This bills digest assists with consideration of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 (the Bill), which was referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee on 14 May 2026 for inquiry. The digest follows an earlier preliminary bills digest.

Key points

The Bill is the third tranche in the Australian Government’s announced series of legislative amendments in response to the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability and the independent review of the NDIS. It also draws on the 2024 advice of the NDIS Provider and Worker Registration Taskforce, and the findings of the Australian National Audit Office 2019 report into the National Disability Insurance Scheme Fraud and Control Program.

The Bill is primarily aimed at reducing projected growth in NDIS expenditure and participant numbers, while strengthening fraud controls, provider regulation and governance arrangements.

The Bill will make several significant amendments to the operation of the NDIS, including:

• introducing a power for the Minister to reduce funding for specified groups of supports
• amending access and planning arrangements, including by defining functional capacity, limiting participant-requested plan reassessments, expanding the circumstances in which a person’s plan can be suspended, strengthening the link between supports and eligible impairments, changing reasonable and necessary support provisions, and allowing consideration of access to other service systems
• strengthening fraud, compliance and regulatory arrangements, including by changing the definition of NDIS provider, introducing civil penalties, expanding information-gathering powers, imposing record-keeping requirements, changing claims timeframes and amending plan management arrangements.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has raised substantial concerns with the Bill.