How NDIS banning orders protect participants: from supervision rules to limits on direct contact.

Summary

• The NDIS Commission issued 326 banning orders in 2025–26, up from 194 in 2024–25. That is 132 more orders, a rise of about 68%. The figures cover all grounds, including matters beyond participant safeguarding.
• The Act allows an order to apply generally or in a limited way, to be permanent or for a set period, and to carry conditions (s73ZN(3)). So two orders can restrict very different things.
• In the register’s published text for 859 banning orders, 34 (4.0%) refer to unsupervised contact with participants, 11 (1.3%) refer to restrictive practices or restraints, 5 refer to participants under 18, and 4 refer to transport.
• The annual report gives no count of orders by type of restriction. The register counts here are our keyword counts, and they overlap.

Banning orders by financial year

What the Act lets an order do

Section 73ZN of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013 lets the Commissioner prohibit or restrict specified activities. An order may apply generally or be of limited application, may be permanent or for a specified period, and may be made subject to specified conditions (s73ZN(3)). The order must include a statement of reasons (s73ZN(9)). That flexibility is why the terms of each order matter, and why a provider needs to read the wording before assigning duties.

What the published orders say

Each register entry describes the activities it prohibits in free text. We searched that text for key phrases. One order can match several rows, so the counts overlap and do not add up to 859.

The table below sets out what each count means in practice. It describes wording in the published text. It does not say how often an order was breached.

Counts overlap. 53 orders match at least one of the unsupervised, transport, behaviour support or restrictive practice phrases. Keyword matching misses unusual wording and can match background text, so treat these as approximate.

Two points stand out. First, most orders in the register are written broadly, as a bar on providing or being involved in supports (see our earlier article). Narrower restrictions such as supervision conditions, transport and children are a small share. Second, the supervision wording shows that some orders leave room for supervised work while others do not mention it, so the exact terms decide what a person can still do.

Behaviour support and restrictive practices

Section 21(3) of the NDIS (Restrictive Practices and Behaviour Support) Rules 2018 sets conditions on specialist behaviour support providers who develop or review a plan that includes a regulated restrictive practice. The practice must be clearly identified in the plan, and authorised under the state or territory process where one exists. It must be used only as a last resort, be the least restrictive response possible, reduce the risk of harm, be in proportion to that risk, and be used for the shortest possible time.

The Commission’s guidance adds that a participant subject to restrictive practices must have a behaviour support plan. Implementing providers must get authorisation from the state or territory body and lodge evidence of it with the Commission. They must also report use of authorised practices, and unauthorised use is a reportable incident.

Some of the banning order text refers to this area. Eleven register entries mention restrictive practices or restraints, and some refer to practices a Victorian authority has directed are prohibited. We cannot tell from the text how many orders arose from unauthorised restrictive practices, because the register gives no reasons for most entries.

What this does not tell you

• The annual report gives one total for all grounds. It does not count orders by type of restriction.
• The register counts are our keyword counts of published text. They overlap, miss unusual wording, and are counts of entries, not people or providers.
• Register counts are by the date an entry is effective. The annual report counts are by financial year. The two are not on the same basis and should not be compared directly.
• The text describes what an order restricts. It does not show whether anyone complied, or why the order was made.
• Restrictions on children, medication and transport appear in few orders. A low count is not a measure of risk.
• This page is general information and is not legal advice. Check the current Act, the Rules and the terms of any order before relying on it.

Source and licence

Sources: NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission, Annual Report 2025–26, table 2 (page 59); the Commission’s compliance and enforcement actions register, retrieved 4 November 2026; the Commission’s behaviour support rules page, rules for implementing providers page and understanding behaviour support page, retrieved 13 November 2026; the National Disability Insurance Scheme Act 2013, section 73ZN (Compilation No. 28, registered 12 October 2026); and the NDIS (Restrictive Practices and Behaviour Support) Rules 2018, section 21 (Compilation No. 1, registered 14 December 2020). The Commission material is © Commonwealth of Australia and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 unless stated otherwise (see the Commission’s copyright and disclaimer page). The counts, classifications and commentary on this page are our own analysis of that material, and the Commission has not reviewed or endorsed them.