A Letter From Me

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Hello,

My name is Tereina, and I started The Good Fight in October 2023.

Before this, I spent four years working inside the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) as an Internal Review Team Leader. Prior to that, I worked at the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission during its early establishment in 2018.

Working inside the system gave me a view that most people never get to see. I saw how decisions were made. I saw what evidence decision-makers were actually looking for. And I saw how often participants were denied supports without ever being told what information was missing.

Over time, something started to bother me deeply.

It felt like the NDIS had its own language — a language participants were expected to understand, yet were never taught. People were expected to provide the right evidence, ask the right questions and meet the right criteria, but no one was explaining what those things actually were.

It felt like expecting someone to unlock a door without ever giving them the key.

The moment that changed everything came when a Support Coordinator asked me to help explain a decision for her participant. The participant had been denied 24-hour one-to-one support. I reviewed the decision and helped identify the gaps in the evidence and how those gaps could be addressed during the internal review.

The participant eventually received the funding.

That moment stuck with me. It was a reminder that sometimes the difference between being denied support and receiving it is not the need itself — it is understanding how the system works.

That was the beginning of The Good Fight.

Since then, I have helped more than 500 participants navigate the NDIS. Together, we have secured over 13 million dollars in improved plan funding. But along the way, I realised something important.

Helping people through consultations alone was not the long-term solution. It often left me feeling burnt out, and it meant I could only help one person at a time.

So I stepped back for a while and asked myself a hard question: how could I help more people, without becoming the gatekeeper of information that should never have been hidden in the first place?

The answer was education.

Today, The Good Fight focuses on creating digital tools and resources that help participants, families and NDIS professionals understand how the system actually works. The goal is not to make people dependent on an advocate. The goal is to give people the knowledge and confidence to advocate for themselves.

Because participants deserve what the NDIS says it stands for: transparency, responsiveness, empowerment, respect and connection.

If The Good Fight can help even a small number of people better understand the system and stand up for what they are entitled to, then the work is worth it.

Thank you for being here.

— Tereina
Founder, The Good Fight