Greens Senator Calls NDIS Cuts 'Out of Line With Australian Values' as Bill Clears Committee

Greens senator Jordon Steele-John has called the Albanese government's NDIS cuts "out of line with Australian values" in a video statement published by The Guardian on 17 August 2026, urging the government and the Coalition not to proceed with the legislation.

Steele-John described the cuts as "unnecessary" and accused the government of backing gas exporters over the disability community. It is the sharpest framing the Greens have put on the bill, and it landed on the day the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee's final report on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 was due to be tabled. That committee had already recommended in an interim report, dated 23 June, that the bill be passed.

The bill's path through Parliament is well-worn. The Senate sent it to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee on 14 May. The scrutiny committee (a separate body that checks whether bills trespass on personal rights) considered it on 12 June. The interim report, with its recommendation to pass, came 11 days later. After public hearings in August, including one in Perth, the committee pushed its final reporting deadline to 14 August. The final report was published this month.

The crossbench has not gone quietly. On 14 August, The Guardian reported that crossbench senators, including David Pocock, delivered a scathing Senate inquiry report calling Labor's NDIS overhaul "too far, too fast." Steele-John had moved a successful motion on 18 July to extend the inquiry, buying more time for stakeholders to have their say.

Steele-John's message has been consistent all year. In a Greens media release on 22 April, he accused Labor of "cynically booting 160,000 people off the NDIS while letting big gas corporations avoid $17 billion in tax." Two weeks earlier, on 9 April, he said "Labor is trying to cut the NDIS instead of taxing gas exports." The Greens have argued the government could tax the wealth of the top 1%, tax gas exports, or make big corporations pay their fair share rather than trim the scheme. That framing ties NDIS savings to foregone gas-tax revenue — disability funding set against fossil-fuel profits.

What is notable about the 17 August video statement is the register. "Out of line with Australian values" is not a technical critique of the bill's provisions; it is a values pitch aimed at the public. The earlier Greens releases ran the economic argument: the savings were unnecessary because revenue was available elsewhere. The video statement compresses both into a single moral claim — the government is choosing gas corporations over disabled people.

The committee process has given the crossbench material to work with. The interim report recommended passage, but the extension Steele-John secured meant dissenting voices got additional hearings, including in Perth, a city with particular sensitivity on NDIS matters given Western Australia's late shift to the national scheme. The final report, now published, sits alongside the scathing crossbench commentary that Pocock and others delivered.

The bill's fate in the Senate depends on crossbench numbers, and the government will need to negotiate with senators who have a committee process and public hearings behind their objections. Labor and the Coalition have both indicated support for the bill in principle, with the interim recommendation to pass reflecting that consensus. The crossbench position, amplified by Steele-John's video, is that consensus is precisely the problem.

There is a structural tension worth flagging here. The committee majority recommended passage on the interim report; the crossbench minority has used the extended inquiry to build a public case against it. Steele-John's video statement on 17 August is the latest sortie in that campaign, and it arrived the same week the final report was due. The timing is not accidental.

The broader question for anyone watching the Senate arithmetic is whether the values-based framing moves votes. The economic argument — that $17 billion in foregone gas tax could fund NDIS supports — has been the Greens' line since April. It has not shifted the government's position. The pivot to "Australian values" suggests the Greens are now testing whether a moral argument lands where a fiscal one has not. The Senate will be the judge of that.