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A quick note before you read this: this is not a comprehensive list of everything in the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill. It's my interpretation, as someone who reads this stuff for a living, of what I think families should have on their radar right now. I could be wrong on some of the finer details — the Rules that will actually flesh out a lot of this are still being written. Treat this as a heads-up, not gospel.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill: What Parents Actually Need to Know (In Plain English)
Right, deep breath.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill a new NDIS Bill has worked it’s way through Parliament. If you've tried to read any of the actual explanatory material, you've probably given up somewhere around the third "subsection" and gone back to doom scrolling on IG.
I don't blame you. I read this stuff for work and I still needed alcohol and a lie down.
So here's my attempt at translating the Bill into something you can actually try to wrap your head around while you’re waiting in yet another therapy waiting room.
There is no sugar coating it, this is a big one — it touches how you get into the Scheme, how your plan gets reassessed, what counts as "reasonable and necessary," and even how the NDIA is allowed to use computers to make decisions about your kid.
Some of it is genuinely good news. Some of it needs watching closely. None of it is a reason to panic today.
Here's where things actually stand: this Bill has now passed both Houses of Parliament. It's sitting with the Governor-General waiting on what's called Royal Assent, which is expected within weeks. Once that happens, it's no longer a proposal — it's law. So this isn't a "here's what might happen" article. This is happening. What's still genuinely up in the air is a lot of the fine detail, because that gets fleshed out in "Rules" the Minister writes after the Act is in force, not in the Act itself.
Let's get into it.
The Act is the what, the Rules are the how
Before anything else, you need this one idea in your head, because it explains almost everything below.
The Bill (once it becomes an Act aka the law) sets out the big framework — what's allowed, what isn't, what tests need to be met. But a lot of the actual detail — what counts as evidence, what percentage a funding category might get cut by, which supports get excluded — gets left to something called "the Rules," which the Minister writes later, without needing to go back to Parliament. Remember the Yes/No list that came after the last NDIS Act reform, they are an example of the rules.
This matters because right now, some of this is locked in and dated — commencement dates written into the bill itself, not up for debate. And some of it is a locked door with the key not cut yet, waiting on Rules nobody outside the Government has seen. I've tried to be clear below about which is which.
When does all this actually start?
Genuinely one of the most useful things I can give you is a timeline, because "coming into effect" can mean six different things depending which part of the Bill you're looking at.
The Bill has passed both Houses. Royal Assent — the Governor-General's formal sign-off that turns it into an Act (the law) — is expected within weeks. From that day, the clock starts on everything below.
- The day the Bill receives Royal Assent — the core provisions of the Act itself switch on.
- 7 days after Royal Assent — the first tranche of Schedule changes commence, including the new test for triggering a plan reassessment and the extended timeframe the NDIA has to respond to you.
- 1 October 2026 — the Minister's new power to reduce funding for Improved Daily Living and Social and Community Participation supports by a set percentage kicks in.
- 1 December 2026 — NDIS invoices need to be submitted within 90 days.
- 1 February 2027 — old framework plans (basically every single plan we currently have) move to an automatic reset model, and the tightened "reasonable and necessary" rules around parental responsibility come into force.
- 1 January 2028 — the new "alternative support" test, which affects whether some impairments stay eligible for the NDIS at all, switches on. Tightening of what the Agency define as “permanent” in terms of impairments.
- An independent review of the whole Bill is scheduled for 2029, this means the Government has to prove to Parliament that all of their changes are working.
If you take one thing from this section: nothing changes for your family the day Royal Assent happens. There's no access change of any kind until 1 January 2028 at the earliest, and the Agency has said it will communicate with participants before changes affect them. The biggest structural shifts land from October 2026 onward, in stages, not all at once.
Keep in mind that some of these dates will most likely change. There has been an 18 month delay so far in the roll out of new framework plans. The take home message here is to be aware and prepared.
Plan reassessments: harder in one way, easier in another
This is the one most families will feel first, and it's genuinely a mixed bag.
