If you’ve glanced at the news this month, you’ve probably seen the headlines. Billions being cut. Eligibility tightening. Children being moved onto different systems. It’s the kind of coverage that’s designed to grab attention, and for a lot of families, it’s landed somewhere between confusing and genuinely frightening. 

Here’s the thing though — most of what’s being reported right now is still moving through parliament. Some of it will change before it’s finalised. Some of it won’t affect your plan for years, if at all. And almost none of the news coverage is going to tell you what it actually means for ‘your’ situation, because it can’t. Only someone who knows your plan can do that. 

That’s what your support coordinator is for. So instead of doom-scrolling, here’s a better use of ten minutes: get them on the phone and ask them these questions directly. 

Start with the basics — has anything actually changed for me yet? 

It sounds almost too simple, but it’s the first thing to nail down. A lot of what’s in the news is proposed, or has passed but hasn’t been implemented, or applies to new participants rather than existing plans. Ask your coordinator plainly: as of today, has anything in my plan actually changed? If the answer is no, that’s genuinely useful to know — it takes some of the urgency out of the panic. 

What parts of the reform actually apply to me? 

The 2026 changes aren’t one single thing happening to everyone at once. There’s new planning processes, changes to how eligibility gets assessed, and separate work happening on home and living supports. Some of it is aimed squarely at early childhood supports. Some of it won’t touch adults with existing plans for a long while yet. Ask your coordinator to walk you through which specific pieces are relevant to your circumstances — not the whole reform package, just your slice of it. 

When is my next plan review, and could it be affected? 

This is probably the single most practical question you can ask. Reviews are where changes tend to actually land. If your review is coming up in the next six to twelve months, it’s worth understanding now — not the week before — whether anything about the process, the criteria, or the paperwork is likely to be different. 

If my funding does change, what happens to my current supports? 

Nobody can promise you nothing will change. But a good coordinator can tell you what the transition process looks like if it does — whether there’s a grace period, whether existing supports continue while a new plan is worked out, and who you’d talk to if something feels wrong or rushed. 

Where are you actually getting your information from? 

This one matters more than people realise. There’s a lot of secondhand information circulating right now — some accurate, some outdated, some just wrong. Ask your coordinator whether they’re working from the NDIS’s own published updates, from their organisation’s compliance team, or from general news coverage like everyone else. It’s a fair question, and a good coordinator won’t be offended by it. 

Is there anything I should be doing right now, or is this a “wait and see” situation? 

Sometimes the honest answer is that there’s genuinely nothing to do yet — and that’s worth hearing directly, rather than assuming you should be taking action out of anxiety. Other times there might be something small and sensible, like getting a report updated or a diagnosis re-confirmed, that’s worth doing sooner rather than later. Ask them to be specific. 

Who do I contact if this year’s changes affect my child’s early supports? 

If you have a young child accessing early intervention, this is worth asking about directly, because some of what’s being discussed involves shifting particular supports for younger children toward state-based systems over the next couple of years. The details are still being worked through, and timelines differ by state. Your coordinator should be able to tell you what’s confirmed for your situation and what’s still genuinely undecided. 

Can you put anything important in writing? 

A phone call is useful, but verbal reassurance has a way of getting fuzzy in memory a few weeks later. If your coordinator tells you something significant — a review date, a change to your plan, next steps you need to take — it’s completely reasonable to ask for a short email summarising it. Most coordinators are used to this and won’t mind at all. 

A word on all this, from us 

We’re not going to pretend we have a crystal ball on how the reform bill will finally look, because nobody does yet . What we can tell you is that we’re watching it closely, we’ll keep our own participants properly informed as things firm up, and we’d rather you ask us a question directly than sit with it unanswered because you didn’t want to bother anyone. 

If you don’t currently have a support coordinator, or you’re not confident yours is across the detail, that’s also a completely reasonable thing to raise with us.