Heidi La Paglia: Disability Rights Advocate & Consultant

01/09/2026

NDIS participants now have new record-keeping obligations. But exactly what do you need to keep?

The changes that started on 27 August require relevant records to be kept for different periods.

Current NDIA guidance says:

📁 Participants: 3 years
📁 Nominees: 5 years
📁 Providers: 7 years

But the NDIS Rules will provide more detail about exactly which records must be kept.

That detail matters.

People with disability need clear, accessible information about what they're expected to keep, in what form, and what happens if a record is lost or can't be produced.

Participants shouldn't have to become compliance experts just to use their NDIS funding.

Until there is more clarity, keeping records of spending, receipts and important communications with the NDIA is increasingly important.

We'll keep watching for further guidance and let you know what it means.

If these changes have already impacted you, we want to hear your story: https://forms.gle/SFPLCv2cCg5C46Zp9

If an NDIS decision is affecting you, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Contact the Disability Gateway on 1800 643 787 for help finding an independent disability advocate. If you need immediate emotional support, Lifeline is available 24/7 on 13 11 14.

[Image description: Red and white Every Australian Counts graphic reading: “NDIS Changes: Now in effect. New record-keeping rules have started. What do you need to keep?” Includes a document icon.]

01/09/2026

A little app recommendation from ANPA: Feelings Wheel. 💜

It gives you a visual feelings wheel to help identify and name what you’re experiencing, including more specific emotions beyond just “good”, “bad”, “angry” or “sad”. You can select several feelings at once, track them over time, and the app offers a short reflection on the combination you’ve chosen.

For Autistic and other neurodivergent people who sometimes know that something is happening internally but have trouble finding the right word for it, tools like this can make emotional check-ins much more concrete.

Today’s combination: cheeky, content, busy, worried and sleepy. Which, frankly, is quite a mood. 😂

📱 Search Feelings Wheel in your app store.

28/08/2026

EAC LIVE SERIES: POST 3

Ok, Ministerial support determinations.

Belinda and Naomi talked about some stuff today that I hadn’t picked up when I went through the legislation myself.

We’ve already talked about the potential 50% reduction to Social, Economic and Community Participation and 10% to Improved Daily Living, but apparently I was so busy being horrified by those numbers that I missed some of the other powers sitting in there...

The Minister can also make determinations setting maximum funding for particular supports, and Belinda explained that this can extend to the intensity of support and worker-to-participant ratios.

So we could potentially be talking about decisions around 1:1, 2:1 or 3:1 support being made through a Ministerial determination.

Nobody said today that those ratios ARE being changed, and I really don’t want that getting lost in translation when this gets shared. There is no current determination that we were told about today saying people are losing their existing ratios.

It is the fact that the Minister now has the power to make a determination about them that I hadn’t realised.

Belinda & Naomi werent exactly thrilled about that either.

We also spent some time talking about how people will know when one of the percentage reductions has actually been applied to their plan, and I had assumed the obvious answer would be that the plan would show the reduced funding.

Nope.

Your plan can apparently still show the original amount.

The amount actually available for you to spend can be less.

I can see absolutely no way THAT could possibly cause confusion. 🙄

It means once these things start being applied, I wouldn’t be relying solely on the dollar figure written in the plan. Check what is actually available in the portal as well, because that is what providers are ultimately going to be claiming against.

There was a fair bit of discussion about protections for people with really high support needs because obviously when you start talking about percentage cuts and maximums, that is where my brain immediately goes.

Some critical day-to-day supports have been carved out of the percentage reduction powers. The discussion included assistance at home, eating and drinking, dressing, toileting, laundry, cleaning, nursing, medication, mobility equipment, transport, consumables, home and vehicle modifications and SDA.

People requiring continuous 24-hour care also have a specific pathway to ask for a plan variation within 90 days if one of these determinations is applied to them.

I want to pull that apart separately because “there’s a variation pathway” sounds lovely until you actually need to know who can use it, what they have to show and what happens after they ask.

And before anyone reads this and thinks I am saying everyone’s funding gets cut on 1 October...

I’m not, the 1st of October is when these powers commence.

We still need the actual Ministerial determination (I mean really, you'd think they would have sorted this by now FFS!)

Until we have it, we don’t know exactly what the Minister will put in it, what percentage will actually be used, exactly which supports will be caught, which participants or plans it will apply to, or all of the practical details of how it will be applied.

This was part of why the conversation the other day kept looping back to reassessments and ART settlements.

If a determination is already operating when a new plan is created, THAT is when we need to know whether the new plan is caught by it.

We’ve been talking about the 50% and 10% figures because they are fu***ng enormous and of course that is where everyone’s attention went.

I’m now equally interested in what else the Minister puts in these determinations, particularly anything dealing with maximum funding, intensity of support or worker-to-participant ratios.

