Australia is being told Cutbacks are Necessary.
But the NDIA’s Own Reporting Tells a More Complicated Story.
When Health and Disability Minister Mark Butler addressed the National Press Club on 22 April, he used stark language.
He said the NDIS is growing too fast, costs too much, and that more than six in ten Australians now think it is “broken.” He also said the government inherited a 22% growth trajectory in 2022 and that, unless action is taken, the scheme risks failing the very people it was created for.
That is powerful rhetoric.
But rhetoric is not the same thing as evidence.
And when you put Butler’s claims alongside the NDIA’s own December 2025 reporting, a more complicated picture emerges — one that does not support a simple “broken” narrative.
Mark Butler says the NDIS is “broken.”
But the government’s own evidence for that claim starts with polling, not performance.
In his speech, Butler pointed to updated Talbot Mills research showing that more than six in ten Australians think the NDIS is “broken.” He also said seven in ten Australians think the scheme has become too large and struggles with dodgy providers.
That tells us something about public confidence.
It does not, by itself, prove that the scheme is operationally broken.
In fact, the same speech contains a very different admission: Butler said the NDIS “has changed lives – and changed our country – for the better” and made clear that it “will continue to grow every year.”
That matters.
Because once you move beyond the politics of confidence and look at the NDIA’s own reporting, what you see is not a scheme without value.
You see a large, uneven, expensive, but deeply consequential system that is still producing real participation, jobs, and economic activity.
Mark Butler says the NDIS “costs too much.”
But the NDIA’s own reporting shows allocated plan budgets are not the same as actual spend.
This is one of the most important distinctions in the entire debate.
In the December 2025 appendices, the NDIA says total annualised committed supports are the supports sitting in the current plans of active participants as at 31 December 2025. It separately says total payments are what was actually paid over the 12 months to 31 December 2025. It also notes that utilisation rises over time because there is a lag between when support is delivered and when it is paid for.
The national figures are:
- Total annualised committed supports for 2025: $64.833 billion
- Total payments over the 12 months to 31 December 2025: $48.962 billion
That is a difference of $15.871 billion.
NDIS growth snapshot at 31 December each year
| Date | Active participants | Annualised committed supports / annual participant plan budgets | Actual Scheme Payments shown in NDIA dashboard |
|---|---|---|---|
| 31 Dec 2021 | 502,413 | $34.391B | $13.193B |
| 31 Dec 2022 | 573,342 | $42.361B | $16.527B |
| 31 Dec 2023 | 646,449 | $50.236B | $20.092B |
| 31 Dec 2024 | 692,823 | $57.107B | $22.605B |
| 31 Dec 2025 | 761,442 | $64.833B | $25.713B |
This does not mean the NDIS is cheap.
It does mean that when ministers talk about what the scheme “costs,” they are often sliding between at least three different concepts:
- what has been allocated in active plans,
- what has actually been paid,
- and what is projected into the future.
The NDIA itself does not treat those numbers as interchangeable. Nor should anyone else.
Mark Butler says the NDIS is "growing too fast."
But the NDIA’s own figures show growth has already been slowing.
Butler told the Press Club that Labor inherited a 22% growth trajectory in 2022, got National Cabinet to agree to an 8% target in 2023, and has now agreed to target 5–6% growth or lower.
Again, that sounds dramatic.
But the NDIA’s December 2025 appendices show the national annual growth in total annualised committed supports slowing materially:
- Increase from 2021–22 to 2022–23: 24%
- Increase from 2022–23 to 2023–24: 19%
- Increase from 2023–24 to 2024–25: 9%
That is still growth.
But it is not a story of one constant, uncontrolled blowout.
It is a story of a scheme whose growth has already been decelerating.
That should matter to the public conversation, because a slowing growth curve is not the same thing as a system out of control.
Mark Butler says the NDIS has "grown far beyond what was intended."
That part is true — but it does not prove failure.
Butler said the NDIS was originally intended to support around 410,000 people and that today there are about 760,000 people on the scheme.
The NDIA’s December 2025 reporting supports that broad claim, showing 761,442 active participant plans nationally as at 31 December 2025.
So yes — the Scheme is much larger than originally imagined.
But “larger than expected” is not the same as “broken.”
Especially when the same official reporting shows signs of positive participant and family outcomes.
The December 2025 NDIS reporting shows family and carer paid employment at latest reassessment was 53%, up from 47% at baseline. It also shows participant choice and control at latest reassessment sitting at 82% nationally.
