Opinion: You can’t deliver NDIS sustainability without fixing the system around it
The national conversation about the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has shifted quickly.
There is a strong focus on sustainability — including moderating growth, tightening access, and increasing reliance on mainstream systems such as health, education, and early childhood services through initiatives like “Thriving Kids”.
These are legitimate policy objectives.
But there is a structural problem at the centre of this approach.
The Disability Royal Commission found that these same systems are currently failing people with disability.
If policy is moving people out of the NDIS and into those systems, then reforming them is not optional.
It is essential.
This is not about “too many children”
Much of the current debate has focused on Autistic children and rising diagnoses.
But this framing misses the central issue.
What we are seeing is not a simple increase in need.
It is a system that:
- identifies need late
- classifies it differently over time
- and relies on imperfect pathways to provide support
Many children enter early support under Developmental Delay because diagnosis takes time.
As they grow, their needs are more clearly understood — often as autism.
That is not overdiagnosis.
It is delayed recognition within a complex system.
Changing access pathways may reduce the number of children receiving support.
But it does not reduce underlying need.
Changing access does not change need
Reducing access to the NDIS may reduce numbers on paper.
But it does not reduce need.
Without system reform, that need does not disappear — it shifts.
Into:
- classrooms that are not equipped
- health systems already under pressure
- families who are left to carry the load
This is not efficiency.
It is cost shifting.
And short-term savings without system reform do not last — they come back somewhere else, often at higher cost.
This is an economic issue, not just a disability issue
People with disability want to participate — in education, in employment, and in their communities.
When systems do not support that participation, the cost is borne not only by individuals and families, but by the economy.
We see this already:
- lower workforce participation
- higher long-term support needs
- increased demand on health and crisis systems
We also know the alternative.
When systems work:
- participation increases
- long-term costs decrease
- and economic returns are significant
Sustainability is not achieved by reducing access in one part of the system while leaving the rest unchanged.
It is achieved by ensuring the system as a whole performs.
We already have the strategies — but they need to be delivered
There is an existing foundation to build from.
The National Autism Strategy, along with the National Roadmap for Improving the Health and Mental Health of Autistic People, set out clear directions for strengthening mainstream systems — including early years, education, health, and employment.
These strategies recognise that improving outcomes for Autistic people requires coordinated, cross-system reform.
But strategies alone do not deliver change.
Without sustained implementation, coordination, and funding, they risk remaining aspirational rather than operational.
Given the increasing reliance being placed on mainstream systems, these strategies should be understood as core system infrastructure.
Fully implementing and resourcing them is essential to ensuring that mainstream systems are equipped to respond — and that reform efforts across the NDIS and beyond are aligned and effective.
The missing piece is implementation
Australia does not lack policy advice.
We have had decades of reviews, inquiries, and reform processes.
The Disability Royal Commission provides the most comprehensive blueprint for change.
But a blueprint is not delivery.
Right now, there is no central mechanism to:
- coordinate implementation across government
- sequence reform
- ensure accountability
Responsibility is dispersed across departments, with no single point of oversight.
This creates a real risk for Government’s reform agenda.
There is a practical solution available now
Experience from other Royal Commissions is clear.
Where governments establish:
- central coordination
- independent oversight
- and a clear implementation pathway
reform is more effective, more durable, and more likely to deliver value for money.
The response to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide is a recent example — with a PM&C-led implementation taskforce transitioning to an independent statutory body.
That model has not yet been applied to disability reform.
What needs to happen
The upcoming Federal Budget provides a clear opportunity.
Re-establishing a central Disability Royal Commission Implementation Taskforce within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet would:
- coordinate reform across portfolios
- ensure transparency and public accountability
- embed co-design with people with disability and their representative organisations
- and establish a clear, time-bound pathway to an independent National Disability Commission
This is not about delaying reform.
It is about making sure it works.
Because this is the real choice
This is not a choice between:
- sustainability
- and support
It is a choice between:
- coordinated reform
- or fragmented change
And without coordination, we already know the outcome
We risk repeating the same cycle:
- short-term savings
- followed by long-term costs
- and another round of reform
That is not sustainable
Sustainability comes from system performance — not shifting pressure between systems.
And without fixing the system around the NDIS, sustainability will not be achieved.
Because this is not abstract
This is about whether Autistic children:
- are identified early
- receive the support they need
- and can participate in education, employment, and community
Systems should make that possible.
Right now, they often do not.
And that is what needs to change