Portfolio — 23 April 2026

Minister for the NDIS Jenny McAllister made the most consequential structural announcement in the Scheme's recent history across 22–23 April, releasing a reform package that targets a reduction in NDIS participation from 760,000 to 600,000 people by decade's end — a cut of roughly 160,000 participants [TA-260423-ndis-8ccfa70f47dc]. The centrepiece of the package is a shift away from diagnosis-based eligibility toward a functional capacity assessment, designed to return the Scheme to its stated founding purpose of supporting people with significant and permanent disability [TA-260423-ndis-1ec8486f2a8d].

A technical advisory group will be established to develop the new eligibility definition in consultation with the disability community, states and territories, with implementation scheduled from 1 January 2028 [TA-260423-ndis-8ccfa70f47dc].

The fiscal adjustments are substantial. The social and community participation budget will be cut from an average of $31,000 to $26,000 per participant within two years, pulling total expenditure from $12 billion back toward the level of the prior year [TA-260423-ndis-8ccfa70f47dc]. To cushion that reduction, the Minister announced a $200 million Community Inclusion Fund directing investment toward mainstream community organisations offering social and recreational programs for people with disability, complementing the existing Thriving Kids model for children with low to moderate support needs [TA-260423-ndis-1ec8486f2a8d] [TA-260423-ndis-a0ed2624eb21].

The integrity architecture announced alongside the eligibility and spending changes is extensive. Mandatory registration will apply to providers delivering high-risk services; universal enrolment with the NDIA will be required of all providers for payment visibility; and plan management will move to a commission-based structure to strengthen oversight of participant funds [TA-260423-ndis-8ccfa70f47dc] [TA-260423-ndis-33d4851176ac].

McAllister framed these measures against what she described as the Scheme having become a soft target for fraud and abuse by unregistered or poor-quality providers [TA-260423-ndis-a0ed2624eb21].

The communications pattern around the announcement is notable. McAllister gave six consecutive media interviews across the two-day window, addressing the same core set of contested questions — participant reassessment, eligibility criteria, the scale of the reduction, fraud prevention, social and community participation cuts, and the readiness of state-based foundational supports to absorb those exiting the Scheme.

The consistency across interviews signals a tightly managed announcement strategy. The readiness of foundational supports — the state and territory systems that would need to receive participants who exit or are found ineligible under the new criteria — emerged as a recurring pressure point in questioning, and the records do not indicate that the Minister provided a definitive answer on timing or funding adequacy for those systems.