Outside the quarterly report, the AIHW also shows that the proportion of NDIS participants aged 15–64 in the labour force who were in open employment at full award wage rose from 20% in 2021–22 Q2 to 25% in 2025–26 Q2.
None of that proves the Scheme is perfect.
But it absolutely complicates any attempt to describe it as simply “broken.”
Mark Butler says the NDIS was only ever meant to support around 410,000 people.
But population growth alone should have told government the Scheme would become much larger.
This is where the government’s argument starts to weaken.
Between 2015 and 2025, Australia’s population grew by around 3.8 million people.
That is not a marginal shift. It is a major population increase over a single decade. In a country with a growing population, rising longevity, better recognition of disability, and long-standing unmet need, a significantly larger NDIS should not have come as a shock.
That matters because it changes the frame entirely.
A bigger Scheme is not automatically evidence that the NDIS is “broken.” It may simply be evidence that the original assumptions were too small, too conservative, or too disconnected from what real demand would look like once people actually began entering the system.
So the real question is not:
Why did the NDIS grow?
The real question is:
Why does government appear so surprised that it did?
If Australia added millions of people over that decade, and if disability need was always going to become more visible as awareness, diagnosis, and access improved, then a larger Scheme should have been expected, planned for, and budgeted for.
If that planning did not happen, that is a forecasting problem.
Not proof that there are too many participants in the Scheme.
Mark Butler says the NDIS is "becoming unsustainable."
But the scheme also supports one of the country’s largest workforces.
The public is constantly told how large the NDIS budget is.
They are told much less often how much economic activity the scheme supports.
The Workforce Case
The NDIS market is large. The NDIS Commission reported more than 21,000 registered providers in 2024–25, while the NDIS National Workforce Plan earlier described around 11,600 active providers employing about 270,000 workers across 20 occupations.
That is not a niche sector.
At around 270,000 workers, the NDIS workforce is:
- not far off the size of Australia’s school teaching workforce, which the ABS says was 325,190 full-time equivalent teaching staff in 2025,
- more than twice the size of the Australian steel industry workforce, which industry figures put at 110,000 jobs,
- and more than four times the size of the full-time Australian Defence Force, which stood at 61,189 personnel as at 1 July 2025.
The Multiplier Case
Per Capita modelling, cited by NDS and other mainstream outlets, found that every $1 spent on the NDIS returns $2.25 to the Australian economy.
That means the NDIS is not just expenditure.
It is also jobs, wages, provider markets, household spending, and labour-force participation.
Calling that simply a “cost” is economically incomplete.
Mark Butler said the NDIS was "never intended to be this big."
But the original funding design assumed a larger national scheme would need broader public revenue.
The Gillard Government did not sell Australians a tidy model where one levy would neatly pay for the NDIS forever.
It built a mixed funding model from the start: $1.1 billion from existing Commonwealth specialist disability programs, $1.8 billion from existing state and territory funding, $3.9 billion from the Medicare levy increase through the DisabilityCare Australia Fund, and $4.4 billion from consolidated revenue.
In other words, the Commonwealth always knew this would be a large national scheme backed by multiple revenue streams, not a small program funded by one simple tax switch.
That is why the levy history matters.
The Medicare levy was lifted from 1.5% to 2.0% from 1 July 2014 to help provide “strong and stable funding” for DisabilityCare Australia. By 31 December 2025, total credits into the DisabilityCare Australia Fund had reached $46.903 billion, while cumulative debits were $32.671 billion. So the levy-linked fund itself has not been drained dry.
So, the financial architecture was built to support a growing scheme over time.
That makes today’s rhetoric harder to take at face value.
If government always knew the NDIS would need levy revenue, redirected program funding, state contributions, and consolidated revenue, then a bigger, more expensive scheme is not proof the model broke.
It is proof the model was always expected to be big.
And the original public promise was not restraint.
It was certainty: reasonable and necessary lifetime support, greater choice and control, and support for social and economic participation.
That was the deal sold to Australians.
So the real issue is not that the NDIS grew.
The real issue is that government now talks as though that growth was somehow unforeseeable.
It wasn’t.
A scheme designed as major national infrastructure, funded through mixed public revenue, was always going to become larger, more expensive, and more central over time.
If that now creates pressure, the problem is not that participants exist in greater numbers than expected.
