Make your voice heard in the DSS Bill Select Committee

Welcome to NZDSN’s guide to making a submission on the Disability Support Services Bill that’s going before a Parliamentary Select Committee soon.

Read on, or click these links to go straight to:

Timeline

  • Submissions are open now and close 1pm 12 June 2026
  • Select Committee will take three weeks, dates are TBC
    • We will update this page when dates are confirmed
  • Report is due back to Parliament 13 August 2026

What’s happening

The Disability Support Services Bill is being presented by the Government as legislation intended to create a formal legislative framework for Disability Support Services (DSS) in New Zealand. According to the Government, the Bill is part of ongoing work to “strengthen and stabilise” the disability support system following recent operational and funding pressures.

The Bill proposes to establish a statutory basis for Disability Support Services, including:

  • who may be eligible for supports
  • the principles and purposes of the system
  • assessment and decision-making processes
  • the role of “natural supports” such as family and whānau
  • powers relating to funding, allocation, and administration of supports
  • oversight and operational functions within the disability support system

A significant feature of the Bill is that many detailed operational settings are not included directly in the legislation itself. Instead, many important aspects appear intended to be addressed later through secondary legislation, regulations, operational policy, criteria, and administrative processes.

Why this is important

Concerns about the Bill

The Bill is also being progressed through Parliament within a very compressed timeframe, with submissions closing 12 June 2026. This has created significant concern across the disability community about whether disabled people, whānau, carers, providers, and representative organisations have had enough opportunity to properly understand, consider, and respond to the proposed changes.

Concerns raised publicly about the Bill and the process used to develop it include:

  • the lack of meaningful co-design and consultation with disabled people before the Bill was introduced
  • the role and interpretation of “natural supports”
  • the amount of important detail being left to future policy and secondary legislation
  • the broad discretion left to operational decision-making processes
  • the lack of clarity around safeguards, appeals, and rights protections
  • potential impacts on family carers and unpaid caregiving expectations
  • consistency with New Zealand’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)

What Providers should know about the Bill in its current form

If the Disability Support Services Bill proceeds in its current form, providers can expect increasing uncertainty about how the disability support system will operate in practice.

Many important operational details are being left to secondary legislation, Ministerial programmes, operational policy, and future administrative decision-making rather than being clearly set out in the Bill itself. This creates concern about future funding settings, eligibility criteria, operational expectations, and service delivery requirements.

There is also significant concern about the proposed multi-year programme of reform and system change signalled alongside the Bill. NZDSN is worried the current legislation may only represent the beginning of a much larger programme of system change, while many future details remain unclear. This creates uncertainty because key operational settings, funding approaches, eligibility rules, and assessment processes may continue changing over several years after the legislation is passed. We are concerned this could lead to:

  • increasing compliance and administrative requirements
  • more restrictive operational decision-making
  • greater gatekeeping around access to support
  • reduced flexibility to respond to individual needs
  • increasing reliance on unpaid family and “natural supports”
  • growing pressure on families and whānau to fill gaps in formal support services
  • increasing family burnout and crisis
  • growing pressure on providers to manage unmet need within constrained funding environments

Many providers already work alongside families who are exhausted, ageing, financially stretched, and carrying significant caregiving responsibilities. There is concern that the Bill may further shift responsibility onto families without providing adequate safeguards, support, or funding.

There is also concern that once these settings become embedded, meaningful change and funding adjustments may become increasingly difficult, as seen in other MSD-funded disability support programmes such as Employment, Vocational, and Community Participation services, which have experienced longstanding underfunding and increasing administrative rigidity.

NZDSN wants a disability support system that is stable, adequately funded, flexible, transparent, and genuinely person-centred. We do not yet have confidence that the current Bill and wider programme of work will achieve this.

How to make your voice heard

We recognise that many people may wish to make a submission but may not have the time, energy, confidence, or support needed to draft one from scratch within the limited timeframe available. We also recognise that many disabled people face barriers accessing and responding to complex legal and policy information.

To help you have your voice heard in the Select Committee process, we have prepared four draft form-based submissions covering different themes and perspectives. These submissions are intended to help people participate more easily in the process and ensure a wide range of voices can be heard. You are welcome to:

  • use a submission exactly as it is
  • personalise or adapt it to reflect your own experiences and views
  • combine sections from different submissions
  • add your own comments, stories, or concerns

There is no “right” way to make a submission. What matters is that disabled people, whānau, carers, and supporters have the opportunity to have their voices heard on legislation that directly affects their lives.

We encourage everyone who is able to make a submission before the closing date.

What you need to know about making a submission

Submissions are publicly released and published to the Parliament website. Only your name or organisation’s name is required on a submission. Please only provide your contact details when prompted, not in your written submission itself. If your contact details are included in the submission, they may become publicly available when the submission is released.

If you wish to include information of a private or personal nature in your submission you should discuss this with the clerk of the committee before submitting.

If you wish to speak to your submission, please indicate this in the online form. If you would like to make requests to make the submissions process more accessible for you, please contact committee staff.

Use our submission templates

You can make a submission using our guides – feel free to modify and change to your situation or just cut and paste and submit. There are six to choose from:

Make your submission

Make a submission on the Bill
Make a submission in Easy Read format