‘No limits’: $44bn NDIS open to all disabilities
NDIS Minister Amanda Rishworth says there will be no tightening of which disabilities are eligible for the $44bn scheme despite the government facing a mammoth effort to rein in costs, with Labor instead to launch a new panel to review “contestable” services and programs participants are using.
Signalling the introduction of more restrictions on what programs NDIS participants can access, Ms Rishworth revealed she would appoint a panel of technical experts to advise government on “objective” evidence on how effective programs were and whether some services were being accessed too frequently.
While her predecessor, Bill Shorten, flagged late last year that eligibility changes would be considered as the government moved to lower its yearly spending growth to 8 per cent by mid-2026, Ms Rishworth said this was not part of her plans.
Of six million Australians with a disability, 680,000 are on the NDIS and nearly a quarter of those are children under nine.
“We are not planning to change eligibility criteria,” she said. “There’s no changes around kicking people off the scheme and stopping people from coming on.”
Amid concerns over the number of children with mild autism accessing the scheme – figures last year revealed more than one in 10 boys aged between five and 11 were on the NDIS – Ms Rishworth said it was important there were more options and support for parents who had children with developmental delays.
“It might be (programs) supporting parents with the skills they need on a particular area that their child might be being delayed developmentally,” she said.
“It will be delivered potentially through groups, potentially through short one-on-one support from allied health, potentially through peer support hubs, or indeed, online support.
“The idea is that it’s quick, fast and easy for you to access, so you won’t need to have, for example, a formal diagnosis and bring all the evidence that you require to get into the NDIS, but it will be accessible for parents very early on, easy to access so they can get that support.”
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