Guardian Australia · Wednesday 22 April 2026
Mark Butler announces eligibility changes that will cut at least 160,000 people from the NDIS by 2030, bringing scheme costs to $55bn rather than $70bn.
The scheme was meant to help 900,000 and now it'll help 600,000, and Butler calls this 'unavoidable and urgent' like a bloke announcing he's run out of petrol halfway through the trip he promised to drive. The architecture hasn't failed — the will to pay for it has. A hundred and sixty thousand people discover the safety net was always a spreadsheet with a line item waiting to be cut.