06/02/2026
Children with autism or developmental delay with “low to moderate” support needs, and their families, will receive near-universal access to some support outside the National Disability Insurance Scheme under a reform package agreed by federal and state governments. Experts say, however, the favoured model will place extra strain on schools, early education centres and community health organisations.
This concession, in the final report of the Thriving Kids Advisory Group, released on Tuesday and adopted by all governments at national cabinet, with a total $4 billion funding pool over the next five years, sits alongside confirmation that the chosen “model” lacks critical detail. That will have to be worked out before the program is fully implemented in January 2028.
As an outcome of lack of detail foreshadowed by The Saturday Paper, there will be a three-month delay to the start of the Thriving Kids program, pushing it to October this year, and a six-month delay to full implementation in 2028.
Thriving Kids is designed to remove tens of thousands of children from the NDIS, where children with autism or developmental delay attract more than $3.1 billion in individual funding every year.
While governments grapple with this plank of scheme reform, other major changes to the NDIS are moving fast.
At the end of last month, executives from the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) released consultation material about New Framework Planning, the single biggest change in the suite of legislative amendments and practice updates that have rolled out since 2022.
This new way of planning will use independent assessments conducted using a standard tool produced by Melbourne University and the Centre for Disability Studies, alongside a questionnaire to produce a support-needs score that will dictate the budget provided to a participant.
As previously reported by The Saturday Paper, the budget produced by the tool will not be able to be changed by NDIA planners, and the Administrative Review Tribunal will no longer be able to decide what supports should and should not be funded. They will only be able to order that a replacement assessment be conducted, using the same methods as before.
Despite the seismic nature of the change, due to begin in July, and the fact billions of dollars in NDIS savings are forecast as a result, the consultation released last month over the rules that will enable the new policy still have not provided any detail on how the assessment will produce the funding figure in a participant’s plan.
This information will be “published to support this consultation process”, according to the consultation paper released by the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, but no timeframe is given.
“New framework plans will be created using a support needs assessment and a transparent budget method set out in rules,” it says.
“In new framework planning, participants will go through a new process that will gather information to assess their disability support needs. That information will then be used to determine a reasonable and necessary budget.
“To work out how much funding a person needs, the NDIA will use the information gathered during the support needs assessment and a set of calculations outlined in the budget method rules.
“The budget method rules will be technical as they will cover the steps the NDIA will apply when working out total funding amounts for flexible and stated supports funding, including how informal supports available to a participant are reflected, and a set of calculations to determine total funding amounts and any adjustments required.”
While the federal government’s intervention to remove children from the NDIS forms one part of the savings drive worth tens of billions of dollars over the next decade, this new planning framework will deliver a significant chunk of further savings. An indication of the value of these reforms is found in the cost booked by the agency after slight delays to the start of both: $7.7 billion over the next four years.
The Thriving Kids Advisory Group, co-chaired by Minister for Disability and the NDIS Mark Butler, is clear that only children with autism or developmental delay and low to moderate support needs will be removed from the NDIS. In a media statement on Tuesday, Butler said: “Children with permanent and significant disability – including those with developmental delay and/or autism with high support needs – will continue to be eligible for the NDIS.”
What isn’t clear is what support on the landmark scheme will look like after new framework plans are implemented.
The Saturday Paper has spoken with NDIA staff who have raised concerns internally at the development of the new budget process.
“There is a massive challenge with the design for day one of National Framework Plans, the initial launch,” one person familiar with internal discussions says.
“At the moment there is no way to manually override the plan values and allocations the program spits out. I believe that the intention is to not allow override, even in exceptional circumstances, in an effort to improve the consistency of plan outcome.”
Being able to control plan values in this way – that is, the amount of money to be spent on support for each person on the scheme – has been a long-term goal of executives at the NDIA. The original legislation, passed by the Gillard Labor government, was deliberately left open in order to allow for funding packages to be tailored to participants.
Now, that individuality is being collapsed under the weight of administrative and budgetary control. The legislative reform has been seen as critical to reining in expenses at the NDIS, even if those savings come at a cost to disabled people who rely on the scheme for support.
On January 14, the NDIA lost a major appeal in the Federal Court against its decision to deny access to a then 64-year-old woman who had applied before the age cut-off of 65. The agency argued she did not meet the full disability requirements and was better off supported in the aged-care system.
In that matter, Justice Christopher Horan had to decide whether Sherri Sutherland met the disability requirements under section 24 of the NDIS Act before it was amended in 2024, as she had first applied for access in January 2021. Sutherland, who has physical and neurological impairments that make it difficult to care for herself, gave evidence that she only bathed or showered fully once every fortnight because her condition led to frequent episodes in which she would lose the function of one or both legs and would collapse. She was also incontinent as a result.
The NDIA argued before the court that this did not meet the requirement of “substantially reduced functional capacity” in the domain of self-care, because Sutherland made a “voluntary” decision to only bathe once a fortnight and did not actually require supervision.
