Women and families of disabled Australians will be unfairly affected by a sweeping rewrite of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, advocacy groups have warned.
A government inquiry into proposed NDIS changes is this week expected to hear evidence that access changes - designed in part to halt ballooning costs - will negatively impact mothers of disabled children, even if they are adults.
About $11 billion of the $16.6 billion savings forecast for 2029/30 will come from eligibility changes, including more detailed assessments, modelling from the Grattan Institute shows.
The changes are likely to reduce NDIS participants to 598,000 in 2030/31 - a third of the expected numbers if no changes were made.
But before changes kick in fully, the majority of cuts will be made in short-term measures, particularly social and community participation funding, which means many clients will rely on their families to help them participate in everyday activities.
