Five NDIS reform consultations have closed. The eligibility thresholds and the budget calculations were not yet in them

This is general information about what the department’s consultation documents say, not advice about anyone’s eligibility or plan.

What the five consultations asked

The department’s NDIS reforms hub now opens with one line: All consultations have now closed for 2026. It lists five, each with its own paper and Easy Read version, and each taking written or video submissions.

Dates from each consultation’s page on consultations.health.gov.au. The other columns summarise each page and paper, quoted where marked. All dates are 2026 unless shown.

The windows overlapped. By our count, four of the five were open at once on eight days: 31 August, and 7 to 13 September. The department’s September 2026 reform timeline lists one more consultation in the same months that is not on the hub, on expanding differentiated pricing for unregistered providers, from 1 July to 30 September. The fund’s paper said of its own 29-day window: We acknowledge the consultation period is shorter than we would like. It gave the reason as finalising the design in time for funding to start by June 2027.

Who gets in: the access paper left the threshold for later

The access paper lists the reforms in plain terms. Among them: a standardised, evidence-based assessment of functional capacity, and Removing diagnosis lists as the means of entry to the NDIS. It ties them to Schedule 1 of the amending Act, naming a new definition of functional capacity (Part 1), permanence (Part 8) and eligibility based on access to other services (Part 9). We have set out when each part of that Act starts in every date the NDIS Act changes. On timing, the paper says Access reforms will be implemented from 1 January 2028, with current NDIS participants reassessed over a 3-year transition period.

What it put to the public was the foundation, not the settings. It offers seven draft guiding principles, which it says do not represent final government policy, and six questions on process design and the evidence for permanence. It is explicit about what is missing:

We are not yet consulting on all of the details. We recognise that further engagement is needed to understand your views on final eligibility thresholds, transition arrangements or implementation processes.

Those details sit with the Technical Advisory Group on NDIS Functional Capacity, which the paper says Commonwealth, state and territory governments set up in July 2026 to advise the Disability Reform Ministerial Council on different assessment approaches, tools and thresholds. Its fourth meeting was on 13 October. The communique says The meeting focused on the development of a future assessment model for NDIS access. Members discussed evidence, workforce, how substantially reduced functional capacity interacts with permanence, and how the policy applies to episodic, fluctuating and progressive impairments. They also considered early findings from the access consultation: Submissions are being reviewed and will inform updates to the draft framework and work to develop the future assessment model. The communique does not say what that draft framework contains or when it will be published.

The access paper does promise a return: There will be more opportunities to provide feedback as reform work progresses. It gives no date. It also says the advisory group will not advise on access thresholds for Thriving Kids.

How plans and budgets will be set: the rules, and a formula still in testing

New framework planning needs eight new NDIS rules. The paper says four were consulted on between January and March 2026; this round covered the other four. Participants aged 18 and over start moving to the new planning from April 2027, and The transition is expected to be completed by December 2030 for all participants. The support needs assessment factsheet adds that participants who have not received a Notice of Impairment will begin receiving one from 1 February 2027.

The assessment is described in detail: a conversation with a trained NDIA assessor, a core assessment across 12 domains based on a modified version of the I-CAN instrument, a questionnaire on personal circumstances, and a menu of 23 targeted assessments, which not every participant needs for things like assistive technology and behaviour support. Budgets would be built from 18 categories of support, 8 flexible and 10 stated, in plans of up to five years. The money itself is the part still being tested. The paper’s own question says so: Further information and details about the budget method calculations will be provided later in 2026 after more testing is done.

The NDIS supports paper, consulted on alongside, carries the most concrete proposals of the round. It would cut the support categories from 36 to 18, list five more exclusions (noise-cancelling headphones, fencing and gates, hair styling tools, hydrogen fuel and electric vehicle charging, and scuba therapy), and end the replacement supports process for old and new plans alike. As at 17 July 2026 the department had received 11,051 replacement support requests: 5,545 approved, 2,072 pending, 1,439 invalid and 1,995 refused. Tablets, apps, smart watches and smart phones were the most requested, and those would become stated supports where they meet the requirements. Otherwise, no items, including standard commercially available household items, would be available through a replacement supports process.

The planning paper the hub now links carries updated-20261006 in its file name, as do its summary and the support needs assessment factsheet, and still calls itself the August 2026 paper. The hub does not say what changed, and we do not hold the earlier version to compare.

Support coordination: the decision is made, the design is open

This consultation was about how, not whether. From 1 July 2028 the NDIA would contract organisations to deliver support coordination in defined regions, instead of participants buying it with plan funding from one of the approximately 11,000 support coordinators across Australia. The paper tells participants directly that from then you will no longer be given funding in your NDIS plan to pay for a support coordinator, and tells providers that some current organisations may become providers of the new service and Other current providers will no longer deliver these services from 1 July 2028.

