Policy + reform
Policy + reform
The reform program, tracked to its instruments: the Bill, the commencement dates, the accountability record.
A four-year disability plan went on exhibition and drew one submission
Lake Macquarie exhibited its Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2026-2030 for 28 days and received one submission, about seating on a walking path. The council also published the whole engagement funnel beneath it, down to 80,558 people reached by paid media and the 95 who clicked, which is rarer than it should be and shows what the statutory step is for.
Having disability supports involved made a child protection report less likely to get a caseworker
The NSW Ombudsman found DCJ closed 64 per cent of the 244,710 risk-of-significant-harm reports it received in 2024-25 without allocating a caseworker, citing capacity, and made findings of maladministration. One finding belongs to this sector: where a child or carer had disability, other services being involved was too often treated as a reason not to allocate.
We said we would read the first report on the new action plans. It reports commencement, not progress
States were asked for a Commencement Statement and given an option to add a progress update. The report says all reports include the year-to-year indicators; the word indicator appears once in 835 paragraphs, in that sentence.
30 August 2026
Policy + reform
Australia’s disability strategy is halfway through. Its own advisers are sceptical of the scoreboard
The second implementation report runs 167 pages and mostly lists achievements. It also records the Strategy’s Advisory Council doubting that marginal improvements mean anything, disability organisations describing low completion rates, and the newest action plans dropping targets. The independent evaluation reports late this year.
29 August 2026
Policy + reform
Your NDIS decision is wrong. You have three months, you can ask by phone, and the person who decided cannot review it
Section 100 of the NDIS Act, read in full. Written reasons by default, three months from receiving the notice, a request that can be made by telephone with the agency obliged to write it down and date it, a bar on the original decision-maker reviewing their own decision, and 90 days to decide.
26 August 2026
From 1 October the minister can cut part of your NDIS plan. What the Act limits, and what it leaves to a determination nobody has written
Section 34A commences 1 October. The Act closes the list of supports that can be reduced, but the employment and health carve-out is a note on a discretion, and the 24/7 assurance is a capped request in a different budget.
26 August 2026
We read all 56 supported employment submissions. The words subminimum, segregated and 2034 appear in none of the Department's eight themes
291,496 words of submissions against an eight-line summary. Both sides of the argument, quoted, and a provider's own date of 1 July 2028.
25 August 2026
Securing the NDIS for Future Generations is law. The Senate changed the functional capacity test first
Assent on 20 August as Act No. 66 of 2026, after 32 government amendments in a single Senate sitting. The whistleblower protections it added start in July 2027.
25 August 2026
Policy + reform
Queensland has not signed the foundational supports agreement. We checked the document
The signed national agreement carries the Commonwealth and seven of eight states and territories. Queensland appears once, in the parties list, and not in the signature block. Seven Thriving Kids bilaterals are published and none is Queensland's.
Policy + reform
The Foundational Supports agreement is signed. It commits to one cohort, inside a $10 billion cap
We read the signed national agreement rather than the announcements. It commits every government to one group, children aged 8 and under with autism or developmental delay and low to moderate needs. Everyone else is a future negotiation from the same capped envelope, which the agreement says will be sustained by demand management.
Policy + reform
We asked whether this bill carries the Thriving Kids change. It does not, and it does not need to
The bill passed the House on 2 July with 30 amendments. It contains no dated Thriving Kids access clause, but it does contain the two levers such a change would run on.
31 July 2026
Policy + reform
Thriving Kids starts on 1 October. The part that moves children off the NDIS needs a law that has not passed
What starts on 1 October 2026, what does not change until 2028, and the protection written down for children already in the scheme.
31 July 2026
Policy + reform
Every NSW council had to remake its disability plan by 1 July. There is no public register to check who did
The Act requires councils to give their plans to Disability Council NSW for publication on its registry of DIAPs. The guidelines still point to a reporting portal with the placeholder text “[add link once online]”, and have since November 2022. We could not find the registry through four routes.
18 August 2026
Policy + reform
Five attempts over three months, and homelessness does not count. What the NDIS bill’s 30 amendments actually say
The committee credited the House amendments with answering every objection, and nobody had read them. We compared the bill as introduced with the bill as read a third time. A hard-edged contact test, a fenced-in support determination power, and a new independent review clause nobody has mentioned.
16 August 2026
Policy + reform
The committee said pass it, because the amendments already answered the objections. Three senators disagreed, from two directions
The committee view answers concern after concern by pointing at the House amendments of 1 July. Four of the five sector positions we track were stated before those amendments existed. Coalition senators say it does not go far enough, the Greens say it should not pass, and Senator Pocock files seven fixes.
16 August 2026
Policy + reform
Sixty submissions, eight themes and a timetable that ran out in February. Where supported employment reform actually is
The Department received 60 submissions on the future of supported employment and published 55. It set out eight emerging themes, then extended the process into 2026 on a schedule that ended on 27 February. The page still says stage two is underway.
25 August 2026
Policy + reform
The NDIS Bill is argued on fraud. Here is what the police actually told the Senate
The AFP and the ACIC gave evidence on 30 July. Asked four times how much scheme fraud comes from large providers versus small ones, the AFP said it has no system that can answer.
3 August 2026
One Bill, five peak bodies, four positions. The Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill, decoded
Reject, redraft, sector-specific concern, or negotiate the implementation: where the peaks actually stand on the 2026 Bill, in their own words. The Senate committee reported on 14 August 2026 and recommended the Bill pass.
19 July 2026
The reform countdown: every hard date on the NDIS calendar for the next two years
SIL registration is law with a criminal penalty, Thriving Kids starts 1 October, and the Bill-dependent dates run to 2030. The full calendar, cited to its instruments.
19 July 2026
The Royal Commission got a scorecard: 8 of 172 complete. The NDIS Review never got one
The government’s own progress report counts 8 of 172 Commonwealth recommendations complete. The NDIS Review has no public count at all. Both facts, from the government’s own pages.
19 July 2026