{"id":626675,"date":"2026-04-23T23:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/626675\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T23:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T23:10:11","slug":"regional-providers-families-fear-they-will-be-hit-hardest-by-cuts-to-ndis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/626675\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional providers, families fear they will be hit hardest by cuts to NDIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regional disability service providers say smaller operators will not survive another round of changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) following the government’s sweeping cuts.<\/p>\n

The changes announced this week aim to bring the cost of the NDIS down to $55 billion by the end of the decade and to move 160,000 people off the scheme.<\/p>\n

The cuts come less than 12-months after a raft of changes to funding models<\/a> affected therapy pricing and travel allowances.<\/p>\n

Liz Martin altered her career path to become a service provider after her son, Micah, was diagnosed with level 3 autism when he was three years old.<\/p>\n

Driven by the lack of disability services in Western Australia’s South West at the time, she started her own business, Micah Inclusion, in Bunbury.<\/p>\n

Regional providers trying to stay afloat<\/p>\n

Ms Martin said trying to run a successful business while keeping up with the scheme’s changes was challenging.<\/p>\n

How did the NDIS get so expensive?<\/a><\/p>\n

With more changes surrounding the NDIS just announced, here’s everything you need to know about the scheme.<\/p>\n

“It’s very hard to make a small business viable in the current climate, let alone adding the uncertainty of NDIS cuts happening,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Already there’s barriers because of the previous changes in NDIS with travel, and it’s making it much harder for services to be able to travel.”<\/p>\n

Ms Martin said the stress of continuing to bring services to regional areas fell on providers.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Liz Martin says without readily available therapies, regional children will be disadvantaged for life. (ABC South West WA: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n

“There’s an incredible amount of pressure on service providers, particularly to pivot and change and to try and mitigate the harm that is being done,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The mental health impact that’s having on service providers right across Australia \u2026 it’s not fair.<\/p>\n

“Life would be much easier if I went back to teaching.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bec Shepherd is a mother of two children living with different disabilities. (ABC South West WA: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n

‘Biggest slap in the face’<\/p>\n

Bec Shepherd cares for her son Jack, who has Down syndrome, and her daughter Evelyn who has autism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms Shepherd said the federal government’s cuts were adding undue stress on families.<\/p>\n

“You don’t live our life, you don’t walk in our shoes and you don’t do what we do day in and day out,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It just feels like the biggest slap in the face and punch in the guts.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Jack and Evelyn Shepherd’s mum says people don’t understand what life is like for those living with disabilities.\u00a0 (ABC South West WA: Madigan Landry)<\/p>\n

The 38-year-old said she and her husband already had enough on their plate planning end-of-life care for their son.<\/p>\n

“We understand, with Jack’s condition, that he will likely develop early onset dementia,” Ms Shepherd said.<\/p>\n

“I would love to see NDIS stick around, but I just don’t know if it’ll be able to provide the level of care.<\/p>\n

“We’re adding an extra financial stress to our plate to try to shore up our financial future to retire early so we can provide for our child.”<\/p>\n

Government concedes more work needed<\/p>\n

WA Regional Development Minister Stephen Dawson admitted more had to be done to support regional communities through the change.<\/p>\n

“There are still people in some of our regional communities, remote communities who haven’t had the same quality service as the city. So there’s some challenges there,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I’m certainly focused on ensuring that regional residents don’t go backwards in the level of tradition they get.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mark Butler says the NDIS is growing at an unsustainable pace. (ABC News: Callum Flinn)<\/p>\n

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler was contacted for comment on the concerns raised by Liz Martin and Bec Shepherd.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Butler said the overhaul was necessary because the scheme “costs too much and is growing too fast”.<\/p>\n

Under the current settings the scheme is forecast to cost $70 billion by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

“We can’t afford for the NDIS to continue growing at its present rate,” Mr Butler said.<\/p>\n

“But far more importantly, we can’t afford for the NDIS to fail.”<\/p>\n

State and territory ministers from around the country have reacted strongly<\/a> to the announcement, with one minister arguing the federal government will “walk away” from those in need.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More details on who will be impacted by the changes are expected to occur when Labor hands down its federal budget next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regional disability service providers say smaller operators will not survive another round of changes to the National Disability…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,303649,297465,303560,303647,303650,303651,44,41844,45,303648],"class_list":{"0":"post-626675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-mark-butler-cuts","11":"tag-ndis-cuts","12":"tag-ndis-fraud","13":"tag-ndis-regional-cuts","14":"tag-ndis-services","15":"tag-ndis-wa","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-south-west-news","18":"tag-wa-news","19":"tag-what-are-ndis-cuts"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}