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 to serve those with a profound permanent disability, 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, even during a time of global geopolitical uncertainty.
The cost of the National Disability Insurance scheme is growing at a faster annual pace than aged care, even as more baby boomers retire, and Medicare.
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 NDIS costs blew out to $48.5billion in 2024-25 and the Treasury Budget papers revealed it was Australia’s third most expensive program after revenue help for the states and territories and support for seniors.
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.
The NDIS now support 740,000 Australians, which Mr Butler said was projected to grow to 1million by 2034.
The scheme was intended to support 410,000 people with a disability when it began in 2013 during former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard’s final months in office.
The government in 2023 announced it 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.
‘Getting growth down from 22 per cent to eight per cent will certainly be a substantial achievement,’ Butler said.
‘To put that in some perspective, aged care is projected to grow by around five per cent per year, notwithstanding the huge increase in demand that is projected of course by the ageing of the baby boomer generation.
‘Medicare is expected also to grow by around five per cent per year.’
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 (pictured is a stock image)
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.
Over two years, the $105billion cost of the NDIS, with that increase as a share of the economy equivalent to growth in Medicare, defence and aged care combined.
