Anthony Albanese‘s government plans to remove children with mild autism or minor developmental delays from the NDIS, as the scheme’s costs continue to spiral.
Health Minister Mark Butler told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday the National Disability Insurance Scheme had become too big since it debuted in 2013.
‘The scheme is now entering its adolescence, a period that all parents know involves the maturing of our beautiful children but a period also that can be full of risks that things will run off the rails without a judicious dose of management and supervision,’ he said.
‘The NDIS has grown incredibly fast and created new markets which have at times impacted and distorted other parts of the health and social care ecosystem.’
Butler said the government was aiming to pare back the NDIS to its original purpose, following a review initiated by former NDIS minister Bill Shorten in 2022.
‘First, returning the scheme to its original purpose, its north star – the provision of support to people with significant and permanent disability and secondly, ensuring the scheme becomes sustainable from a Budget perspective.’
The NDIS is set to cost taxpayers $52.3billion in 2025-26 which is more than Australia’s $51.5billion defence budget during a time of global geopolitical uncertainty.
The government would also aim to restrict annual growth in the National Disability Insurance Scheme to eight per cent a year, with public spending under Labor already at the highest level since 1986 outside of the Covid pandemic.
Health Minister Mark Butler told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday the National Disability Insurance Scheme had become too big since it debuted in 2013
‘Getting growth down from 22 per cent to eight per cent will certainly be a substantial achievement,’ he said.
The NDIS’s quarterly report last week revealed a 12 per cent increase in 2024-25 which Butler said was ‘much higher than the previous year’.
‘It reminds us there is still much to do, even to achieve the eight per cent target,’ he said.
A Nine Newspapers analysis of new NDIS recipients during the last financial year showed seven out of 10 of them were children with autism – or 56,000 out of the 78,000 participants who signed on between June 2024 and June 2025.
