On Wednesday, Health Minister Mark Butler addressed the National Press Club on the subject of National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reform. “The NDIS has grown incredibly fast – and well beyond projections,” said Butler.
The speech followed a report published that morning by Nine Newspapers which revealed that 40% of NDIS beneficiaries have autism as their primary diagnosis. Of the 78,600 new beneficiaries in the 12 months to June 2025, 56,000 have autism as their primary diagnosis.
The CEO of Autism Awareness Australia told Nine that the criteria are going to have to be tightened. Ten percent of 5 to 7 year old Australian children are now NDIS beneficiaries, and one in six boys in the age group.
That figure differs greatly from World Health Organization estimates, which suggest 1 in 100 children worldwide have autism. The Australian Bureau of Statistics lists autism prevalence at 3.1% for Australian residents under the age of 25.
The NDIS has become the third biggest cost item in the federal budget. Beneficiaries suffering from autism receive an average of $36,000 per year.
A graph from the Age, showed an astonishing 56,000 new NDIS participants with Autism as their primary disability compared to 4,4k with intellectual disability, 1.6k with hearing impairment, 537 with visual impairment, and just 309 with spinal cord injury. Clearly there is a huge mismatch between who voters thought NDIS funding would support and who it is increasingly supporting based on current trends.
Butler confronted the issue in his Press Club address. “Since the scheme’s creation, the number of people with disability entering the system has generally stabilised around initial projections,” said Butler. “Except in one area: children with developmental delay or autism.”
The NDIS was set up for people dealing with permanent and debilitating disability. The scheme provides a budget of tens of thousands per individual, which they have substantial autonomy in how they spend.
The program appears to now be growing unsustainably because it provides support for parents of children with learning, emotional and psychological difficulties. Butler called it “the only port in the storm” for these families.
The Health Minister announced an initiative to address this issue. Called Thriving Kids, it is to be co-designed by the minister and Prof Frank Oberklaid of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute.
One of the planned measures is a new bulk-billed Medicare item: a childhood development check for all 3 year-olds. This would allow follow-on recommendations for psychosocial therapy, occupational therapy and speech pathology to be facilitated by the medical system rather than disability support.
A raft of other initiatives were floated in the speech. Arguably the most promising is more integration of therapeutic professionals in the school system, so as to provide immediate help to the struggling kids who are currently taking in by the category of autism.
One could certainly argue that the NDIS should never have got to this point. But it is heartening to see a centre-left government focused on reform, rather than simply promoting the monetary spends of its social welfare-oriented policies without regard to where the money is going.
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