The bad and good of last week’s NDIS cost growth cap announcement

Like many in the community, disability rights activist Elly Desmarchelier felt blindsided when the federal government announced changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) last week. But as she points out, it wasn’t all bad news. 

It’s well known in politics that if you have something bad to announce, you do it on a Friday afternoon. It’s called ‘taking out the trash’.

Everyone’s winding down from work, ready to start their weekend – even journalists. When you’re counting down to 5pm, you don’t care about the news, especially anything a politician has to say. So if you want to announce something unpopular, Friday afternoon is the time to do it. 

Which is why, when a big NDIS announcement came out late last Friday afternoon, alarm bells rang instantly – and for good reason.

Here’s the bad news:

On Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced he would cut the growth of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS).

The NDIS is currently growing by around 14 percent every year, but without warning, the PM announced that growth now needs to be under 8 percent by July 2026 – all in the name of keeping the scheme “sustainable”.

This means a six percent cut in spending or, to put it in a way we can all understand, reducing spending by more than $57 billion over the next decade.

$57 billion is a whole lot of wheelchairs, showers, meals and trips into the community. 

So as you can imagine, people with disability – and those who advocate for us – were gobsmacked and furious when the news broke. We’re also very anxious. 

Where will this $57 billion come from? 

Will it come in the form of cuts to plans and supports? We are not going back to the days where plan reviews were something to be feared, and all you could hope for was no cuts to your vital existing supports.

Will the money come from making it harder for people to access the scheme? Anyone who is on the NDIS will tell you accessing it is already a lot of hard work, so making the process more difficult is going to mean eligible people with disability are left behind. 

The truth is, we don’t know. We don’t know where the cuts will come from to ensure the government hits its new target. 

People with disability spent eight years living in fear, under multiple Coalition governments, trying to anticipate where the next cut to our supports and services would come from. That’s why at the last election we campaigned so hard to Defend Our NDIS. 

Our campaign secured promises from the government that reforms to the scheme would be made in consultation with people with disability. The NDIS Review – a whole scheme review being conducted in co-design with people with disability – is only part way through its work. 

The eight percent target is premature and undermines the work of the NDIS Review. People with disability have been working in good faith with the review with the goal of making the scheme more sustainable for decades to come. We should continue this work without blunt targets that feel like veiled threats. 

Friday afternoon’s trash was a very unwelcome delivery. However, there were a few items to salvage amongst the waste. 

Here’s the good news:

There was some good in Friday afternoon’s announcement, which was largely overshadowed by the looming eight percent target. The government announced it was investing $720 million over four years in this year’s Budget to lift the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA)’s capacity to better support people with disability on the scheme. 

What does that mean? There were 10 initiatives that fell within this funding, including: 

• Better processes and more training for planners, so that decisions are consistent and fair from the start
• Longer plans, so that you don’t have to lose sleep every 12 months worrying about a plan review when you don’t need any changes
• Investments in cutting down on fraud and dodgy providers

Making sure the NDIA is working more efficiently and effectively with people with disability can only be a good thing. This additional investment is welcome, it’s just a shame it was mixed in with the trash.