NDIS savings plan kept secret as parents panic children will lose funding

Coalition and Greens senators have combined to accuse Labor of secrecy over its plans to reduce the cost of the $42 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme, saying parents are petrified their children will be kicked off while Labor withholds crucial modelling about the scheme’s future.

The federal government has repeatedly refused to reveal the assumptions behind its decision to limit NDIS growth to 8 per cent a year, banking $74 billion in savings over a decade, and continued to do so in a Senate budget estimates hearing on Wednesday.

Government Services and NDIS Minister Bill Shorten.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The National Disability Insurance Agency also declined to provide details about the scheme’s growth trajectory over the most recent four months, including its costs and participant numbers, in a sign of caution within the government about how the numbers are interpreted.

NDIA chief executive Rebecca Falkingham said the agency was “very optimistic the scheme is on track to reach national cabinet’s annual growth target of 8 per cent by 1 July 2026”. She said efficiencies, training and fraud detection had all been improved.

But NSW Liberal senator Hollie Hughes said families on the scheme were nervous because the government’s plans for curtailing its growth had not been sufficiently explained.

“There’s two ways you reduce expenditure on a demand-driven scheme … you either reduce the value of the plans, or you reduce the number of participants,” Hughes said.

“I would have thought we would want to be saying ... if you’ve got a kid with developmental delay, you don’t need an NDIS plan because the states are going to step back up with community speech therapy and [occupational therapists]. That’s a great story and something that’s really positive.

“But we don’t even get that. All we’re getting is parents petrified their kids are going to be kicked off, there’ll be no supports then in place at a state level and they’re going to be left with no lifeboat.”

Falkingham said many people on scheme packages would start to receive additional community supports, which was the original NDIS design, while NDIS Minister Bill Shorten has previously said all children would receive the support they needed.

Greens disability spokesman Senator Jordon Steele-John said the Senate had attempted to extract the government’s modelling in good faith. “The government, in the public realm, has communicated [billions] worth of savings on the back of a combination of this sustainability framework and other measures,” he said.

“All disabled people want to know is what does that mean for them, in terms of the number of NDIS participants the government projects will be on the scheme in 2025-26? And yet you refuse to provide that information.”

The NDIS has become a politically sensitive issue for Labor as it seeks to reduce cost blowouts while maintaining support for vulnerable Australians. The scheme is one of the federal government’s fastest-growing budget pressures and will cost more than $100 billion in a decade without change.

A sweeping review of the scheme released late last year sought to ease demand on the NDIS by stepping up supports at the community and state level, particularly for children with autism and developmental delay, who have been joining the scheme in rising numbers due to a lack of support through mainstream systems.

NDIS Minister Bill Shorten earlier this week revealed that spending on the scheme this financial year was already “slightly up” on December forecasts.

“What we’re seeing, and I suppose it’s partly because of the review, is that maybe there are some people who feel that they’ve got to rush to get onto the NDIS before changes take place,” he said at a press conference on Monday.

But agency officials did not bring those figures to Wednesday’s budget estimates session, which provoked outrage among senators. While outlays up to the end of January were provided at last year’s February estimates session, the agency this year only brought data from September.

Falkingham said she would have to take on notice more than a dozen questions on scheme forecasts, plan inflation, participant numbers and average payments.

Coalition senator Linda Reynolds, a former NDIS minister, said the denial of four months’ data to the Senate on Wednesday was “outrageously unprecedented”.

“Are you seriously telling me … you will not release it to the Senate, at Senate estimates, even though you’ve given that data to states and territories?” Reynolds asked.

“We do not have that data with us today,” Falkingham said. “We are very happy to provide on notice the quarterly report as soon as it’s available.”

Steele-John said transparency was important. “This time last year you were willing to be transparent with this committee, and it is concerning to me that 12 months later, you are not willing to show that same level of transparency” he said.

Shorten’s office declined to comment.

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