Ahead of leaving politics next year, Bill Shorten says he is confident that the runaway cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme – for which he is responsible – is being brought under control. The Annual Financial Sustainability Report by the scheme’s actuary says that Labor’s target of limiting annual growth in costs to 8 per cent could be hit in 2025-2026, a year earlier than planned.

The NDIS should be a cautionary tale about governments establishing expensive and open-ended social entitlements without a plan for how to pay for them. On the one hand, Labor says it is lowering spending on disability. But on the other hand, Anthony Albanese is going to the election promising to spend larger sums of taxpayers’ money on a childcare system that already costs $12.7 billion per year.