Butler announces new plan to divert children with autism away from NDIS

Central to the plan is the transition of children under nine with mild to moderate developmental delays or autism from the NDIS to a new foundational support program called Thriving Kids, which will be jointly funded by federal, state and territory governments.

It will begin rolling out from July 2026 and be fully implemented by July 2027.

Children with autism on the NDIS would not be steered from the scheme until supports were fully rolled out, the minister said.

“I know this will be hard for some parents to hear and I don’t say it lightly,” Butler said in the speech.

“We need as a matter of some urgency to create a better system that will enable our children to thrive.

“Diverting this group of kids over time from the NDIS is an important element of making the scheme sustainable and returning it to its original intent.”

Medicare items for occupational therapy, speech pathology and psychosocial therapy would be considered for the program, including a bulk-billed check-up for three-year-olds, Butler said.

The Government would start by making a $2 billion contribution, matched by states and territories.

The Mental Health Coordinating Council (MHCC) in NSW said for many families, the lack of community-based services has meant the NDIS has become the default pathway for accessing help.

It said the Thriving Kids program aims to change this by creating more accessible options outside the NDIS. It will focus on expanding support systems within schools, health services, and local communities, ensuring children and their families can access help earlier and more consistently.

The program, the MHCC said, is expected to provide alternatives for children who may not require long-term, intensive support but still benefit from timely and targeted assistance. This includes developmental delays, autism, and related concerns that, if addressed early, can significantly improve outcomes for children as they grow.

Butler said for children needing additional supports, the Government will look at providing access to new Medicare allied health items, including occupational therapy to strengthen play skills, fine and gross motor skills, concentration, and self-regulation and speech pathology to support speech, language, literacy, as well as the use of signs, symbols and gestures to support kids to communicate and build relationships.

There’ll also be access to psychosocial therapy to support developing essential social skills, emotional regulation and executive function.

Butler said schools can play a more coordinated role, instead of the individualised NDIS approach that sees school principals reporting dozens of different therapists turning up to their school to provide therapy to individual students.

He praised Mental Health in Primary Schools as one example of a more broad-based approach to supporting young children with a range of needs, including autism and ADHD.

“Developed by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, this program has been delivered across Victorian schools and is now being piloted in Queensland and South Australia,” he said.

Positive Partnerships, Butler said, supports teachers, principals, and other school staff to build their understanding and expertise in working with autistic children.

Butler said schools can play a more coordinated role, instead of the individualised NDIS approach that sees school principals reporting dozens of different therapists turning up to their school to provide therapy to individual students.

“It includes workshops and information sessions for parents and carers of autistic school-aged children; and a dedicated website with online learning modules and other resources [and] complements the work states are doing to build school-based supports for students with developmental delay and autism.”

Autism Awareness chief executive Nicole Rogerson said early intervention strategies were key for ensuring children received the right support.

“(Thriving Kids) potentially has the opportunity to be a once-in-a-generation change in how we look at developmental pediatrics.”

Rogerson said what Butler was doing was “pretty rare for a politician” because he was “owning what the problem is”.

Ensuring the program was in place before children were moved from the scheme was reassuring, People with Disability acting chief executive Megan Spindler-Smith said.

But other advocates say the limited window til the launch in July 2026 is far too short and could see children continue to be removed from the Scheme before new supports are ready.

“Thriving Kids has huge potential, but the government can’t seriously expect to set up a fully-functional system to replace NDIS supports in under a year,” CYDA CEO Skye Kakoschke-Moore said.

“To truly honour the principle of ‘nothing about us, without us’, the governments needs to provide adequate time for genuine co-design and community consultation, especially when changes are this significant.

“The real families impacted by this announcement deserve to be heard, to see transparent decision-making, and to have certainty they won’t be left without support while the system is being cobbled together.

The minister said while one-in-50 people had a significant disability which would be covered by the NDIS, one-in-five young children were on the autism spectrum or had a developmental delay.

Parents had little choice but to put their children with autism on a scheme designed for permanent disability, Butler said.

“Families who were looking for additional supports in mainstream services can’t find them because they largely don’t exist anymore and in that, all governments have failed them,” he said.

Originally intended to support around 410,000 people with disability, Butler said the NDIS now supports just under 740,000 and is projected to grow to a million by 2034.

“When we came to government in 2022, the scheme’s costs were growing at 22 per cent per year,” he said.

“To put that in perspective, Aged Care is projected to grow by around 5 per cent per annum … [and] Medicare is expected also to grow by about 5 per cent per year.”

Butler said the changes would help to bring down the cost of the NDIS, with taxpayers set to fork out more than $52 billion for the scheme in 2025/26.

Laws passed in 2024 put in place a cap on spending growth of eight per cent per year.

But the minister said the existing level of growth was unsustainable and a cap of between five and six per cent would be more effective.

“After we achieve our current target, a further wave of reform will be needed to get growth down to a more sustainable position,” he said.

“There’s no significant change in disability prevalence in the community and the scheme is now fully rolled out. So growth should really reflect unit price inflation plus growth in Australia’s population.”

Autism peak body Aspect said families needed the right level of support.

“Given the number of autistic children we support through our schools and therapy programs, families must have confidence there will be continuity of supports, real choice and control, and no gaps during the transition,” chief executive Jacqui Borland said.

with AAP