Federal and state governments must urgently start work on setting up new disability systems for older children, teenagers and adults with lower needs after the parliament this week passes laws that will remove 240,000 people from the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler said a scheme akin to a “Thriving Teens” program would need to get off the ground within the next 16 months to make sure older children who no longer qualified for the scheme aren’t left in the lurch when eligibility changes start in 2028.
Labor sealed an agreement with the Coalition yesterday to pass its contentious NDIS overhaul, which should recoup $37 billion for the federal budget in the next four years, and $150 billion in a decade. The bill passed the Senate with a tranche of amendments on Tuesday night, and will return to the House this week to become law.
Butler said federal officials were already designing new NDIS eligibility assessments that will come into effect in January 2028, but there was plenty of work to be done by then so that new systems will be ready to cater to people who no longer qualified for the $50 billion scheme under stricter criteria.
State governments, except for Queensland, have implementation plans ready and to start rolling out the Thriving Kids scheme for children under nine with development delays and autism from October this year, with its complete rollout due by the start of 2028.
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