The final NDIS reform bill changes: what changed in the Senate, explained

We've been tracking the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 since it entered the Senate. It's now law: the Bill passed Parliament on 19 August 2026 and received Royal Assent the next day, 20 August, becoming the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Act 2026. The version that passed isn't quite what was first introduced. The House of Representatives agreed to a first round of amendments on 1 July 2026, and following further feedback from people with disability, families, advocates and organisations, the government moved a further round of changes in the Senate on 18 August 2026 - two days before Royal Assent. This is what those changes actually do, drawn directly from the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing's own fact sheet.

Fighting fraud: kickbacks, false information, and destroying records

A big chunk of the Senate amendments are aimed squarely at fraud and integrity. Providers can no longer offer or give an inducement or kickback likely to encourage someone to use, keep using, or increase their use of that provider's services - breach it and you're looking at a fine, up to 2 years' imprisonment, or both. Genuine pricing practices and small merchandise like hats or tote bags are fine; alcohol, tobacco, cash and cash-like products, and electronic devices are banned outright as inducements.

New offences were also added directly into the NDIS Act. Providing false or misleading information to the NDIA carries up to 12 months' imprisonment or 120 penalty units for an individual, rising to 5 years or 1,000 penalty units for a serious provider breach. Obtaining NDIS funds by deception carries similar penalties, rising as high as 10 years or 2,000 penalty units for a serious provider breach involving impersonation. Directly relevant to record keeping: intentionally destroying records to defraud the NDIS or disrupt an audit, review or investigation is now its own offence, carrying up to 2 years' imprisonment or 240 penalty units. And a nominee who abuses their position for personal gain or to harm a participant faces a penalty of 120 penalty units.

The amendments also make clear that NDIS providers are not immune from producing documents to a court, tribunal or investigating authority - that immunity now only applies to NDIA and NDIS Commission officers themselves, closing a gap that could otherwise have been used to stonewall serious investigations.

The permanence definition was clarified

Access to the NDIS is granted only once all appropriate treatment to remedy or alleviate an impairment has been undertaken, no other treatment is likely to materially improve it, and the impairment is likely to be lifelong. The Department is clear this doesn't mean trying every possible treatment or force anyone into treatment they don't want: "appropriate treatment" means treatment that's regularly available in Australia with public funding, excludes restrictive practices, and people are never expected to undertake treatment that's unsuitable, carries significant risk, or could alter their fertility or have other major lifelong impacts. This was one of the most contested parts of the original bill - see our dedicated post on what changed for participants for the full detail.

Support determinations and 24-hour care safeguards

Support determinations - the mechanism the Minister uses to reset funding for community participation and capacity-building supports - now come with clearer rules on how they work and who they apply to. Critical care, home and vehicle modifications, personal mobility equipment, continence and menstrual products, Specialist Disability Accommodation, high intensity supports, complex behaviour supports and customised or wearable technology are all excluded from being cut this way. Participants with high support needs who require continuous 24-hour care get a new, dedicated plan variation pathway - they can apply within 90 days of a support determination applying to them, and the NDIA can increase their funding specifically to keep that 24-hour care in place.

Civil, not criminal, standard of proof

One amendment corrects an unintended outcome from an earlier law, the NDIS Amendment (Integrity and Safeguarding) Act 2026: for serious civil penalty breaches, the criminal standard of proof (beyond reasonable doubt) is replaced with the civil standard (balance of probabilities). In practice, that makes it meaningfully easier for a contravention to be established and penalised - a real shift for providers, and one we go into in more depth in our dedicated post on the standard-of-proof change.

Debt recovery safeguards

If the NDIA believes a debt exists, it now must notify the participant or provider and explain why - participants get 28 days to respond, providers 14 - before the NDIA gives notice of whether it intends to recover the debt, and why. The low-value debt waiver threshold rises from $200 to $500, so smaller debts that aren't cost-effective to chase can simply be waived. And if a participant or provider hasn't kept a record in the exact required format, they'll still get the chance to provide alternate evidence that the service was actually delivered.

Why the Senate amendments happened at all

None of this was in a vacuum. As we covered when the bill first hit the Senate, People with Disability Australia, DANA, Every Australian Counts and more than a dozen other organisations had publicly opposed the original drafting - and the 24-hour care safeguards and permanence-definition clarifications in particular read as a direct response to that pushback, even while the government kept the core savings and eligibility reforms largely intact.

This article is general information, is dated 2 September 2026, and reflects the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing's own fact sheet on the final Senate amendments. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDIA or the Department. For advice about your own plan or provider obligations, speak to your planner, the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, or an independent advocate, and verify current requirements at health.gov.au and ndis.gov.au.