Banning Orders & Refusal Notices: The NDIS Enforcement Pathway
You have received a proposed banning order or a notice of intended refusal from the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (the NDIS Commission). This is every branch from that moment. Two tracks run from the same facts: the banning and refusal ladder, and the Commission's parallel enforcement track for contraventions.
The Banning & Refusal Ladder
The decision ladder for the proposed bans and the renewal refusal. Merits review runs internal review, then the ART, then the Federal Court on law.
Submissions
Pre-decision. No order exists. The Commission's show-cause letters propose banning orders (against the company, key personnel or both) and, where a renewal is pending, refusal of the renewal. You are invited to respond by a deadline.
Delegate Decides
Any time after the deadline, typically weeks. The same delegate weighs the submissions. Four outcomes:
Renewal granted, matter ends. Rare once bans have been proposed, but submissions aim high.
Permanent bans plus refusal. Permanent, nationwide, published.
Internal Review · mandatory first step · ss 99–100
Request in writing within 3 months of the decision. Different delegate, fresh look. New material allowed, including remediation achieved since the decision. The order keeps operating throughout. Cannot skip: the ART is only available after internal review decides.
Administrative Review Tribunal · s 103
Apply within 28 days of the internal review decision (extendable on application). Full merits review: fresh decision, new evidence allowed. Modest fee. Outcomes: affirm, vary, set aside and substitute, or remit.
Only Track 1 decisions travel this ladder; the court-based outcomes on Track 2 do not.
Federal Court · last resort
Appeal from the ART on a question of law only, within 28 days. Not a re-run of the facts. Costs risk applies at this stage. Judicial review also remains open in parallel where the vice is formal invalidity or legal unreasonableness (Sunflower (No 2)).
"Do I have to stop operating now?"
The Enforcement Track
Can run in parallelContraventions. Separate from Track 1 and able to run before, alongside or after it, on the same facts. Ordered least to most serious; everything below is recorded on Part 2 of the Provider Register.
Compliance Notice
s 73ZMWritten direction to take, or stop, specified action within a set period. Failure to comply is itself a civil penalty contravention and, for a registered provider, an express ground for suspension or revocation: one un-remedied notice can feed straight back into Track 1. The Commissioner may vary or revoke on submissions; Commission policy allows a notice "prior to, or in tandem with" other action.
Infringement Notice
s 73ZLAn on-the-spot fine in lieu of court proceedings for prescribed contraventions (registration-condition breaches under s 73J are the Commission's staple).
Enforceable Undertaking
s 73ZPBest off-rampNegotiated, published promises about future conduct: the same instrument as Stage 2 outcome B, available at any point in an investigation.
Injunction
s 73ZQFederal Court order restraining conduct or compelling compliance, including interim injunctions. Used where the Commission wants immediate court-backed restraint without, or before, a banning order.
Civil Penalty Proceedings
s 73ZK · Federal CourtCourt-imposed penalties for contraventions of civil penalty provisions (Code of Conduct, ss 73J, 73V etc). The decided range frames gravity:
Serious Contravention
s 73ZKAFrom 9 Apr 2026Elevated maximum civil penalties where a contravention is "serious": up to 10,000 penalty units for an NDIS provider in the banning-order context. This tier stacks on top of rungs 1–5 rather than replacing them.
Registration & Banning Action
Loops back to Track 1ss 73F/73L conditions · 73N suspension · 73P revocation · 73ZN banning
The top of the ladder loops back to Track 1: vary registration or impose conditions, suspend, revoke, or ban. Also: anti-promotion orders (ss 73ZOA–73ZOC, from 9 Apr 2026) prohibiting promotion or advertising of specified supports, with their own compliance offences (s 73ZOB) and a variation and revocation route.
"Can they fine us or take us to court as well as ban us?"
Same facts, two tracks
The conduct alleged in a show-cause letter could ground civil penalty proceedings (rung 5) as well as, or instead of, the proposed bans. Nothing in Track 1 precludes the Commission opening Track 2 at any stage: before the delegate decides, during internal review, or during the ART.
The ladder is the proportionality argument
Different forums, different review rights
Track 1 decisions (ban, refusal, conditions, suspension, revocation) go internal review, then ART, then Federal Court on law. Rungs 4–6 are Federal Court proceedings from the outset: defended in court, not merits-reviewed. An infringement notice is answered by paying or electing to defend; a compliance notice by complying or persuading the Commissioner to vary or revoke it.