A program for early intervention autism services will be delayed as part of efforts to deliver urgent hospital funding.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met with premiers and chief ministers in Sydney on Friday for a “landmark” national cabinet meeting where an agreement for an extra $25 billion in funding over the next five years was struck.
He said the deal would ensure access to world-class healthcare and secure the future of the $52 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme.
In a bid to ease the pressure on the NDIS, the federal government offered to delay a $2 billion Thriving Kids program, slated to begin on July 1, until October.
The program aims to move children with mild to moderate autism and those with developmental delays off the NDIS, and into state-run early intervention services.
State governments had warned they were not ready to take responsibility for foundational support, which will be delivered through schools, health clinics and community facilities.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the changes were needed to ensure the sustainability of the NDIS.
“All jurisdictions recognise the need to get the NDIS back on track and ensure it meets its original objectives: caring for people with significant and permanent disabilities,” Mr Butler told ABC Radio before the cabinet meeting.
Asked whether July 1 would be the program’s start date, Mr Butler said it would be fully rolled out after that.
“I’m really just talking several months more than anything significant,” Mr Butler said.
“We only ever committed to the start of services, and we said that we expected the program to be fully rolled out sometime after that.”
Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls suggested the states were caught off guard by the program, learning of it when Mr Butler announced it during a National Press Club speech in August.
“We’ve been working our way on what that might look like for Queensland,” he told ABC Radio.
Calling it a “landmark” national cabinet meeting, Mr Albanese said Thriving Kids would “start from this year” with its full implementation to be completed by January 1, 2028.
“The states put to us the possibility of a short delay in the full implementation of Thriving Kids,” the prime minister said.
“We agreed that proposal is reasonable … and so it is a positive move when it comes to government investment and expenditure.”
There would be no changes to the current access arrangements for children on the NDIS until Thriving Kids was implemented, Mr Butler said.
Participants with autism or other developmental delays as their primary disability made up half of those on the NDIS, but just 23 per cent of total payments, according to figures from May 2025.