In August at the National Press Club NDIS Minister Mark Butler announced Thriving Kids, an initiative to divert children aged eight and under with “mild to moderate developmental delay and autism” from the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Instead, they would be supported in scaled-up mainstream services in schools, childcare centres and the health system.
In 2023 National Cabinet agreed to reduce the NDIS growth rate to 8 per cent by July 2026. Now Labor is going further and trying to slow the growth of the NDIS from its current 10.8 per cent to 5 or 6 per cent a year.
The Labor government and the entire ruling class have waged a relentless campaign to cut the “unsustainable” growth of the NDIS. With children under 15 making up about half of NDIS participants, the government is targeting them first.
Under the Thriving Kids proposal, the federal government will contribute $2 billion over five years, matched by $2 billion collectively from the states.
Butler says Thriving Kids will roll out over 12 months from July 2026, with the criteria to access the NDIS changing from July 2027. He reassured parents that children currently on the NDIS or entering the NDIS before Thriving Kids is fully rolled out will be “subject to its usual arrangements”.
Degenerative
While many children continue to get onto the NDIS, thousands of autistic kids are already being kicked off under the “usual arrangements” and a ramping up of eligibility reassessments.
Even participants with degenerative conditions like multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease are receiving eligibility reassessment notices demanding they provide evidence to prove they should stay on the scheme.
No one should be kicked off the NDIS when there is not adequate support outside the scheme. It is the “only port in the storm”, as Butler said in his speech.
Any attempt to cut support for people who need it must be resisted. The government has no intention with Thriving Kids to scale up services to the level that the community needs.
Butler suggested that the government could introduce new Medicare allied health items for children. But with these sorts of supports for adults usually involving steep gap payments, many families will be unable to access support unless the cost is fully covered.
Disaster
Just as in other care sectors where private providers have been unleashed, the NDIS market has failed to deliver consistent, quality care and support.
The NDIS has been a disaster for workers’ rights. Disability workers often work without pay when the individual budgets of the people they care for run out, rather than leaving them without support.
The NDIS Review noted that, “Three out of four NDIS workers are employed either part-time or casually.” Staff turnover was 24 per cent in 2024, according to the Health and Community Services Union. This means that NDIS participants struggle to find and keep good support.
Workers and their unions, alongside service users, need to fight for the government to provide services directly instead of the government funding individualised budgets that private companies compete over.
We need to pour resources into the education system so that school and childcare is free, individualised and run as a public service. The appalling abuse uncovered in childcare centres should be the spur to get rid of private providers and put quality and safety before profits.
Parents of all children, but especially children with developmental issues, are crying out for a massive expansion of quality, consistent childcare provided by experienced, qualified and well-paid educators.
It is possible, and necessary, to have personalised care without individualised budgets. Many disability advocates see in individualised budgets the promise of choice and control. But the market only delivers the illusion of choice and control for most NDIS participants.
This has become increasingly clear in recent months with the collapse of large providers like Centacare, Annecto and Afford, which were unable to operate under current NDIS prices and compete with newer entrants.
These business failures throw the lives of thousands of workers, disabled people and their carers and families into turmoil. The government should take over failing providers.
Scandals
There have been repeated scandals of NDIS participants, often with intellectual disabilities, literally being kidnapped by providers who want to monopolise their NDIS funds.
NDIS housing has also been undermined by market failure. The ABC program Four Corners revealed that thousands of specialist disability accommodation properties sit vacant because nobody wants to live in them. Private companies built them on cheap land on the outskirts of cities where there are no services. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted while secure housing is no closer for the people who desperately need it.
The First Peoples Disability Network has pointed out that, “The NDIS fails to provide culturally safe services on Country, forcing individuals like Kumanjayi White to be removed from their communities, kin, and culture to access care.” Kumanjayi White was a disabled Indigenous man killed by police in an Alice Springs supermarket, away from his home in Yuendumu.
FPDN calls for, “NDIS funding to Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) to design and deliver culturally safe supports on Country, ending the policy of forced displacement.”
Recent cuts to the amount allied health therapists can charge NDIS participants will worsen access to services in already “thin markets” in regional and remote areas. This will disproportionately affect First Nations people.
The way the government justified these cuts highlighted how the market drives a wedge between service users and workers, when what is needed is solidarity and trust. The government claimed to be responding to NDIS participants’ concerns that their budgets were being drained by overcharging for therapy, especially for travel expenses.
In his National Press Club speech Mark Butler warned that the “social licence” of the NDIS is at risk, pointing to research that showed that 7 in 10 Australians agreed that “the NDIS has grown too large and is struggling with inefficiencies and dodgy providers”, while 6 in 10 think it is “broken”.
Inherent waste
Market failure is undermining support for the NDIS. But it is hypocritical of the government to warn of an erosion of the social licence of the NDIS. The Labor government, particularly when Bill Shorten was NDIS Minister, waged a relentless campaign about NDIS waste, rorts and fraud to pave the way for the kind of cuts the government is now introducing.
Any discussion about the sustainability of the NDIS should lay the blame on the market and the inherent waste and inefficiency of privatising social services.
Before the ruling class offensive against the NDIS, public support for funding disability services was massive. In the 2021 Australia Talks survey run by the ABC, 82 per cent of Australians agreed that “Australia should spend as much as is necessary to ensure that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as everyone else”.
This sentiment can be rebuilt and mobilised to demand decent disability supports. We need to reject privatisation and demand that support is delivered as a public service.
By an ASU member
