(AUSTRALIA) Seven in 10 on disability are kids with autism; "de facto support system for struggling children"
- Aug 21, 2025
- 3 min read
Aug 19, 2025, The Age: Seven in 10 new people joining NDIS for autism
Seven in 10 people who joined the National Disability Insurance Scheme in the past year had a primary diagnosis of autism, and most were children, in a fresh sign of the challenges facing Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler as he seeks to secure the future of the $46 billion [$30B] scheme.
An analysis of government data by this masthead reveals that 56,000 of the 78,600 participants who signed up to the NDIS between June 2024 and June 2025 had autism as their main diagnosis. It brings the total number of people using the NDIS for autism support to 295,000 – about 40 per cent of the scheme’s 740,000 participants.
The next most common reason that participants joined the NDIS last financial year was for developmental delays, with 5500 being children. At the same time, there were 4405 new participants with intellectual disability, 1618 people with hearing impairment, 1077 people with multiple sclerosis, 870 people with acquired brain injuries and 829 who joined after suffering strokes.
As Butler prepares to give a national address on the future of the NDIS on Wednesday – his first speech since taking over the portfolio in May – the figures are a stark indication of how a scheme designed to support Australians with the most profound lifelong disabilities has become a de facto support system for struggling children.
Families’ reliance on the NDIS for early intervention is a key reason the scheme is on track to become the federal government’s third-biggest budget item. It grew by more than 10 per cent last year, even as the government clamped down on spending and delivered the program at $520 million less than forecast.
Thousand-fold increase: What is driving the rise of autism?
The chief executive of Autism Awareness Australia, Nicole Rogerson, said the Albanese government needed to make difficult decisions when it came to NDIS eligibility, or else “the Australian people are going to start losing faith in this system”.
“We have a number of Australian children who are not thriving. Their parents have concerns about their development, and those kids need support. Was the NDIS designed to support those children? No, it wasn’t. But you can’t blame their families for seeking an autism diagnosis that gets them the support they think they need,” she said.
“We are encouraging the government to make brave choices here, and show leadership ... [They are] going to have to tighten the criteria.
“But they have to do it at the same time they’re building services to support the kids who currently have NDIS plans.”
The federal and state governments in late 2023 agreed to establish a new disability system called “foundational supports”, which would take pressure off the NDIS by offering help to children in mainstream settings such as schools, community centres and childcare.
Design of the system is underway, but the rollout was pushed back from its July 1 start date as a funding deal has not yet been worked out.
As NDIS spending comes into focus at this week’s economic roundtable at Parliament House, NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said there was a “very complex interaction between who needs to do what, how we’re going to have to pay for it”, and how the NDIS interacts with the health system.
“There’s a bit of complexity there. It has taken a bit of time, but I don’t think it’s right to say that those conversations have stalled, or they’re not constructive. They’re taking place,” he said.
“From the states’ perspective, I can say we want this resolved as quickly as we can and we want to get to a system in which we can do our bit making sure kids get access to support they need.”
The age where one in six boys is now on the NDIS
About 43 per cent of NDIS participants are under 14 years old, and this masthead revealed last week that 16 per cent of all six-year-old boys in the country now rely on it.
Across the country, more than 10 per cent of five to seven-year-old children are participants: 13.7 per cent of boys and 6.4 per cent of girls. But the rate of children’s participation can be much higher in certain areas. For example, in both the regional Victorian area of Loddon and on the NSW Central Coast, 13.3 per cent of all nine to 14-year-old boys were on the scheme at the end of June.
Participants with autism tend to have lower annual costs: the average payment for participants with autism is $36,000 a year, below the average participant payment of $65,800 across all disability groups.
But the number of participants on the NDIS with autism has put higher-than-expected financial pressure on the federal budget.
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