Under strain, Australia's world-leading disability support faces major restructure

Annabelle Shaw is hockey-obsessed and on a winning streak, scoring eight goals this season for her team, the Panthers.

"I don't give up," she says proudly, adding that whenever she scores, she celebrates with a cartwheel.

And when Annabelle's not on the pitch, she's down at the gym. She likes nothing more than working out with her friends.

But Annabelle may soon have to stop playing her favourite sport.

The Year 8 student from Western Australia has Down Syndrome – a genetic condition caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21 which leads to physical and intellectual disabilities. This enables her to access funding through one of the world's most progressive disability support programmes, the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme).

Aimed at people with lifelong and severe disabilities, NDIS was created to ensure disabled Australians had greater independence and an improved quality of life.

Its design ushered in a very different approach to disability support – by providing people with funding based on their individual needs, and a certain amount of freedom to choose how to spend it. The scheme put disabled Australians and their families at the heart of the decision-making.

But the success of the scheme has also been its undoing – it's growing rapidly and costing the government too much. Now, under proposals introduced by the federal government earlier this year, tighter controls will be introduced to shrink its size and budget.

The money Annabelle receives is intended to help pay for therapies such as speech, as well as a support worker to help her on the hockey field.

"Annabelle needs somebody to break it down and say, okay, did you hear that, Annabelle? We've got to stand over here," says mum Gillian Croft, explaining the importance of a support worker for Annabelle at practice sessions, where there could be as many as 50 girls training at a time.

"Sometimes, especially if it's fast-paced, she disengages and she doesn't want to play because she doesn't understand what she needs to do."

The NDIS Amendment bill passed the House of Representatives at the beginning of July but was then delayed, extending a Senate inquiry into the changes at the same time. The report into that inquiry is due on 14 August. Shortly after, the legislation is expected to pass in the Senate.

The implications of the changes, say participants, could be huge.

When the NDIS started, it was estimated it would cost about $22bn a year, with about 475,000 participants. But this financial year it has ballooned to $54bn and the scheme now supports more than 700,000 people. Those figures are expected to keep growing, which is why the government is proposing a massive reset.

"It has grown too big too fast," says Hannah Orban, Senior Associate at the Grattan Institute and co-author of a report Saving the NDIS. According to her research, each of the participants receives an average of approximately A$65,000 ($44,800) of funding per year. Some, such as those with complex needs, receive considerably more; others receive far less.

"It costs a lot of money to run it and the government really does need to introduce good reforms to make it more sustainable so that it is here for generations to come," Orban says.

Before the NDIS, disability services differed across states. There was criticism that they were underfunded and inefficient. The NDIS brought in a game-changing new system but in doing so, all the other services that previously provided support fell away.

"Once we created the NDIS, there was a retreat from other disability services, so hospitals, schools - you name it - everything became an NDIS matter," says Shorten.

In 2024, changes were made to rein in ballooning costs – overseen by Shorten who had coincidentally returned as the Minister for NDIS. But that wasn't enough. Numbers kept growing. There's been a rapid increase, especially in the number of children accessing the scheme.

There's also been criticism that people are using the NDIS to access support not originally intended for the scheme, which was designed to address the needs of those with permanent or significant disabilities. According to a study by the Australian National University, external, there's been a 32% increase in the prevalence of autism since the NDIS was introduced. Experts, however, say the explanation for this is simple.

"People went into the NDIS because other systems were failing," says Jenny Karavolos of Australian Autism Alliance, who in June gave evidence at a parliamentary inquiry into the cuts. It may be that autism diagnoses have increased - but Karavolos argues that's because people need to access the right support. It is not, she believes, what's breaking the NDIS.

One of the other criticisms of the scheme has been that providers have gamed the system, offering unnecessary and expensive services.

"Where there's government money, there have been over-servicing and over-charging and shonky providers," says Shorten. "Many are good providers, but some are bad. That's the nature of a government scheme: people will hone in on it and try and slice off amounts for themselves."

According to the NDIS integrity chief, $3.7bn was handed out inappropriately in 2025 - a combination of misuse of funds and fraud. But tackling this won't solve the problem, according to experts.

"Fraud is low-hanging fruit," says Orban. "The government absolutely needs to tackle fraud and get on top of people who are rorting (cheating) this scheme because they're rorting people with disability and taxpayers, and it's just not acceptable. [But] the savings from fraud are really small compared to the other reforms that they've put forward."

Some of those include better cost control, tighter compliance, introducing more efficient assessments and moving children with lower support needs - those with developmental delays or autism, for example - away from early intervention provided by the NDIS and into a programme called Thriving Kids.

One of the most worrying aspects, say families and carers, is the plan to slash funding for social participation by up to 50%. That's the bit that people like Annabelle benefit from and that advocates say the NDIS was designed for: to enable disabled people to be an integral part of the economy and Australian society.

The government estimates that around a third of funding for people with Down Syndrome is spent on social funding. Without that, Annabelle's hockey playing would be at risk.

But it would impact disabled people more broadly too.

"It is a core goal of the NDIS to help people with disability participate in society and their communities," says Orban. "So it really doesn't make sense to be attacking this part of the scheme."

The proposals have prompted huge criticism of the government, which cites fraud and problems in the system but then proposes cuts to funding that is seen as central to creating independence for disabled people.

"This amendment is reckless, ill thought-out and entirely devoid of any shred of understanding of what living a disabled life is actually like for both the person themselves and their support network," said actor, author and disability advocate Hannah Diviney at the inquiry in June.

As somebody with cerebral palsy who needs a high level of support, she pointed out that she had been driven to Canberra to speak at the inquiry, and would be driven back – all possible because of NDIS funding.

"Any time I leave the house, if I am not with a friend or a parent, it costs something – that is an incontrovertible fact of my life," she told the inquiry. "Freedom, ambition, career, a social life – all of the things other people in this room take as a given, or as a right – has a price tag for someone like me."

While the NDIS budget is far bigger than expected, a large number of jobs have also been created to cater to the system, including physiotherapists, speech pathologists and support workers. And experts say that also needs to be considered while plans move forward to shrink it.

"I don't disagree that there needs to be reform about how the NDIS is operating - particularly how children are treated on the NDIS," says Darryl Steff, the CEO of Down Syndrome Australia. "All too often these cuts are seen in isolation and people are going, 'the NDIS costs us too much', but without acknowledging that every dollar spent in the NDIS contributes over two dollars to the broader economy."

In addition to job creation, NDIS support enables more disabled people to participate in the economy too.

"If Annabelle's playing mainstream hockey and she's out there with typical kids all the time and she's going to a mainstream school, that's her normal," Gillian says. "When she finishes school, she will expect to go and have a job and be in a workplace that's full of typical people."

With these proposed cuts, everything changes.

"She doesn't get exposed to any of that, and then we expect her suddenly to walk into the workforce without having any independence training all these years," Gillian says. "This is independence training for her, going to these sporting events and going to school, which in the end will be cheaper for government as well."

Reporting from BBC News contributed to this story.