The harder part: requesting an unscheduled plan reassessment because something's changed is about to get more structured. You'll need to show both a significant, ongoing change in support needs and a significant change in functional capacity, or a defined change in living, education, work or informal support arrangements. "My son's behaviour has escalated" won't cut it on its own anymore, it needs to connect to one of those categories. The NDIA also gets longer to respond to your request, the response window stretches out to 90 days rather than the current 21 days.
The bit that's actually good news: the change in your circumstances doesn't have to be unanticipated anymore. Earlier drafts read as though a foreseeable change — like your child starting high school — wouldn't count, because you knew it was coming. That's been fixed. You only need to show the change is significant and ongoing, not that it caught you by surprise.
And if you put in a request and hear nothing for 90 days, you can now ask for that to be escalated for review — which routes it to a different part of the Agency and gives it a real shot at actually being looked at, rather than sitting in a queue forever.
Plans will automatically reset
When your plan ends, it will automatically renew as a new 12-month plan with the same funding carried over — apart from any one-off funding, which drops off, and whatever the Minister has altered in the meantime. The catch is that the plan resets. Whatever you had left unspent doesn't roll over with it.
No new statement of supports gets written or goals reviewed. In practice, this means we don't need to live the dread of a pending plan reassessment for the last 3 months of our young people’s plans and feel like we are walking into the firing squad. It is still unclear if plans will still be reassessed around the scheduled end date until the roll out of new framework plans. The take away here is that there will be no gaps in supports and funding does not roll over. The end.
The funding cut that won't show up when you read your plan — and the one safeguard built in
This is the one I'd genuinely put at the top of your "pay attention" list.
From October 2026, the Minister will be able to reduce the funding amount for Improved Daily Living and Social and Community Participation supports, for some participants as they go through a plan reassessment, by a set percentage. The figures being talked about at the moment are a 50% reduction for Social and Community Participation and a 10% reduction for Improved Daily Living. This is called a “Support Determination.” Supports linked to employment or disability-related health are meant to be excluded from this — though I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea yet how they're planning to monitor or enforce that in practice.
Here's the part that actually worries me: this doesn't touch the wording of your plan. The dollar figure printed on the page stays exactly the same. What changes is the amount you're actually allowed to spend.
There is one specific safeguard built in. If your child has high support needs requiring continuous 24-hour care, you get a dedicated plan variation pathway if your funding is reduced by a support determination which poses a risk to the safety of your child. You can apply within 90 days (after a reassessment or renewal), and the NDIA can vary your plan to increase funding to make sure that 24-hour care is maintained. Certain support types are also carved out of support determinations altogether — high intensity supports, complex behaviour supports, and customised or wearable technology and hearing supports. And you can still request an unscheduled reassessment at any time if there's a significant, ongoing change in functional capacity or circumstances.
"Support determinations" is the exact term the Bill uses, so it's worth familiarising yourself with it. For everyone else outside that specific safeguard, all I can genuinely offer right now is a wait and see. How well any of this actually gets policed in practice is, honestly, an open question — but I'll keep you posted as we find out more.
Reasonable and necessary: parental responsibility, finally in black and white
Genuinely, thank god for this one.
The Bill clarifies what a parent is expected to provide for a child with disability, for the purposes of deciding whether a support is reasonable and necessary. That includes supervision, personal care, transport, emotional support and behavioural support — basically what a parent of any similarly-aged child would do.
Crucially, it does not include the additional support your child needs because of their disability, compared to a child of a similar age without one. That distinction has always been the right one in practice — this just puts it into law, which means you finally have something concrete to point to the next time "parental responsibility" gets thrown at you as a reason to say no.
The NDIA will also have to consider the risk of harm to informal supports, family relationships and your broader support network if a support isn't funded — not just whether you could theoretically provide it yourself.
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Appropriate treatment: good principle, real gaps
This section clarifies what participants need to show to demonstrate their disability is permanent.
The treatment you're expected to have tried needs to be evidence-based. For those of you with children on the scheme under Early Intervention with a diagnosis of Global Development Delay, it is worth having that conversation with your paediatrician and treating specialists now. The treatments also need to be funded through the public health system, available in Australia, and it can't involve anything that is a restrictive practice — so medication used purely to reduce behaviours of concern (a chemical restraint, in the technical language) doesn't count as something you need to have tried.
