House of Representatives Date: 2 September 2025
Speaker:
I call the Member for Fisher.
Andrew Wallace MP:
Thanks, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Over the past few weeks, I have been inundated with messages from NDIS participants and allied health professionals across my electorate, all sharing the same story. The Albanese Government’s sudden changes to the NDIS pricing arrangements are unworkable, unfair, and they are causing pain.
I have already met with allied health professionals, many of them small, community-based providers. They tell me that the reduction in professional fees and travel allowances will make it almost impossible to keep their doors open. I have also spoken to countless participants who rely on these services every single week. For them, these changes are not just numbers on a page. They are a direct threat to their independence, their mobility and their quality of life.
One local participant, Andrew, I will call him Andrew S, lives with Parkinson’s disease. Andrew is 57, he has a family, and until his diagnosis was living a happy, productive life in sunny Caloundra. Now, living with a progressive, life-limiting condition that steadily erodes function and independence, Andrew was recently reassessed as having higher support needs. His package was increased from $50,000 over three years to $144,000 over two years.
On paper, this should have been a life-changing support. But under these new NDIS rules, that funding is meaningless if his therapists cannot survive financially. He now faces the heartbreaking reality of dipping into his own savings and using his credit card to pay for critical therapy sessions, the very therapy sessions that the NDIS is meant to provide.
Andrew told me: “My disability is lifelong. Instead of my NDIS package supporting me, I am left worrying about money while my kids watch me struggle with Parkinson’s and the stress that it brings.”
Andrew’s story is sadly not unique, and it is a warning sign of what is coming for countless families if these changes go ahead unchecked. The Coalition has formally written to the Minister for Disability and the NDIS, calling for these changes to be deferred for at least three months to allow for proper consultation and planning.
We have made it clear that this is not just about numbers. It is about people, their families and their futures. We will continue to hold the Government to account and fight to protect participants and the providers they rely upon, because if the Government does not change course, it will not just be therapy services that close. It will be the doors to independence and dignity for the most vulnerable Australians.
We have repeatedly said that we will work with the Government to make the NDIS more effective and more sustainable. However, throwing the baby out with the bathwater will only make life more difficult and more expensive for vulnerable Australians.
END
Media Contact: Brendan West – 0402 556 646 – Brendan.west@aph.gov.au
