The reforms are real. But what does it mean for you?
Australia’s care sector is in the middle of a significant regulatory shift. 88 reforms were announced across federal and state governments in 2025 alone, driven by royal commissions, disturbing investigations, and the very real human cost of systemic safeguarding failures.
The direction is right.Governments are raising the bar on who can work with children, people with disability, and older Australians, and changing what employers must do to verify it. But here’s the tension: while the regulations are getting stronger, the infrastructure to support employers in implementing them hasn’t kept pace.
"The more government regulates, the less safe the system becomes because employers are caught between heightened obligations and infrastructure that hasn’t kept pace.”
For providers like you, this means more registers to check, more frequent verification obligations, harsher penalties for non-compliance, and still no automated way to do it yet.
This post breaks down the key reforms underway, what they mean for your organisation right now, and what you can do to stay ahead.
What's changing and why?
The reforms aren’t happening in isolation. They’re a direct response to systemic failures and tragic cases across the care sector. Here are the most significant changes providers need to understand.
National Educator Register
Live from February 2026
The National Educator Register is now mandatory for all early childhood education and care services under the National Quality Framework. Providers must upload workforce information within 4 weeks of a worker commencing and update the register within 14 days of any staffing changes. Non-compliance carries penalties of up to $34,200.
What the NER doesn’t yet provide is a two-way data exchange or automation process. Providers must manage records manually, with no notification system connecting register changes back to employers. Stage 2 is expected to introduce more functionality, but the timeline remains unclear.
To learn more, visit ACECQUA.
Aged Care Act 2024
Raising the bar on participant quality and workforce suitability
The Aged Care Act 2024 is the most significant overhaul of aged care regulation in decades. It replaces the old model with a right-based framework, introducing a new Statement of Rights for older Australians, eight strengthened Quality Standards, new provider registration categories, and expanded obligations around governance, accountability and incident reporting.
For providers, who you employ and how you verify them is a core obligation, with increased obligations under the new act for registered providers. What you need to do depends on the type of care you provide, and the type of person you are screening. You will generally need to validate/verify a police certificate or an NDIS worker screening clearnace, and also check against the aged care banning order register. If a person doesn't meet the worker screening requirements, you can't let them work in aged care.
To learn more, visit Aged Care Quality.
National Continuous Checking Capability
A longer term play
The federal government is working toward a National Continuous Checking Capability (NCCC), a system designed to enable ongoing national updates to worker records across jurisdictions and check types. But there's an important catch: it's not projected to be fully operational until 2029, and as currently designed, focuses heavily on connecting government systems to each other, and not necessarily giving employers tools to access and act on the data at scale.
The responsibility for continuous monitoring and managing workforce suitability sits with providers. Your equipped with spreadsheets and calendar reminders without a technology layer, like Oho, putting the data directly into your hands.
NDIS Worker Screening Clearances
The national standard
The NDIS Worker Screening Check remains the primary requirement for all workers in risk-assessed roles delivering NDIS supports. A significant level of effort is required to continuously verify, link and manage these clearances ongoing.
The NDIA is changing how providers access the portal to verify and link clearances, with a move to MyID Digital Government ID or RAM (relationship authorisation management). Providers will need to move across to the new access method in the transition period running from 7 December 2025 to 30 September 2026.
To learn more, visit the NDIS Comission.
State Level Child Safety Reforms
Reforms are accelerating at state and federal level
Working with children/vulnerable people and broader child safety requirements are shifting across multiple states. Victoria's 22 recommendations include major changes to WWCC scope, educator registration, and early learning obligations; Queensland has introduced significant changes to the Blue Care system and expanded their reportable conduct obligatons; and most other states have active reviews of their worker screening frameworks underway.
The direction is consistent across the board... broader scope, stricter enforcement, and an expanded approach to worker screening. For providers whose workforce interacts with children, including many NDIS and aged care services, WWCC obligations are becoming harder to manage.
