National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026

Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (18:44): Neurodivergent kids will be among those most impacted by these changes. There is so much concern right now in the community about what this bill will mean for neurodivergent kids. And that concern is valid because the government have said that they will be moving kids under the age of nine off the NDIS.

Instead, there will be these things called foundational supports. Families have asked, 'What is a foundational support?' After literally years of asking this question, there isn't a clear answer. We had a press conference, a Press Club announcement, and the minister said: 'There's a program called Thriving Kids.

Here are some ideas I have for what might be in it.' And that was kind of it. There have been working groups and thought papers published, but the reality is that right now we're sitting here and the state of Queensland isn't even yet on board with foundational supports. They're not on board with the idea.

Not one state or territory can articulate comprehensively what they'll provide as foundational supports for kids removed from the NDIS, because Thriving Kids is just a tiny cohort. We heard, again and again, evidence from the department that tens of thousands of kids will be removed from the scheme by these changes. Many of these kids have just started to succeed, grow and learn because of the supports they have been able to access under the NDIS.

We have another example of the community being made to feel they're a burden, because we have heard, so much in this debate, that the number of autistic kids on the scheme is 'so much more than we expected' and they're 'a threat to the sustainability of the scheme'. How dare kids have the audacity to be autistic? How dare autistic people have the temerity to exist?

Everybody knew, when we set the NDIS up in the first place, that the figures given by the states and territories on the numbers of disabled people would be guesses at best. Why did we know this? Because they were numbers generated by the very broken systems that the NDIS was replacing.

So you could add the fact that the data was incomplete—everybody knew the data was flawed—and that there would be more disabled people than expected and more kids with support needs than expected. So many people have shared with me over the course of this debate that they feel like they are being made to bear the cost of a miscalculation. There are more autistic kids in Australia than was estimated.

Do you know what my answer to that is? Good! Neurodivergent kids are great.

Autistic kids are great. Kids with ADHD are great. That should be celebrated, embraced and never talked about as a threat to a system.

If you set something up and you find out there are more kids in need of support than you thought, the Australian answer should always be: right; how do we get to work to make this work. That's what the answer should be. Is there a need to provide more support to neurodivergent kids in the classroom?

Absolutely. Is there a need to provide neurodivergent teachers in the classroom? Absolutely.

Is there more to do to make sure that the states and territories hold up what is still their responsibility to create accessible communities for neurodivergent kids and their families? Absolutely. But that's not what this bill does.

This bill recreates and re-establishes the postcode lottery that existed before the NDIS—where you lived determined what you got. That'll impact everybody, and it will have a particular impact for neurodivergent kids and neurodivergent families. Everyone should have known that when they were putting the law together, because it is neurodivergent kids and families who are already falling through the cracks at the highest rates.

It is these kids and these families who are already often most close to burnout in stress and distress. The government's own investigations into the Thriving Kids program stated it really clearly. The government's approach to this and its engagement in this space has been woeful and has caused so much stress and trauma that was unnecessary.

We sit here right now and nobody knows what a foundational support is. I spoke to somebody in one of the state based public services on the weekend who was deeply engaged in their state's process of building a foundational support. I said: 'Amazing.

Can you tell me what it is? So many people want to know.' They don't know. You've got New South Wales over here doing a commissioning piece.

Maybe some of this and some of that will be covered, but that won't be the same as what we will see in Victoria or in WA. There's so much unnecessary stress created by this. Many people rightly expected that if folks were going to be shifted from the NDIS to a different type of support, that support would exist first before they were shifted.

But that's not what this bill does. It gives power and begins the process of removal while there is still no clarity on what people are being removed to. That's where we are right now.

From today onwards, the government will have to work to fix it. So I ask this very basic question: can the government guarantee that no autistic or neurodivergent child will be removed from the NDIS before like-for-like foundational supports are established in their state or territory?