The problem is that forecasting, pricing, and administration have not kept pace with the scheme government itself designed.
Mark Butler's argument implies the NDIS is a drain on the Australian economy
But that framing ignores the economic activity the Scheme is already generating.
The last verified modelling, by Per Capita in 2020–21, found that the NDIS contributed about $52.4 billion to the Australian economy and returned around $2.25 for every $1 spent. It also found the Scheme supported more than 270,000 workers across 20 occupations, with tens of thousands more jobs supported indirectly through provider earnings, supplier spending, and household consumption.
In other words, NDIS funding does not stop with the participant. It moves through the economy via support-worker wages, allied health income, provider turnover, rent, vehicles, software, fuel, insurance, equipment, and then back out again when those workers and businesses spend.
I have not found a newer published multiplier for 2025. But if that same $2.25 return per $1 still held, then the NDIA’s reported $48.962 billion in payments over the 12 months to 31 December 2025 would imply roughly $110.2 billion in economic activity. That is an inference, not a current published estimate.
But it makes the point clearly: if the Scheme was generating $52.4 billion in economic activity in 2020–21, it is reasonable to expect that a larger Scheme in 2025 was contributing more to the economy, not less.
So is the NDIS broken?
Broken how?
Broken because it is large? Size alone is not proof of failure.
Broken because it grew beyond early expectations? So has Australia’s population.
Broken because fraud exists? Better oversight and fraud control are government responsibilities, not evidence that participants are the problem.
Broken because governments are increasingly anxious about long-term expenditure? That may be true. But it is not the same thing as saying the Scheme is fundamentally failing.
Those are serious issues.
But they are not the same as saying the NDIS is failing across the board.
The NDIA’s own data show a much more complex reality:
- 761,442 active participants
- $64.833 billion in annualised committed supports, but $48.962 billion in actual payments over the prior 12 months
- slowing growth in annualised committed supports
- improving employment at full award wage among NDIS participants in the labour force
- improving paid employment outcomes for families and carers
- and a labour market supporting around 270,000 workers across 20 occupations
That is not evidence of a flawless system.
But it is also not evidence that “broken” is the only honest word available.
The bottom line
Yes, the NDIS should be scrutinised.
It should have tighter fraud controls, more consistent planning, better pricing integrity, and stronger policy boundaries.
But if the government wants public confidence, it also needs to stop flattening the Scheme into a single negative slogan.
Because the NDIA’s own reporting does not show a deadweight failure.
It shows a large, expensive, politically contested, economically significant national system that is still generating jobs, still supporting participation, still enabling some carers to work, and still delivering measurable gains in some employment outcomes.
That is not “nothing works.”
That is not “broken beyond repair.”
That is infrastructure under pressure — and infrastructure worth managing honestly.
But Australians also need to remember something bigger.
Disability is the one human condition any Australian can enter at any point in life.
No one plans to need it.
But anyone might.
A child may be born autistic and non-verbal.
A worker may be permanently injured in an accident.
Someone may develop Multiple Sclerosis or Dementia, lose their hearing, or acquire disability through illness, trauma, or ageing.
That is exactly why it is called an insurance scheme.
The Australian Government made a national commitment: that Australians who live with significant disability would be supported to live ordinary lives with dignity, participation, and reasonable quality of life.
The levy was never just a tax. It was the closest thing Australia has to an annual premium on that promise — a shared contribution toward the reality that disability can enter any life, any family, at any time.
That is why this debate matters.
Because when government talks about the NDIS as though it is only a cost problem, it forgets what the Scheme was built to be:
The NDIS is not charity, and it is not a policy favour.
The NDIS was not built for “them" or those other people over there.
It is an insurance scheme for all Australians, and was built for any of us if life turns.
Selected Sources:
Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Minister Butler speech at the National Press Club – 22 April 2026.
National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA). NDIS Quarterly Report to Disability Ministers – 31 December 2025: Appendices.
National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA). National Quarterly Performance Dashboard – 31 December 2025.
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW). NDIS participants in full award wage employment (Australia’s Disability Strategy outcomes reporting).
Per Capita. Economic contribution of the NDIS / NDIS multiplier modelling (2020–21). Cited via sector reporting and Per Capita’s published modelling.
National Disability Services (NDS). NDIS economic impact and workforce materials.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). National population statistics, Schools, and related workforce/population data.
Australian Government Department of Finance. DisabilityCare Australia Fund (DCAF) reporting and balances.