The numbers behind the risk
These reforms exist because the stakes are genuinely high. Oho's data from the Australian care sector is stark:
- 27% of Australia's care workforce is unmonitored between checks (nearly 2 million workers who credentials aren't being actively verified)
- 1 in 434 credential checks reveal a critical safeguarding failure
- 40% average annual staff churn in the care sector
- $2.4 billion estimated annual risk exposure to the sector from verification failures, legal and economic impact of red flags
Behind every one of those statistics is a child, an elderly person, or someone with a disability whose safety depends on whether their provider has the right systems in place.
"Good policy along cannot close safeguarding gaps. Employers are caught between heightened obligations and inadequate systems. And addressing these gaps is as critical as the reforms themselves."
Want to hear more about the stats? Check out Oho's white paper here.
What worker checks does your organisation actually need?
Workforce verification requirements depend on your sector, your state, and the roles your workers perform. Some checks apply broadly across all three sectors e.g. Working withChildren Checks (WWCCs) wherever workers interact with children, visa entitlement verification (VEVO) for all non-citizen workers, and AHPRA registration for regulated health professionals. Here’s what your sector requires.
NDIS / Disability Care Providers
Your primary screening requirement is theNDIS Worker Screening Check — mandatory for all workers in risk-assessed roles delivering NDIS-funded supports, and nationally recognised across states and territories. Where workers also support children or young people with disability, a Working with Children Check (WWCC) will apply, with specific requirements varying by state. Visa entitlement are needed for all non-citizen workers, and AHPRA Registrations for any regulated health professionals.
Explore NDIS Screening requirements.
Aged Care Providers
Your core screening requirements include a Nationally Coordinated Criminal History Check (NCCHC) or NDIS Worker Screening Clearance for workers, an AHPRA registration for regulated health professionals, and visa entitlement verification (VEVO) for non-citizen workers. With the Aged Care Act 2024, workforce obligations for providers, including provider registration. As this framework develops further, workforce verification obligations are expected to expand, so it's worth monitoring closely.
Learn about aged care workforce obligations.
Early Childhood Education & Care Providers
Your obligations now include the National Educator Register (NER, mandatory since February 2026), a Working with Children Check (WWCC) for all staff, volunteers, and contractors, as per state-specific requirements, teacher registration for qualified educators, an NCCHC in some jurisdictions, and visa entitlement verification (VEVO) for non-citizen workers.
Lean more about Working With Children Checks.
We’re working on a comprehensive sector-based guide with register directories and breakdowns, as well as tools to help you quickly understand your specific obligations based on your sector, state, and workforce. Coming very soon.
Four things to do right now
1. Stay informed on your obligations
The reform environment is moving quickly. The most reliable sources of information are the regulatory bodies directly: NDIS reforms and screening (ndiscommission.gov.au), Aged care workforce and Act requirements (agedcarequality.gov.au), Early childhood NER and NQF (acecqa.gov.au).
Oho also keeps up to date on the changing regulatory environment, so follow Oho on LinkedIn to stay in the loop.
2. Audit your current processes
How many registers are you logging into? Do all your workers and contractors have current credentials up to date? Are they all on file? How often are you checking? Are you relying on register notifications? Are you considering the state-specific nuances? If you haven't mapped your current process end to end, now is the time.
3. Run the ROI calculator
Quantify what the manual checking is actually costing your organisation, if you're doing it. And find out what automated, continuous verification could save your organisation. Run the ROI calculator.
4. Move from reactive checking to continuous workforce safeguarding
If you want to understand what it looks like to monitor your workforce continuously (not just at onboarding), reach out to Oho. We can walk through what it looks like for your organisation.
It's budget and audit season.
Before June 30, Oho is offerring 6 months added free on any new agreement.
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About Oho
Oho is Australia's leading workforce safeguarding and compliance automation platform, purpose built for the care and community sectors. We verify worker credentials against 23+ government registers as often as every 7 days for 220,000+ workers across 140 organisations.
Want to chat? Reach out.
