The areas where one in 10 tweens are on the NDIS

One in 10 older children are on the National Disability Insurance Scheme in some parts of the country, indicating families’ reliance on the $48 billion scheme is extending past what is considered the age for early intervention.

An analysis of participation data found 10 regional districts, including the NSW Central and Mid North Coasts and Loddon and Barwon in regional Victoria, have about 10 per cent of children aged nine to 14 who are NDIS participants.

A rising number of children aged nine to 14 are on the NDIS.Credit: Michele Mossop

Nationally, 6.9 per cent of children aged nine to 14 were on the NDIS in March 2025, compared to 5.9 per cent of children aged seven to 14 two years earlier.

The increase in older children’s participation poses a challenge for the Albanese government’s attempts to control the scheme’s growth because it shows families are continuing to seek NDIS support even after early intervention pathways wrap up on a child’s ninth birthday.

This undermines the argument that NDIS support for young children – of whom 11 per cent use the scheme at six years old – helps target developmental challenges early so they can exit the scheme.

Martin Laverty, a former NDIA board member, said the NDIS was not designed for the volume of children who have entered the scheme.

“It’s not an overstatement to say that the volume of children entering and staying in the scheme longer than was ever intended is compounding the total scheme cost and that pressure on the taxpayer,” he said, calling for more support to be provided “adjacent” to the scheme.

Planned NDIS reforms – which would see more support for people with less intense needs being delivered outside the scheme, by the states – will not begin to roll out from July, as originally anticipated, as negotiations continue between the states and federal government.

But participation data reveals another dynamic that will make moving children off the scheme more complicated: the highest rates of children on the NDIS continue to be in regional and outer-metropolitan areas, where schools tend to have poorer resourcing and families have fewer other options to get help.

The trend underscores the equity issues at stake as the federal and state governments seek to move children off the scheme and onto an as-yet undesigned “foundational supports” system in the long term, with the NDIS serving as a lifeline in areas without other services.

NDIS participation rates in lower socio-economic regional areas are as much as double those in wealthy city areas.

In NSW, North Sydney has one of the lowest participation rates for children, with 3.5 per cent of both nine to 14-year-olds and under-eights, whereas on the NSW Mid North Coast, those rates are 10.1 per cent for older children and 9.7 per cent for younger children.

In Melbourne’s inner east, 4.6 per cent of under-eights and 4.8 per cent of older children are on the scheme. This is a far lower participation rate than at Loddon, near Bendigo, where 8.7 per cent of young children and 10.5 per cent of older children are participants.

The highest participation rates in March 2025 were in northern Adelaide and South Australia’s Barossa Valley, where more than 11 per cent of 9 to 14-year-old children are NDIS participants, as are more than 8 per cent of children under nine years old.

But even in inner-city areas, where families have more access to services, children’s participation rates increased in the two years to March 2025.

The exception is in the Northern Territory – a sign of continued challenges in accessing the NDIS in more remote areas.

Laverty, who is now chief executive of disability service Aruma, said the higher uptake among regional families was no surprise as they can struggle to get help for learning delays at school, or access services such as speech therapy in the private system. Once eligible, children can linger on waitlists for months.

“Aruma has waiting lists of families seeking support that miss out because of allied health shortages in country Australia,” Laverty said, noting this was exacerbated by the lack of state and territory services outside the NDIS.

Laverty said wait times meant the window for early intervention could often close before a child got the help they needed.

“That delay is resulting in children missing out on the intervention that may prevent them ever needing an NDIS package in the long term,” he said.

While the 2023 independent NDIS review recommended children younger than nine enter the scheme under early intervention pathways, to reduce the need for supports over their lifetime, a NDIA spokesperson said most children entered the scheme under developmental delay provisions.

“Over half of the children with developmental delay continue in the scheme after being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder,” they said.

In December, the federal government announced $4.5 million over two years for the NDIA to design and consult on an early intervention pathway to better support children younger than nine with developmental delay or disability.

with Millie Muroi

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.