States blindsided by Butler’s plans for new scheme for autistic children

Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler has moved to assure parents their kids won’t be kicked off the NDIS and slapped down complaints from state premiers as concern brews about the government’s ability to deliver a new disability system for children within two years.

The federal government stands to save up to $100 billion over the next decade if Butler can contain growth in the NDIS to 5 per cent a year, as he flagged on Wednesday, in part by delivering a new “Thriving Kids” support scheme for children who have otherwise flocked to the insurance scheme.

But curbing costs of the NDIS, which grew by 10.8 per cent last financial year, will rely on state governments matching Butler’s urgency in rolling out the new system for children with developmental delays and mild or moderate autism across Medicare, schools, childcare and playgroups by the middle of 2027.

As Butler on Thursday moved to assure nervous parents that their children would not lose out under his plans, state governments distanced themselves from the new system that will require them to collectively stump up $2 billion over the next four years, to be matched by the Commonwealth.

NSW Premier Chris Minns said he was not going to sign a blank cheque or “commit sight unseen, but we will commit to working with the Commonwealth government to have a sustainable disability support program”.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said there had been ongoing discussions about challenges delivering the NDIS, but that “like many states and territories, we heard about the proposed changes from the federal government when the minister made his address yesterday”.

“I’ll leave it to the federal government to answer questions on the way they’ve made this announcement,” she said.

A Tasmanian government spokesman said the Commonwealth was “yet to provide details on how this will actually work”, and Queensland also claimed to have been left in the dark.

Butler batted away their concerns on Thursday. “We’ve been talking about this for two years,” he said, referencing the 2023 national cabinet agreement to launch a disability system for children, which did not start this year as planned.

“I committed $2 billion on behalf of the Commonwealth yesterday, over four years. The commitment by national cabinet was that states would match that.”

Butler said he was confident that level of funding would “build a robust system for Thriving Kids” as well as deliver budget savings.

“In relation to kids with mild to moderate levels of developmental delay or autism, this will be not just a more effective package for parents and kids, but also, frankly, a more efficient way to spend taxpayers’ money,” he told 2GB.

NDIS figures show that about 174,000 children under the age of nine received funding last financial year, with average payments of $19,100 – a total of $3.3 billion. The new Thriving Kids system has been allocated $4 billion over the four-year forward estimates.

Andrew Whitehouse, deputy director of The Kids Research Institute Australia, said a program that offered more tailored support to children, at a lower cost and strain to the NDIS was “absolutely the hope”.

“The sledgehammer approach of the NDIS with individualised packages, bureaucratic hurdles and delays is actually not the right approach,” he said.

‘There’ll be no gap’: Butler moves to reassure panicked parents

But the two-year turnaround for the scheme panicked many parents and disability groups and the opposition accused the government of generating fear by throwing out headlines without consultation.

Chief executive of Children and Young People with a Disability, Skye Kakoschke-Moore, said Thriving Kids had huge potential. “But the government can’t seriously expect to set up a fully functional system to replace NDIS supports in under a year,” she said.

“The real families impacted by this announcement deserve to be heard, to see transparent decision-making, and to have certainty they won’t be left without support while the system is being cobbled together.”

Butler promised that children would not be diverted from the NDIS, which is on track to become the federal budget’s third-biggest expense, until there was a robust system in place to support them.

“I get that parents are feeling unsure after the announcement I had made yesterday. I want to reassure them that we’re not going to leave them high and dry,” he told Nine’s Today on Thursday morning, in one of several media appearances.

“I’m not going to have people leaving the NDIS without a system in place to support them. If they’re on the NDIS now or into the future before this system starts, they will stay on the NDIS.”

But opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said she felt for families.

“My feeling goes to those people who are thrown into great uncertainty because they don’t know what this actually means for them,” she told ABC’s Radio National.

“I think the challenge is to make sure that when you do big pieces of reform, that people have got certainty and information so that they don’t become distressed and scared by these changes ... Don’t just turn up at the [National] Press Club and throw out a headline like he did yesterday without consultation.

“We saw the response from the states and territories and other stakeholders about how this was the first time that they had heard about this.”

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