![\"Grant](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/8f40008b3f5ce4ffa8b6e2333d127700462b9f21f1478e02834f50a550837113.png\")
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August 16, 2026 \u2014 9:00am<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Ella jolts around in her chair playing pigeon simulator. She laughs, then screams with delight as her bird takes to the sky and wreaks havoc.<\/p>\n Her best friend Jen* is playing Animal Crossing on a screen beside her, and the two chat, joke and help each other navigate their respective virtual worlds.<\/p>\n Behind them, with his back turned so he can concentrate on the cards on the table in front of him, Tim* is too focused on a game of Magic: The Gathering to notice their laughter.<\/p>\n But the real magic here is that the three are not only gathered, but have become friends.<\/p>\n Brought together by the National Disability Insurance Scheme \u2013 or, more in particular, genU\u2019s NDIS-funded Gamer program \u2013 the unlikely Geelong friends have intensely different personalities but a very similar need: to build social skills, confidence and ways to navigate the world outside.<\/p>\n Related Article They also hold the same fears: that community service cuts to the NDIS will mean the end of their Gamer funding \u2013 and their pathway into the world.<\/p>\n Seeing the benefits Gamer has for Ella \u2013 who has a rare chromosome abnormality, resulting in intellectual disability, global developmental and cognitive delay, speech delay, restricted growth, and low muscle tone \u2013 her mother Debbie is distressed by its potential loss.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the years, we have tried many different programs that haven\u2019t worked, [but] she just loves Gamer. All the kids are open-minded and have accepted Ella for who she is and what she is, they are very understanding,\u201d Debbie said.<\/p>\n \u201cShe comes out beaming most days and lets me know she loves it. She is very, very excited to get up and motivated get to Gamer on time.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Ella\u2019s funding was cut, even just a little bit or altogether, it would be just devastating for the whole family. She would probably just spend all her time in her room, and I wouldn\u2019t be able to get her out, which would affect not only her physical health, but her mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n Run by care provider genU, the Gamer program is like tens of thousands of other programs designed to provide formal social and community participation opportunities for up to 350,000 NDIS-funded participants across the country.<\/p>\n When The Age attended Wednesday morning\u2019s Gamer session, there was another, larger group of participants playing games at the back of the room, separated from Ella\u2019s gathering by tables covered with jigsaws, 3D printers and dozens more activities waiting in boxes.<\/p>\n But much of the talk throughout the room centred on events in another far less colourful room, 730 kilometres away in Canberra, where a Senate committee was preparing to hand down its final report on how $150 billion can be cut from the bloated NDIS over the next decade.<\/p>\n Like hundreds of other NDIS providers, genU had earlier made a submission to the inquiry outlining its impacts on real people, including Ella and her friends, and warning that community programs served a far greater purpose than fun and games.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere community participation supports are withdrawn, the evidence in this submission shows the resulting pressure does not disappear \u2013 it moves to hospitals, families and carers, mental health services, and in some cases justice and crisis response systems. This is inappropriate and ineffective substitution of services,\u201d the genU submission to the senate committee states.<\/p>\n When the Senate inquiry\u2019s report was handed down late on Friday<\/a>, it all but confirmed those fears. While a Labor-led human rights committee will continue to push for ways to stop vulnerable people falling through the cracks, the report paved the way for the government to rein in the NDIS by removing 240,000 participants over the next five years, and to slash the social and community participation budgets of those who remain.<\/p>\n Debbie, Ella and her friends are all too aware that the Gamer program looks like an easy target for those cuts, at least on paper.<\/p>\n The genU program focuses on young people and attempts to engage them in interests they already have, by setting up games and drawing people in to play together, while its workers then fade into the background and subtly try to steer the interactions when needed.<\/p>\n Its success is that from week to week participants such as Ella, Tim and Jen increasingly need fewer interventions during their Gamer sessions, and far beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cThe NDIS is important because it gives me access to communities that I would normally not have,\u201d Tim told The Age, after winning his Magic: The Gathering game.<\/p>\n \u201cI suffer mass anxiety, depression, and I am autistic, which doesn\u2019t help making friends and all that. Here [Gamer] can bring a lot of frustration because I don\u2019t always agree with people, but that is necessary.<\/p>\n![\"Ella,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5d767b9092e9bd1e27c70ece2c262bfeed9c8845.jpeg\")
Ella, centre, is worried that losing her NDIS package means she will no longer be able to see her friends.Simon Schluter<\/p>\n![\"Greens](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/06a9e8a98be682f9d2fd8e0880451a2f3a5ee9fd.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Debbie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/fb4bbaa4aacdb420248cdbba2de7804b152c9c07.jpeg\")
Debbie (left) is worried what will happen to her daughter Ella if she loses the Gamer program. Simon Schluter<\/p>\n
![\"Many](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0173b4dc5cd3e163c0552e32f524bc157e2366a0.jpeg\")
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