Latest Federal Budget and Disability Services

On Tuesday 9 May 2023, the Federal Government delivered its latest budget. The government reaffirmed its support for the scheme and committed a total of $42.1 billion with an additional $910 million over four years to improve the NDIS, and support and safeguard people with a disability and the scheme. In the area of disability supports, a key theme was ensuring that services are sustainable and work effectively for people with disability, their families and carers.

To achieve this, the budget focused on two key areas:

Improving disability systems and services for the future
Getting the NDIS back on track.

Improving disability systems and services for the future

The Budget’s measures include delivering outcomes under Australia’s Disability Strategy 2021–2031, which is a roadmap to an inclusive society to ensure people with disability can fulfil their potential, as equal members of the community.
Measures focus on boosting workforce participation and opportunities for people with disability, progressing the National Autism Strategy and establishing the National Disability Data Asset.
Click here for fact sheet.

Getting the NDIS back on track

The Government affirmed that the NDIS is here to stay and is working to get the NDIS back on track and rebuilding trust with participants, their families and carers. The Budget commits a total of approximately $910 million over five years to improve the effectiveness and delivery of the NDIS.

To get the NDIS back on track, the Government:

Is significantly increasing its funding to the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA), to improve capacity and systems, as well as better support participants to manage their plans and fight fraud.
Click here for fact sheet.

Has announced an NDIS Financial Sustainability Framework that will limit the annual growth of the scheme to eight per cent from 1 July 2026.

Unfortunately, we don’t yet know the detail around how most of the measures will work in practice or the implications for people with disability, their families, carers or the sector.

In our opinion, while the sustainability of the NDIS is critically important, any changes to curb spending must be done in a manner that will not significantly negatively impact people with disability.

We hope that the outcomes of the NDIS Review, to be announced in October this year, will provide greater clarity around the shape of the scheme in the future.