{"id":666080,"date":"2026-05-12T13:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666080\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T13:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T13:35:13","slug":"huge-cuts-to-national-disability-insurance-scheme-aim-to-save-more-than-36bn-in-budgets-largest-single-measure-australian-budget-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/666080\/","title":{"rendered":"Huge cuts to national disability insurance scheme aim to save more than $36bn in budget\u2019s largest single measure | Australian budget 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The government expects to recoup $36.2bn by curbing the national disability insurance scheme\u2019s growth over the next four years as it looks to return to the NDIS\u2019s \u201coriginal purpose\u201d of supporting people with \u201csignificant and permanent disability\u201d.<\/p>\n

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the budget\u2019s savings package amounted to genuine economic reform, beyond the \u201cusual nips and tucks\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is all about saving the NDIS from itself,\u201d he said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about making sure that we can continue to provide [the] levels of support people need and deserve in a way the country can afford.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

The budget papers show changes to limit who can access the NDIS \u2013 which supports more than 760,000 Australians with disabilities \u2013 will reduce participant payments by at least $37.8bn until 2030.<\/p>\n

The health minister, Mark Butler, announced last month<\/a> he would introduce drastic changes to bring down the scheme\u2019s growth to 2% every year until the end of the decade to prevent its budget soaring past the $100bn-a-year mark by the mid-2030s.<\/p>\n

The budget papers show the plan to reduce the NDIS\u2019s growth is by far the budget\u2019s single largest savings measure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The National Disability<\/a> Insurance Agency, which runs the scheme, also faces cuts, with its headcount reduced by 669 in the next financial year to 9,840.<\/p>\n

But the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission will gain almost 200 more staff as the government widens registration requirements for providers.<\/p>\n

The budget papers show the government expects payments made to participants to plateau at between $53bn and $54bn a year until 2030 while employee benefits will halve from 2027-28.<\/p>\n

Butler will introduce legislation this week to begin his overhaul of the scheme. It\u2019s expected to focus on limiting the number of unscheduled reassessments, which the minister said had been a \u201cmajor driver\u201d of spending growth in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"FederalFederal budget 2026: treasurer Jim Chalmers’ full budget speech \u2013 video<\/p>\n

The scheme\u2019s cost grew by more than 10.3% last year and it had been on track to cost $63bn by 2028-29. Without changes, it had been projected to support more than 1 million participants by 2033 and to cost $95.8bn in 2034-35.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NDIS costs too much and is growing too fast, put alongside any comparable government program,\u201d Butler said last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd unless we take action to make it sustainable, it simply will not be there in the future for the Australians who need it most.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the eligibility changes would reduce the number of people using the scheme to about 600,000 by 2030, down from forecasts of 900,000 participants.<\/p>\n

A new standardised assessment tool to determine a person\u2019s NDIS access will be in place from 1 January 2028.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are hard decisions \u2013 but they\u2019re unavoidable and urgent,\u201d Butler said.<\/p>\n

Programs outside the NDIS for those no longer eligible will receive $3bn over the next five years from the federal government, a figure to be matched by states and territories.<\/p>\n

The Thriving Kids program for children under nine with autism and developmental delays will begin rolling out from October and is expected to be fully operational from January 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government expects to recoup $36.2bn by curbing the national disability insurance scheme\u2019s growth over the next four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-666080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666080","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=666080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}