Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler has moved to assure parents their kids won’t be kicked off the National Disability Insurance Scheme as concern brews about the federal government’s ability to deliver a new disability system for children within two years. Source: The Age.
The government stands to save up to $100 billion over the next decade if Mr Butler can contain growth in the NDIS to 5 per cent a year, as he flagged on Wednesday, in part by delivering a new “Thriving Kids” support scheme for children who have otherwise flocked to the insurance scheme.
But curbing costs of the NDIS, which grew by 10.2 per cent last financial year, will rely on state governments matching Mr Butler’s urgency in rolling out the new system for children with developmental delays and mild or moderate autism across Medicare, schools, childcare and playgroups by the middle of 2027.
As Mr Butler yesterday moved to assure nervous parents that their children would not lose out under his plans, state governments distanced themselves from the new system that will require them to collectively stump up $2 billion over the next four years, to be matched by the Commonwealth.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said he was not going to sign a blank cheque or “commit sight unseen, but we will commit to working with the Commonwealth Government to have a sustainable disability support program”.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said there had been ongoing discussions about challenges delivering the NDIS, but that “like many states and territories, we heard about the proposed changes from the federal government when the minister made his address yesterday”.
A Tasmanian Government spokesman said the Commonwealth was “yet to provide details on how this will actually work”, and Queensland also claimed to have been left in the dark.
Mr Butler batted away their concerns yesterday.
“We’ve been talking about this for two years,” he said, referencing the 2023 national cabinet agreement to launch a disability system for children, which did not start this year as planned.
“I committed $2 billion on behalf of the Commonwealth yesterday, over four years. The commitment by national cabinet was that states would match that.”
FULL STORY
States blindsided by Butler’s plans for new scheme for autistic children (By Natassia Chrysanthos and Nick Newling, The Age)
