NDIS Amendment Bill 2024 approved by Lower House of Parliament
The Bill addresses priority recommendations from the NDIS Review that are aimed to improve both financial sustainability of the scheme and participant experience.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Getting the NDIS Back on Track No. 1) Bill 2024 was approved by the House of Representatives on 5 June 2024.
About the changes
There were further changes proposed by the Federal Government to clarify key elements, which have been agreed to. The Bill will now go on to be considered by the Senate.
The initial amendments proposed as part of the Bill are summarised below, and can also be found on the Parliament of Australia’s website.
- Instead of making reference to specific articles under the Convention on the Rights for People with Disability, section 10 now generally references Australia’s obligations under the Convention.
- New transitional NDIS rules will set out supports and classes of supports that are or are not NDIS supports based on existing intergovernmental agreements and the current NDIS (Support for Participant) Rules 2013.
- These transitional rules will be developed in consultation with the disability community and will be replaced by new Category A rules requiring state and territory agreement.
Feedback from the House of Representatives resulted in further amendments, clarifying key elements of the review, including:
- that co-design is central to the Government’s reform agenda
- that no changes have been made to participants’ rights of review
- ensuring that participants will have a copy of their needs assessment
- ensuring there are appropriate safeguards around new information gathering powers, and
- embedding an independent 5-year review of the operation of the Bill.
The amendments will enable key recommendations from the NDIS Review to be progressed, which will:
- clarify the NDIS access requirements and the supports that the NDIS will provide a participant
- create a new model for determining a reasonable and necessary budget, and
- provide more flexibility on how the Commissioner can take regulatory actions to protect NDIS participants from abuse, harm, and neglect.
Next steps
When legislation passes, the Australian Government will go through a consultation and co-design process with the disability community on updates to the NDIS Rules – continuing to keep people with disability at the heart of NDIS reforms.
The changes will take time to develop and will be implemented in stages, using a phased and considered approach.
Yooralla will continue to keep the community up to date with any progress and developments on the recommendations of the DRC. Please refer to our NDIS reforms webpage for any updates on the DRC and the NDIS review.