Linda Reynolds argues that reforming the National Disability Insurance Scheme is a "national obligation." On that point, she is right - but not in the way she intends. If reform is a moral obligation, then morality must sit at the centre of the reform agenda. And morality, in this context, means remembering that the NDIS is not a budget line. It is people. It is lives. It is the difference between participation and isolation, between stability and crisis, between hope and despair.

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Reynolds' column frames the NDIS as a visionary scheme that has drifted from its original intent. But the original intent was not hers to claim. The NDIS was built on a simple premise: Australians with disability deserve the same chance at a good life as anyone else. It was never meant to be a cost-cutting exercise. It was never meant to be a political shield. It was meant to be a promise.

Today, that promise is under strain - not because Australians have turned against the NDIS, but because they are being told to. Public sentiment is responding to a narrative of unsustainability, rorts, and runaway costs. That narrative is not emerging organically from the community; it is being shaped by government messaging. When people hear repeatedly that the scheme is "out of control," they understandably become anxious about its future. But there is no evidence that Australians have abandoned their support for the NDIS itself. What has shifted is the story being told about it.

And that story matters, because it sets the stage for the kind of reform governments feel justified in pursuing.

Reynolds argues that reform is necessary to protect the scheme's sustainability. But sustainability is not a neutral concept. It is a choice. Governments choose what they fund. They choose what they tax. They choose whose interests they prioritise. And right now, the choices being made reveal a moral deficit that runs deeper than any structural flaw in the NDIS.

Consider the ongoing debate about taxing the gas industry. A parliamentary inquiry has been examining........

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