Shock NDIS figures reveal more than 71 per cent of new participants have autism diagnosis, sparking calls for reform
An analysis of the National Disability Insurance Scheme by The Age has revealed 56,000 of the 78,600 people who signed up to the NDIS in the 12 months leading to June 2025 had autism as their primary diagnosis.
The number of new NDIS participants with autism was more than 10 times higher than the next most common reason, with 5,553 joining due to a developmental delay, 4,406 due to an intellectual disability and 1,618 due to a hearing impairment.
Other reasons included multiple sclerosis, 1,077, cerebral palsy, 533, a spinal cord injury, 309, and down syndrome, 84.
The new figures bring the number of NDIS participants with autism to 295,000, almost 40 per cent of the 749,000 people on the scheme.
They have also renewed concerns about the sustainability of the NDIS, which is already one of the biggest items in the federal budget and sparked calls for reform.
Responding to the reports, Autism Awareness Australia chief executive Nicole Rogerson said the government needed to 'tighten the criteria' for people to be eligible for the NDIS or else the Australian public would 'start losing faith in this system'.
Ms Rogerson said she did not blame the parents and families who were trying to get the support they felt they needed, but added the government needed to 'show leadership'.
Concerns about the growth of autism diagnosis and the NDIS are not new.
In 2023 then NDIS minister Bill Shorten flagged changes to address the issue, warning the NDIS 'can't be a surrogate school system'.
'The (NDIS) was designed for people who need assistance with core functioning, with the most profound disabilities. I don't think the scheme was ever intended just to say, 'I have a diagnosis, therefore I'm on the scheme',' Shorten said at the time.
Those comments came after Mr Shorten, who played a key role in the development of the NDIS a decade earlier, said that rather than focus being placed on the diagnosis, it ought to be a matter of how much the autism effected the person's learning.
'We just want to move away from diagnosis writing you into the scheme because what (then) happens is everyone gets the diagnosis.'
His acknowledgement came after a number of experts raised concerns about how NDIS eligibility criteria was distorting autism spectrum disorder diagnoses.
At the time of diagnosis, patients with autism spectrum disorder are classified as level one (requiring support), level two (requiring substantial support) and level three (requiring very substantial support).
As paediatrician Professor Gehan Roberts explained at the time, the fact NDIS support was only offered for levels two and three was leading to a distortion in diagnoses.
'When funding access is based on arbitrary lines in the sand like it is currently, prevalence of level 2 and 3 ASD diagnoses increases and level 1 plummets,' he said.
'As a healthcare provider, we go into bat in an advocacy role for our patients. If a family with no other means to access support has been told by a disability service provider there's no other way it can provide support services other than through the NDIS, that's when the pressure comes on the clinician to make a diagnosis at a level that will allow services to continue.'
Mr Shorten said that he had no doubt early intervention was an 'excellent tool to help kids' the problem was the NDIS was 'in danger of becoming the only lifeboat in the ocean'.
'We've got to have a conversation in Australia about helping kids with milder forms of developmental delay who don't need to be on the NDIS,' he said.
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