Standfirst: NDIS cuts, a gambling ad crackdown and a “death tax” fight all reach parliament in the same sitting fortnight. Here’s what’s actually in each bill and what happens if any of them stall.
Federal parliament resumed for spring sittings today, and three contested government bills are reaching a decision point in the same fortnight: an overhaul of the NDIS, the country’s toughest gambling advertising restrictions yet, and a set of tax and trust changes the Coalition has labelled a death tax.
The NDIS bill and its $37.8 billion assumption
The NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill was introduced in May alongside the federal budget. It cuts the scheme’s annual cost growth from around 10% to somewhere between 5 and 6% in the long term and does it largely by moving roughly 160,000 people off the NDIS by 2030, some diverted to a new programme called Thriving Kids. The government has booked $37.8 billion in savings against those changes.
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Labour party room this week he expects the bill to pass within this sitting fortnight after meeting Opposition Leader Angus Taylor to work through the detail. “I expect those changes will pass in this sitting fortnight, which will be important to make sure that it’s sustainable going forward,” he said. That timeline needs the Coalition’s cooperation and depends on a Senate enquiry not deciding it needs longer.
Reaction has split along familiar lines. The Business Council of Australia has backed the changes as returning the NDIS to its original purpose. The Australian Council of Social Service and disability advocates are less convinced. George Taleporos, who chairs Every Australian Counts said the disability community is worried about funding cuts, more red tape, and being “pushed off the NDIS towards mainstream services that do not exist”. Some crossbench MPs have raised a related concern: if people leave the NDIS before equivalent mainstream supports are actually running, the cost doesn’t disappear; it shifts onto health and aged care budgets instead, which would complicate the $37.8 billion savings figure the budget currently assumes.
The gambling advertising bill
On 2 July, the government introduced the Interactive Gambling Amendment (Gambling Reform) Bill, together with a companion bill to fund a strengthened self-exclusion register. Announcing the bills, Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek and Minister for Communications and Sport Anika Wells described the package as containing “the strongest ever reforms to address gambling harms in Australia’s history”.
The restrictions are extensive: television gambling ads capped at three per hour between 6am and 8:30pm, a complete ban during live sport within that window, a ban on athletes, celebrities and influencers promoting wagering, bans on venue and player-uniform advertising and on broadcasting betting odds, tighter rules for online ads (limited to logged-in, age-verified users with an opt-out option) and a ban on radio ads during school drop-off and pick-up times.
Banks and the Australian Communications and Media Authority gain new powers to act against illegal offshore operators, and the self-exclusion register BetStop (which had more than 65,400 registrations as of the end of June) gets new funding through a levy on gambling companies. The reforms are due to commence 1 January 2027.
The bill has been referred to a Senate inquiry due to report on 17 August, and the Coalition’s public position so far is that the package does not go far enough.
Tax and trusts
The May budget also replaced the 50% capital gains tax discount with a flat 30% rate adjusted for inflation, effective 1 July 2027, and introduced a 30% minimum tax on discretionary trust distributions from 1 July 2028, with a three-year transition window from 1 July 2027 for small businesses to restructure out of discretionary trusts.
The Coalition has criticised the trust change as a “death tax,” pointing out that the 30% rate also applies to testamentary trusts (the kind set up in a will to manage an inheritance for a disabled child or another beneficiary who cannot handle a lump sum directly). Whether that label holds up is contested, and it is worth watching whether the government carves testamentary trusts out separately once the bill reaches committee stage.
What to watch
Three dates matter over the next fortnight. The Reserve Bank hands down its next interest rate decision today, 11 August, the first since Parliament rose for the winter break. The Senate enquiry into the gambling bill will report on 17 August. And on the NDIS bill, the test is whether the Prime Minister’s “sitting fortnight” timeline holds. If the Senate opts for a longer enquiry instead, the government’s $37.8 billion in flagged savings does not land where the budget currently assumes.
This piece draws on a joint media release from the Department of Social Services (2 July 2026), the 2026 federal budget papers and reported budget reaction, and reporting on the Prime Minister’s remarks to the Labour party room ahead of parliament’s return. A small business tax claim referenced in some coverage (a lift in the CGT concession threshold from $2 million to $10 million turnover) could not be independently verified against a source and has been left out of this piece pending confirmation.
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