Because I definitely wasn’t paying enough attention to THAT part before today.

I guess this really puts an emphasis on the importance of those email actions of sending our concerns to the NDIA IAC & Community Engagement Consultations! I have posted Word templates under those posts that you can download and edit.

Ugggh this is going to be a MASSIVE sh*tshow, but what else is new?

28/08/2026

28/08/2026

It’s Wear It Purple Day 💜

Wear It Purple Day is about creating safer, more inclusive spaces for LGBTQIA+ young people and challenging the stigma and discrimination they can face.

It’s particularly relevant for neurodivergent young people. Research consistently shows that autistic and other neurodivergent people are more likely than the general population to identify as LGBTQIA+, including as trans or gender diverse.

Growing up as a young person in Lutruwita, I didn’t really consider that I might be q***r. Queerness was still so stigmatised that it didn’t feel like an identity I could meaningfully explore or imagine for myself.

I used to get teased at school by other kids who would pointedly call me a “lesbian” as a way of marking me as different from the other girls. I mean, I guess it wasn’t entirely incorrect, but it wasn’t said in a way that affirmed q***rness. It was said to make that difference something embarrassing or shameful.

I’m glad things have changed for the better. Young people have more language, visibility and representation than I did. But stigma hasn’t disappeared, and those gains aren’t experienced equally.

For neurodivergent LGBTQIA+ young people in particular, inclusion needs to recognise the intersection of ableism, homophobia and transphobia, rather than treating each as a separate issue.

Wearing purple today for all the Neurodiverhent q***r young people at there who hopefully have more freedom than I did! 💜



Image 1: Purple Wear It Purple Day graphic for 28 August 2026. Large white and lilac text reads “WEAR IT PURPLE DAY 28.08.26” against a purple background. The illustration features rainbow and trans pride colours, flowers, butterflies and a flying cockatoo. A person holds a sign reading “Colours of Courage”, with the Wear It Purple logo in the bottom left.

Image 2: Selfie of Heidi wearing an oversized light-purple sweatshirt, standing against a cream tiled wall. She has dark shoulder-length hair swept to one side and is smiling at the camera.

26/08/2026

Another busy day in Naarm, starting with Lego dinosaurs with the little one before heading into day three of AHPRA’s Community Advisory Council meeting.

This morning, discussion turned to a delayed Dawson Review recommendation about creating more consistent regulation across health, aged care and the NDIS. The conversation was moving towards progressing it, and I was the only person in the room to push back.

I am not against regulation. In many contexts, I believe it is essential. But as I explained today, consistency is not automatically safety. Regulated registered providers have not been found to be better quality or safer. In the context of the NDIS, choice and control does not just matter, it protects people. For many disabled people, sole traders and small providers offer the safest, most flexible and tailored support, especially in communities where larger providers cannot or will not operate.

I explained that more regulation and forced or mandatory registration can push those providers out and further concentrate the market around large organisations. People listened, the discussion shifted, and the recommendation remained delayed.

After the meeting, I jumped straight into an online panel hosted by the Consumers Health Forum of Australia for the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. It was the first webinar in the Department’s 2026–27 Consumer Engagement Capability Building program and launched a series of Consumer Engagement for Policymakers fact sheets developed by CHF with consumers.

We discussed why consumer engagement matters, what makes it meaningful, and the skills and conditions needed to do it properly. I spoke about the distrust and burnout created when decisions are effectively made before engagement begins, and the importance of transparent engagement.

I also made the point that consumers already bring significant expertise. The issue is often capacity, accessibility and whether policymakers provide people with enough time, direction and support to participate meaningfully. Not whether people have the skills to participate



[Image 1: Screenshot of an online Consumers Health Forum webinar. Five panellists appear in a video-call grid, with three across the top and two below. One participant has a white CHF-branded background, another has a view of Earth from space, and the active speaker is framed in green in front of bookshelves and an Australian Government screen. On the lower row, one participant wears a pink cap and glasses, while the other wears headphones and a coral jacket. CHF 40 Years logos, participant labels and muted microphone icons are visible.]

[Image 2: In the foreground, a long line of toy animals, dinosaurs, small cars and character figures has been carefully arranged across a patterned rug, with a large blue-and-orange toy vehicle or launcher at the front. A red tray lies farther back on the carpet, and a fluffy cat rests on a raised cat bed to the left.]

26/08/2026

25/08/2026

Two days down, one to go at my first three-day meeting of the AHPRA Australian Health Practitioners Registration Authority Community Advisory Council in Naarm.

On day one, a fellow Council member who I've known for a while, Ellen Mac - CEO of Health Consumers Tasmania, gave me a copy of Sara Ahmed’s The Feminist Killjoy Handbook to thank me for my advocacy. In hindsight, it was fairly accurate representation of what I bring to these spaces.

