Anthony Albanese has given Amanda Rishworth an enormous vote of confidence or cursed her with the NDIS | Caleb Bond

Spare a thought for the Labor MP that just inherited responsibility for fixing the biggest mess in Australian politics, writes Caleb Bond.

Spare a thought for Amanda Rishworth.

The Prime Minister either has great confidence in her or hates her guts given she’s been appointed Bill Shorten’s replacement as NDIS minister.

What a poisoned chalice – the $44 billion, rort-ridden behemoth.

Shorten will be a loss to the portfolio.

He is well-regarded by his opposition counterparts and has had a good working relationship with them in his efforts to reign in the runaway scheme.

But if Rishworth really wants to finish the job she needs to say what most are too afraid to acknowledge – that a large number of people on the NDIS do not require government support and autism has become over-diagnosed.

It ought to be called the NAIS – the National Autism Insurance Scheme – given 35 per cent of all people on the scheme have a primary diagnosis of autism and more than half of participants are children, three-quarters of whom have either autism or a developmental delay.

Autism diagnoses have exploded since the NDIS was introduced in 2013.

Amanda Rishworth will replace the retiring Bill Shorten as Australia’s NDIS Minister. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

There were 115,400 autistic Australians in 2012.

The same year the NDIS was introduced, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was revised to remove Asperger’s – essentially the mildest form of autism – and include it in autism spectrum disorder.

By 2015 there were 164,000 people with autism, an increase of 42.1 per cent.

In 2018 it jumped 25.1 per cent to 205,200 and in 2022 it again soared 41.8 per cent to 290,900 people.

From 115,400 to 290,000 in a decade – an increase of 152 per cent that coincides directly with the introduction of the NDIS.

A 2023 study from the Crawford School of Public Policy found that the rate of autism diagnosis in Australia had increased much faster than our western allies since 2013 and that we had some of the highest rates of autism in the world.

Twelve per cent of boys aged five to seven are on the NDIS.

An average recipient with autism receives about $34,000 a year in funding – but the scheme, quite rightly, only provides money to people with a level two or three autism diagnosis.

Level one is essentially the old Asperger’s which requires minimal support, level two means autism poses significant barriers to everyday life and level three is profound autism such as people who are non-verbal or can’t look after themselves.

The majority of autistic people would fit into level one – and yet hardly anyone is diagnosed with level one autism anymore because it doesn’t come with any money.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Psychologists tell me that they now rarely ever see children with a level one diagnosis and seldom do clinicians not give an autism diagnosis to parents who have sought one for their child.

Rather than considering other factors that might explain a child’s behaviour, they opt for autism in the first instance because that’s what parents want to gain access to the NDIS – and they reportedly hit the warpath if their child is not diagnosed at level two.

One psychologist recently told me of a child who had attended their clinic on an unrelated matter but had a level two autism diagnosis.

In roughly two hours the child displayed no obvious signs of autism – and he wasn’t quite sure why he was considered autistic.

But on paper he qualifies for NDIS money – and this is what is happening writ large.

The federal government this week announced a $42.3 million autism strategy but it’s no use without asking why diagnoses suddenly exploded after they meant you could get public money.

The overdiagnosis of autism has been incentivised by the government and we’re paying for it.