights of children and families, we believe some key amendments are needed:

• Amending the bill to ensure that all decisions that impact a child’s plan are legislated as reviewable decisions.
• Amending the bill to ensure that plan restrictions are not applied to the plans of children in the early intervention stream, provided families can prove that funds are being used to access evidence-based early intervention.

How you can help

We must take collective action to ensure our voices are heard and to protect vulnerable children from these harmful changes. We encourage you to email your local Member of Parliament (MP) and the Shadow NDIS Minster, Hon Michael Sukkar, to express your opposition to the proposed NDIS bill in its current form and ask for the above amendments to be made.

Here are some resources to help you:

• Email template to write to your MP & the Shadow NDIS Minister – Personalising it with your specific situation, experiences, and concerns is always more powerful.
• Find your local MP’s email address here.
• Email the Shadow NDIS Minister, Hon Michael Sukkar MP, via his online contact form.
• Encourage your friends and family members to also email to their MP and the Shadow NDIS Minister.

Every voice and every email counts.

Thank you for your support.

Shannon Eeles, CEO