‘Not the right fit': Children to be diverted from NDIS under scheme reboot
In a major address on the scheme's future, Butler said a new system called 'Thriving Kids' would be established to support families in schools, childcare centres and playgroups from July 2026, and fully roll out a year later.
The Albanese government will also seek to reduce annual NDIS growth from its current trajectory of 10.2 per cent to a maximum of 5 to 6 per cent, so that the scheme remains financially sustainable and keeps the support of the Australian public.
'We are at a fork in the road right now,' Butler told the National Press Club on Wednesday, in his first address on the NDIS since acquiring responsibility for the scheme in May.
'Children with mild to moderate levels of developmental delay and autism should not, in my view, be on a scheme set up for permanent disability. It is not the right fit.
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'But I recognise it is the only port available to so many parents, tens and tens of thousands of parents, and I think we should treat as a matter of urgency the need to provide them with a more suitable system of broad-based mainstream support.'
The NDIS was intended to support about 410,000 people, but now serves almost 740,000 – a figure that grows each quarter. More than half of new participants are under nine, and seven in 10 people joining the scheme have autism as a primary diagnosis.
'I think most Australians would be alarmed to know that now, one out of every 10 six-year-olds are on the NDIS, including 16 per cent of 6-year-old boys. That's one in every six boys in the average grade 2 classroom,' Butler said.
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