Some longer-standing members initially seemed worried about whether I would feel comfortable contributing.

By day two, I had plainly told the CEO that the Council needs to be restructured within Ahpra’s governance model if Ahpra is serious about listening to consumers. I drew on research from the Disability Royal Commission on how organisations sustain change and advocated for a different model. To his credit, he agreed. I guess we'll see if that agreement translates into action.

Like Sara Ahmed questioning power structures is very much within my comfort zone. Not outside of it.

I might be new to this Council, but no, I am not there to nod politely.

[Image 1: Heidi smiles at the camera while wearing a black jumper and cardigan. Her name badge reads “Heidi, CAC Member.” She has shoulder length brown wavy hair, is standing in front of a wooden-panelled wall.]

[Image 2: A blue Ahpra and National Boards card reading “Where Your Work Matters,” featuring rainbow artwork and a QR code. An Ahpra-branded pen rests across papers surrounded by handwritten workshop notes.]

[Image 3: A copy of Sara Ahmed’s The Feminist Killjoy Handbook. The book has a pastel rainbow cover with large black and silver lettering and rests on a dark surface beside a wooden edge].

25/08/2026

NDIS CHANGES START THIS THURSDAY, 27 AUGUST:

There’s a lot of information going around about the new NDIS laws, so I’m going to try to make this really bloody simple.

Your current NDIS plan and funding won’t suddenly change on Thursday. You can keep using your plan and supports as usual, and the new access and eligibility rules don’t start yet.

What does change on Thursday is some of the law sitting behind the NDIS.

1. Asking for your plan to be reassessed early gets harder.

This is about asking the NDIA to reassess your whole plan before your normal reassessment date.

From Thursday, only you, your plan nominee or your child representative can request this.

There needs to have been a significant and ongoing change in your disability support needs, your ability to do everyday things, your living arrangements, education, work or the unpaid support available to you.

The NDIA then has 90 days to decide whether it will reassess your plan.

This does NOT remove urgent or short-term plan changes. You can still request those through a plan variation.

2. There are new legal requirements to keep records.

Participants: 3 years

Nominees: 5 years

Providers: 7 years

The NDIS Rules will give us more detail about exactly what records need to be kept.

The NDIA has also said that if you can’t provide the records needed to show that NDIS funding was used correctly, you may have to pay that money back.

If you self-manage, this is particularly important.

Keep your invoices, receipts, payment records and anything else showing what support or item was purchased and what was paid.

3. The NDIA gets stronger powers to demand information.

The NDIA will have stronger powers to require information from participants and providers where it is investigating compliance, fraud or whether NDIS requirements have been followed.

There are also stronger enforcement powers and new civil penalties for providers who fail to comply with certain legal requirements.

4. The Minister gets new powers over NDIS prices.

The Minister will be able to formally set maximum prices for NDIS supports.

That does NOT mean NDIS prices change this Thursday.

Current pricing arrangements continue for now.

5. The NDIA can use computer systems to automate some administrative work.

That includes things such as processing claims and payments.

The NDIA says decisions that are complex, involve discretion or require judgement will still be made by people.

It will also have to publish information about where and how automated systems are being used.

That’s what changes this Thursday 27th August 2026.

Then we get to October 2026 when 2 major changes will begin to rollout.

The first affects funding for social, civic and community participation and capacity building daily activities.

Those budgets will start being reset under the new arrangements when individual plans are reassessed or renewed.

That does NOT mean everybody’s funding changes in October.

It is supposed to happen progressively as people reach a plan reassessment or renewal.

There will also be a new way to vary plans for people with high support needs who require continuous 24-hour disability-related care.

The second October change is one people really need to know about.

The NDIA will be able to suspend a participant’s plan if they don’t respond to requests for information.

They can’t just suspend it after one missed email.

The NDIA says it must first make reasonable attempts to contact the participant, nominee or authorised representative, which it currently describes as at least five attempts over an extended period.

So please make sure the NDIA has your correct contact details and don’t ignore requests for information. If they call you and you’d prefer to have everything in writing, you can ask them to send the request to you by email. You can also follow up the call yourself by email and ask that any further requests or communication about the matter be provided in writing.

There are more changes coming after October, but they are not happening this Thursday, and I’ll break those down separately before they start.

The next dates include changes to claiming from December 2026, plan renewals and reasonable and necessary supports from February 2027, the new planning system from April 2027, provider registration and plan management changes later in 2027, and the major access and eligibility changes from January 2028.

For right now, the main things to know are:

Your current plan does not suddenly change on Thursday.

Keep your records.

Keep copies of anything you send the NDIA and anything they send you.

Make sure your contact details with the NDIA are up to date.

Don’t assume every scary thing you hear about the new legislation starts this week. It doesn’t.

The legislation is being rolled out in stages.

The first stage starts Thursday.

This is current as at 25 August 2026.