The latest NDIS Quarterly Report still shows spending still growing faster than government will tolerate. This explains the politics now unfolding around tighter eligibility, lower growth and a much harsher fiscal regime.

The NDIS is slowing. Expenses reached $38.0 billion, $350 million above the sustainability projection. That’s enough for Canberra. The latest Quarterly Report is full of good news; which is precisely why it matters.

More people are being supported. Participant outcomes are improving. Hospital discharge delays are down. Complaints are closing faster. Plan inflation has fallen sharply. In several operational respects, the NDIS looks better run than a year ago.

But buried in the report is the figure that will drive the next phase of NDIS politics.

For the first nine months of 2025–26, total Scheme expenses reached $38.0 billion. That’s $350 million, or 0.9 percent, above last year’s projection.

Growth is moderating but is still running at over 11 percent, a level government says is simply unsustainable.

That’s the report’s political meaning. The government has set a new fiscal destination for the NDIS. This data says the Scheme is not yet travelling quickly enough towards it.

The report says 774,456 participants had approved NDIS plans at 31 March, with 18,530 people entering the Scheme during the quarter. But 27 percent of those who had their plan reviewed had budgets reduced by more than 5 per cent. A year earlier 17 per cent were cut by that amount.

Belts are tightening. The NDIA is responding to the signals coming from Canberra.

This matters because the report landed one day after the government introduced its Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill. The legislation promises a tighter gate, narrower discretion, and more direct control.

The NDIS is not running wild and government’s case is harder to make from these figures. But the scheme is still too expensive. This is why the next chapter will be about cuts and controls.

Read: the full NDIS Quarterly Report Q3 2025–26. Sector analysis of the latest Quarterly Report is only beginning to emerge. abilityNEWS will return to this issue as advocates, analysts and researchers publish their assessments.

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The latest NDIS Quarterly Report arrives at an awkward moment.

The government has just introduced legislation that will redraw the Scheme. Eligibility tightens and access will be set by (harsher) rules. Ministers will gain new powers to define what the NDIS does and does not fund. The Budget has already counted the savings. The political intent is plain. Canberra wants the NDIS to cost less. Much less.

Then this report lands.

It does not show a Scheme in freefall. It shows something more complicated: a large public program still growing rapidly, but one whose growth is beginning to slow; a bureaucracy that is reporting better performance on several measures; a participant population that continues to expand; and a cost curve that is bending, though not far enough to meet the government’s new fiscal settings.

This distinction matters.

The Quarterly Report says Scheme expense growth was 11.3 per cent in the 12 months to March 2026, down from 11.8 per cent a year earlier. It says plan inflation fell to 5.9 per cent in the March quarter, compared with 11 per cent last year. Inter-plan inflation (growth at reassessment) dropped from 5.6 per cent to 3.0 per cent. Intra-plan inflation (growth within plans between reassessments) fell from 5.4 per cent to 2.8 per cent.

These are not trivial shifts. They show the Agency’s existing controls are beginning to bite. The report itself points to “reforms to make the NDIS fairer and sustainable” and says the NDIA had already warned government about cost growth above its financial projections.

But one number changes everything.

For the first nine months of 2025–26, total Scheme expenses were $38.0 billion. That was $350 million above the June 2025 Annual Financial Sustainability Report projection. Not wildly above. Not a blowout in the tabloid sense. But enough. Because this government has now committed itself to a much steeper slowing of NDIS growth than the Scheme is currently delivering.

The NDIS is slowing but not fast enough.

The report gives ministers two stories to tell. The Scheme had 774,456 participants with approved plans at 31 March 2026, a net quarterly increase of 13,014. A further 18,530 participants entered and received a plan during the quarter. Most reported better outcomes.

The Contact Centre recorded 92 per cent customer satisfaction with eighty-six per cent of complaints were closed within 21 days. That’s not a report of failure and budget control is visible inside the data.

A more complex take comes from plan reassessments, where 18 per cent of active participants had reassessed plans with 54 per cent increasing by more than 5 per cent.

But others (27 per cent) fell by more than 5 per cent. That’s sharply up from 17 per cent in the same period a year earlier. The knife is not just being sharpened for later. Some trimming is already happening.

The composition of the market also matters.

The report says unregistered providers make up 92 per cent of plan manager payments, receiving 41 per cent of payments. Registered providers account for a much smaller share of provider numbers but receive a larger concentration of higher-value payments.

That, too, has political consequences. The government says it is cracking down on rorts, improving integrity and protecting participants, meaning plan manager payments are likely to be targetted. The new Bill is framed in exactly those terms.

But the Budget numbers and the Quarterly Report together show a broader purpose. This is not simply about fraud. It is about forcing the Scheme onto a lower cost path.

The danger is that those two arguments become blurred.

Fraud is real. Sharp practices are real. Poor provider behaviour is real. The Quarterly Report says the Fraud Fusion Taskforce has disrupted more than 2,500 providers that had submitted incorrect or non-compliant claims, with $1 billion collectively claimed in the 12 months before disruption. That matters.

But fraud control does not explain the full scale of the savings now being pursued. Nor does it explain the proposed tightening of eligibility, the narrower definition of NDIS supports, or the new mechanisms for controlling funding decisions. The more honest argument is fiscal. The government believes the Scheme, even after recent moderation, remains too expensive to sustain on its preferred terms.

This will be used as evidence that reform is necessary. It should also be read as evidence of what reform is now likely to become. The government will say the numbers show discipline is working. Treasury will say they do not yet show enough discipline. Disability advocates will say that a Scheme delivering stronger outcomes should not be reshaped primarily around savings targets.

All three claims contain some truth.

But only one will determine the next Budget.

The report’s significance is not that it reveals an NDIS out of control. It does not. Its significance is that it reveals an NDIS whose growth is slowing, but not fast enough to satisfy the government’s new fiscal covenant. That will set the scene for more cutbacks in spending, tighter gatekeeping, harsher reassessments and a less forgiving Scheme.

The NDIS is entering a new phase: not abolition. Constriction. Not collapse. Control.

The cost curve has bent. Canberra wants it lower still.

Read: the full NDIS Quarterly Report Q3 2025–26.