It also argued that the agency’s operational guideline stipulates NDIS support is only offered where a person does not currently or could not get access to similar support in other settings. It pointed to the fact Sutherland had access to a Level 2 Home Care Package under the aged-care system at the time, which entitled her to some support.
Justice Horan disagreed.
“The [Administrative Review] Tribunal relevantly found that Ms Sutherland was ‘either unable to, or has major challenges with’ undertaking tasks forming part of the activity of self-care ‘arising from her rational fear of the unfortunate risk arising from her repeated experience of her legs collapsing’ due to the permanent impairments attributable to her disability,” he wrote in his judgement.
“This cannot properly be characterised as a matter of convenience or voluntary abstinence from performing tasks involved in undertaking the activity of self-care.”
Horan also found the agency’s interpretation of section 24(1)(e) of the old NDIS Act did not support its operational guideline, which stated it would assess “whether your needs could be best met by the NDIS, or by other government and community services”.
A legal spectator with knowledge of administrative law told The Saturday Paper this case was a “monster win” for Indigenous Australians who, owing to their lower life expectancies, qualify for aged care at age 50 but were faced with being denied NDIS access as a result.
“It would take revised NDIS rules for them to be kicked out now – and surely that’s discrimination too far,” the source said.
“The government may be thinking of tabling some fresh rules to address some impacts. The goal of the 2024 Act was to never have to come back to full parliamentary amendments again. So if they do want to target certain cohorts, they can put up some new rules in the forthcoming tsunami wave of lesser scrutinised laws, change the definition of NDIS Supports, et cetera.
“That dynamic is seen in how the consultation has suppressed details on how the budgets will be calculated. That will arrive late, and may be presented as technically as possible, but where are they getting their numbers? How do we know the funds are enough?”
In the 2024 NDIS Act amendments, drafters attempted to codify at least part of the agency’s operational guideline in law that now explicitly links the definition of NDIS Supports under s.24 to a legislative definition, delegated to subordinate “rules”, of what will and will not be funded by the scheme. These lists currently include services provided by mainstream systems such as aged care, education and community services.
It is likely the federal government, and its NDIS agency, is hopeful these new amendments will w**d out cases like Sutherland’s. However, as recently as January 8, the Administrative Review Tribunal was ruling against this approach.
“I also note that s 24(1)(e) was amended in 2024 so as to change the reference to a person requiring ‘support’ under the NDIS to ‘NDIS supports’,” senior ART member Katherine Bean wrote in her decision.
“However, the purpose of this was explained as follows: ‘This reflects the insertion of the new concept of an NDIS support, clarifying that a person must be likely to require NDIS supports for the rest of the person’s lifetime’.
“Again, there is no reference in the extrinsic materials to the need to consider the availability of support to the prospective participant under other systems in assessing whether they meet the disability requirements.”
While the federal government has announced its intention to change the NDIS eligibility rules in 2028, to coincide with the full implementation of Thriving Kids, the scope of that change remains to be seen.
Until the drafting is made public, the agency is primed to continue arguing that any support outside of the NDIS should nullify access to the more generous disability scheme.
In its final report, the Thriving Kids Advisory Group outlined a model that would rely heavily on underfunded community health organisations, schools, preschools and early childhood education centres to provide light-touch services for children and families with some support needs.
Other, more “targeted” support would be provided to children with moderate needs, while those with profound disabilities would still be able to access the NDIS.
Where that line will ultimately be drawn is not clear. Apparent in the discussion, however, is that children who do not qualify for the NDIS will receive support many orders of magnitude lower than that of their peers.
“Thriving Kids aims to provide Targeted Supports as soon as possible; however, there may be wait times to access some supports,” the report says.
“Targeted Supports would be delivered through a mix of group and 1:1, in person and/or ... virtually with the child and family matched to the delivery mode best suited to their needs. The model requires a mix of options are available across Australia to accommodate the diversity of need in children and families, including those living in rural and remote communities.”
Some 470 health hubs operating across Australia will form part of the plan, but the advisory group concedes that current funding for most hubs “is fragmented, service-specific, and often lacks long-term security”.
“To increase access to hubs, the Advisory Group suggests considering using PHNs [Primary Health Networks] to commission the establishment of hubs where there are gaps,” it says.
Children referred to allied health support via special Medicare Benefits Schedule child development plans, or a proposed one-off health and development check for three-year-olds, would not be guaranteed bulk-billing. The advisory group says incentives should be offered, however, to maximise the take-up by practitioners.
“The scant budget is a massive concern,” a therapist who works with children tells The Saturday Paper.
“They are expecting a loaves and fishes miracle if they think this level of funding [$4 billion over five years] can even begin to meet the early intervention needs of these children.”
The final report ends on a note of subtle suggestion.
“The Advisory Group noted that further work will be undertaken by the Australian Government on the interface between the NDIS and Thriving Kids,” it says.
“[We] encourage governments to uphold the principle of a smooth pathway for children and families to move between Thriving Kids and the NDIS, where required.”