The gap. Unfortunately, the Act has signed us all up for a postcode lottery that we never agreed to. If the "best practice" treatment does not exist where you live, might have a two-year public waitlist, or might be something you simply can't afford, too bad. The only accepted excuse for not trying something is on medical grounds, and more Rules are still to be developed to define exactly what that covers.
The bigger issue underneath all of this isn't really about the NDIS saying no. It's that for a lot of families, there's genuinely no other option in the existing systems. We don't have a clear rollout plan for foundational supports outside of Thriving Kids, and even that picture is murky. Until that gap gets filled, provisions like this one risk landing on families who have nowhere else to turn.
Being removed from the scheme: a bit more breathing room
Some actual good news here. If the NDIA is looking at removing someone from the Scheme, the Act now actually defines what "reasonable attempts" to contact you first is. Specifically, five attempts through your preferred method of communication, with at least one of those in writing. And there has to be a minimum of three months between the first and last attempt.
That's a real improvement on being quietly dropped off the Scheme with no warning and a “sorry, we tried to call but you didnt answer."
A few smaller things worth knowing
Automated decisions get a transparency requirement. The NDIA can use computer systems for some administrative tasks. The Bill now requires the Agency to publish details of certain automated decision-making arrangements at least seven days before they start. A full week's notice. Generous.
Kickbacks and incentives from providers are being banned outright. Providers won't be allowed to offer rewards or payments designed to get you to start, keep, or increase your use of their services — including cash, alcohol, tobacco, or electronic devices. Genuine pricing practices and low-value merch like hats or tote bags are still fine. Breaching this carries a fine, up to two years imprisonment, or both. Anyone who's spent time in this sector has a story — I heard one recently about a support coordination provider offering a family $40,000 to switch over. I've run a support coordination business. Trust me, the margins do not stretch that far unless there's something else propping it up behind the scenes. This provision exists for exactly that reason.
So what do you actually do with all this?
As soon as Royal Assent is passed on this bill, it becomes locked in as law however, a lot of the sharpest edges still depend on Rules that haven't been written yet, and none of it touches your access to the Scheme before 1 January 2028. A few things are worth quietly doing over the next few months, though:
- Start a conversation with your paediatrician or treating specialists now about documenting evidence-based treatment you have tried and permanency of your child’s impairments. A conversation every person wants to have about their kid. Not.
- If your child is has IDL or SCP funding, start thinking about how the proposed reduction in funds could affect them This will matter for all plan reassessments from October 2026 onward.
- If you ever get told a support can't be funded because it's "parental responsibility," you now have something concrete to point back to.
FAQs
What happens if my NDIS funding runs out early because of these changes? If your IDL or SCP funding has been affected by the Minister's support determination power, it will run out faster than the printed budget suggests. It's worth tracking your utilisation more closely and exploring some alternative, non-NDIS funded options to explore.
How long does a change of circumstances request take under the new rules? The NDIA's response window has been extended from 21 days to 90 days. If you haven't heard anything within 90 days of requesting an unscheduled reassessment, you can ask for that to be escalated for review — which tends to get it actually looked at.
Do I need to do anything right now? Not urgently — nothing about your access or your current plan changes the moment this becomes law. But it's a good time to start documenting evidence-based treatment with your specialists and to keep a slightly closer eye on supports outside of the NDIS you can lean on.
You don't have to make sense of this alone
If reading all of that has left you wanting to rock in the corner for a little bit, that's a completely reasonable response. This is a lot, and you're allowed to have a moment (or 3) about it.
This may be time to consider reaching out to us through our Family Support Pathways. It's free, it's one-on-one, and you don't need a diagnosis, referral or NDIS plan to start. Find out more HERE
And if you're not quite ready for that yet, that's okay too. If you want to stay across NDIS changes like this as they happen, Hayley sends regular plain English updates straight to your inbox.
No jargon. No overwhelm. Just the stuff that actually matters for your family. Stay in the loop →