What is open: who qualifies (two levels, SCC and SCC+, on criteria the paper says will be agreed by the Government), the regions, the payment model, and the provider model. On that last point the paper leans: The preferred model, based on early thinking, is for a lead organisation. That means one organisation per region responsible for providing or contracting all of its support coordination. Its indicative timeline puts procurement in 2027.

Supported Independent Living: whether, not how

The SIL paper says about 37,000 participants receive it and government spending on it exceeds $16 billion a year. The consultation asked whether government should commission part of that market, and for whom, and the page is plain that The Government has not decided whether or not it will introduce SIL commissioning. Next, it says, The department aims to provide advice and options to government in late 2026. The paper adds that the department may run further public consultation on any future model.

The consultation that was deferred

The hub names one consultation that did not run:

The Government has decided to defer public consultation on market reforms for social and community participation and capacity building activities following stakeholder feedback on the volume of consultation underway. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing will provide further updates on timing for public consultation in the coming months.

It had been signposted. The Inclusive Communities Fund paper said The department will consult separately on NDIS Social and Community Participation market reform. The same paper acknowledged that people with disability and the sector had expressed strong concerns about changes to NDIS funding for those supports. Those funding changes are a separate measure with their own date: the department’s Securing the NDIS page says Participant supports budgets for social, civic and community participation supports and capacity building daily activities will be progressively adjusted from 1 October 2026. Its September timeline says the resets happen as plans are reassessed or renewed. So those budgets are scheduled to be reset from 1 October, and the consultation on how that market should work has no date.

What happens next, and when

1. 14 October 2026The last consultation, on new framework planning and NDIS supports, closes.
2. “Shortly”What We Heard report on new framework planning and NDIS supports.
3. Late 2026Department aims to give government advice and options on SIL commissioning.
4. Later in 2026Budget method details; ministers asked to release exposure drafts of all eight planning rules for further consultation.
5. 1 February 2027Notices of Impairment begin for participants who have not had one.
6. 2027Procurement of support coordination and connection providers, on the indicative timeline.
7. April 2027Adult participants begin moving to new framework planning.
8. By June 2027Inclusive Communities Fund money expected to start flowing.
9. 1 January 2028Access changes begin; current participants reassessed over three years.
10. 1 July 2028Commissioned support coordination and connection service begins.
11. December 2030New framework planning transition expected to be complete.

From the consultation pages and papers, the support needs assessment factsheet and the department’s September 2026 timeline. Quotation marks show the department’s own word where it gives no date.

And where the documents give no date at all:

• The hub’s reports on what people said in each consultation, which it says will be made available.
• The next round on access, including eligibility thresholds and transition arrangements.
• The SIL summary of responses, and any further SIL consultation.
• The deferred consultation on social and community participation market reform, beyond in the coming months.
• The support coordination eligibility criteria, and the payment and regional model.

For the rest of the scheme’s fixed dates, see the reform countdown.

Our view

This is opinion, built on the documents above. The round asked real questions, and the papers are plain about their limits: the access paper says in terms what it is not yet asking, and the planning consultation published a draft plan and a draft assessment report. But it consulted on frameworks while the settings that decide outcomes were still being worked out elsewhere. Whether a person gets into the scheme will turn on the access threshold and the functional capacity assessment; how much they get will turn on the budget method. None of those settings was put to the public in this round, by the papers’ own account.

That sequencing can be defended: principles first, settings after. It only works if the settings come back for consultation with enough time to change them. The access change starts on 1 January 2028, 442 days after this story's date, and the current participants’ reassessments follow. The paper promises more opportunities without a date. We think the department should publish one, alongside the advisory group’s draft framework.

The deferral reason holds up on the calendar: four consultations were open at once for eight days, and each asked people with disability and their families to read a paper and respond. The fund’s own paper conceded its window was short. Deferring another consultation was sensible. It does leave participants in social and community participation supports with budgets scheduled for reset from 1 October and no date for a say on the market that serves them. And none of the five consultation pages publishes or links to submissions, so the only account of what people said will be the department’s summaries. We would rather see the submissions too, where their authors agree.

What we could and could not check

We read the hub, the five consultation pages and the full consultation papers for each, plus the NDIS supports paper, the support needs assessment factsheet, the advisory group’s 13 October communique and the department’s Securing the NDIS page and timeline. We did not read the Easy Read or Word versions, the draft participant plan or draft assessment report templates, the budget and plan variation factsheets, or the advisory group’s earlier communiques. No consultation page gives a count of submissions, and none links to published responses. We have not sought comment from the department or the NDIA, and make no claim about what any submission said.

We will read the What We Heard report on new framework planning and the exposure drafts of the planning rules when they are published, and report how they answer the questions these papers left open.