by Helen Freris
While some NDIS supports are designed to build participant capacity with the long‑term aim of reducing support needs, this assumption cannot be universally applied to blindness‑related supports. Many tasks and environments are inherently visual, and no amount of capacity building can remove the need for assistance in navigating visual information. For people who are blind or have low vision, support provision – not capacity building – is often the only effective mechanism for equitable participation.
As the NDIS shifts its eligibility and planning framework toward a stronger focus on functional capacity, blind and low‑vision participants face an unfair burden. They are required to undergo detailed scrutiny of their daily lives, with assessments that attempt to quantify their ability to function across multiple domains. This approach risks overlooking the broader reality: a participant’s functional capacity is significantly shaped by society’s functional incapacity to provide accessible environments, information, and systems.
NDIS supports frequently fill these gaps, not because of individual deficits, but because accessibility has not been meaningfully embedded across government, business, and community settings. Greater investment in accessibility and universal design could reduce unnecessary reliance on the NDIS by addressing these systemic barriers at their source.
It is important to reinforce that the nature of vision impairment must be central to support planning. Blindness‑related supports exist primarily to bridge gaps created by visual content, environments, and tasks. These supports may be routine or episodic, with needs fluctuating depending on the stability of a person’s vision. Both forms of support are equally valuable in enabling safe, confident navigation of a visually complex world.
Assessment tools and algorithms, however, are limited by their design. They often struggle to account for nuance, context, and the lived experience of blindness, and they inevitably reflect the biases of their creators. While the NDIA has stated that assessments will continue to be conducted by “real people,” it remains unclear how much authority these assessors will have to challenge or override system‑generated determinations.
Efforts to reduce NDIS costs must also acknowledge that these costs do not disappear when removed from the Scheme – they simply shift elsewhere. In the absence of adequate supports, the burden falls on other service systems, or more commonly, on the participant and their informal networks. The existence of natural supports cannot be assumed, nor should reliance on them be treated as an obligation. Over‑reliance risks reinforcing power imbalances, straining relationships, and ultimately diminishing a participant’s wellbeing. When supports are withdrawn or restricted, the internalised cost to the participant can manifest as increased stress, reduced independence, and poorer mental health, placing further pressure on already stretched health systems.
The broader discourse surrounding the NDIS reflects a troubling power imbalance. People with disabilities are often overlooked until the cost of their supports becomes a point of public debate, at which point they are framed as burdensome or unsustainable. While both government and the disability sector acknowledge that structural reform is needed, people with disabilities remain the strongest advocates for a sustainable, ethical, and accountable NDIS – one that preserves choice and control while ensuring long‑term viability. In this context, it is important that BCA’s advocacy highlights the commitment of blind and low‑vision Australians to co‑designing an effective, meaningful NDIS in partnership with other disability groups, the NDIA, and government representatives.
The positioning of people with blindness and low vision as active contributors to this co-design process and to society as a whole cannot be underrated. By far the majority of people with blindness and low vision actively contribute to their communities to society as neighbours, volunteers, workers and citizens. Some of us are taxpayers, and substantially more of us would be with reduced structural barriers to employment.
Lived experience of disability is essential to shaping a system that is fair, functional, and genuinely inclusive.