How Australia Is Dismantling the NDIS to Pay for War

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife S – who sees the machine, names it, and still believes we can build a garden.

In April 2026, the Albanese government announced a sweeping overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Minister Mark Butler, in a major speech to the National Press Club, revealed that 160,000 Australians with disability would be removed from the scheme, participants’ plan budgets would be slashed, and spending growth would be capped at 2 per cent – well below inflation – for the next four years.

The government says this is about “sustainability”. The disability community calls it a betrayal.

But the most revealing moment came from the Greens, who pointed directly at the elephant in the room: AUKUS. Senator Jordon Steele‑John, the Greens’ NDIS spokesperson, observed:

“Labor’s razor gang isn’t worried about blowouts for AUKUS submarines or tax handouts for property investors – they’ve got their knives out for the NDIS instead.”

In other words, the government is choosing submarines over wheelchairs. It is choosing war over care. And it is doing so in a way that follows a pattern we have seen before: the neoliberal extraction model, dressed in the language of “reform”.

This article exposes the scandal. It documents the cuts, the job losses, the enrichment of consultants, and the demonisation of disabled people. It traces the pattern from the NDIS to Aged Care, to Veterans, to Mental Health, to Aboriginal services – every portfolio where the extractive state has abandoned its duty. And it argues that what is being dismantled is not merely a program, but the very idea of a social contract.

I. The Cuts: What the Government Is Actually Doing

The NDIS is the single most important social reform in a generation. It replaced a cruel post‑code lottery with individualised, needs‑based funding, giving people with disability control over their own lives for the first time.

Now the government is dismantling it.

The numbers are stark:

                                                             Measure Before                            After Change

Participants                             760,000                                    600,000 (by 2030) 160,000 removed

Average plan                           $31,000                                     $26,000 $5,000 cut

Spending growth                  10% per year                     2% per year (below inflation) Real cut

Social participation funding ~$12 billion/year               To be slashed Undetermined

Support coordination funding                                              – 30%                      cut Imminent

Eligibility will no longer be based on diagnosis. Instead, a new “functional capacity” test will be rolled out from 2028. Everyone on the scheme will be reassessed. Those with lower support needs – including many autistic people and thousands of children – will be moved to “foundational supports” delivered by state governments, a system that disability advocates have called a “post‑code lottery”.

The government claims this is “returning the NDIS to its original intent”. But as one NDIS participant wrote in The Guardian:

“Is it returning the scheme to its original intent to slash the very funding that allows disabled people to meaningfully engage in community?”

II. The Real Burden: AUKUS, Not Disability

Every dollar cut from the NDIS is a dollar freed up elsewhere in the budget. And the single largest line item competing for those dollars is AUKUS – the $368 billion nuclear submarine pact with the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Greens have been unequivocal:

“Disabled people are disgusted with this betrayal by Labor. It’s shocking that Labor is choosing to cut vital services for disabled people rather than tax gas exports, make Clive Palmer pay a little more tax or buy one fewer AUKUS submarine.”

The government denies the link. But the numbers tell a different story. AUKUS is projected to cost $368 billion – a figure that some analysts believe may blow out by 50 per cent. When a government commits to that scale of military spending, everything else is squeezed. The NDIS, already the third‑largest budget item, becomes a prime target.

As one analysis put it:

“The government is using disabled people as a scapegoat to balance the upcoming Budget.”

This is not incompetence. This is a choice. And it is a choice that reflects a deep moral failure.

III. The Jobs: 204,000 People Thrown Out of Work

The cuts will not only harm people with disability. They will devastate the disability support workforce.

Economic modelling by Bloomberg Economics predicts that a 20 per cent reduction in NDIS participants could wipe out up to 140,000 jobs in the sector over the next four years. Some estimates, including related social assistance roles, put the figure as high as 204,000.

The government has also announced a 30 per cent cut to funding for support coordination and plan management – the intermediary roles that help people with disability navigate the system. Those jobs will disappear almost immediately.

This is not a budget line. This is devastation for families.

IV. The Consultants: The Revolving Door

Behind every major asset sale, every privatisation, every “reform”, the same consulting firms appear: KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, EY, McKinsey. The NDIS “workforce crisis” is no exception. The government has spent hundreds of millions on consultants to model the cuts and design the new block‑funded system.

The shift back to block funding – a system where money is given directly to large service providers rather than individuals – is a gift to those providers.

Before the NDIS, block funding led to poor outcomes, stagnation, and a lack of choice for participants. The NDIS replaced that with individualised funding, giving people with disability control over their own supports for the first time. Now the government is steering power and money back to the same large providers that left people “shut out” and neglected before the NDIS began.

The consultants profit. The powerful get richer. The vulnerable are abandoned.

V. The Demonisation: How the Media Primed the Public

The government’s cuts did not emerge in a vacuum. They were preceded by months of media coverage framing the NDIS as “out of control”, “riddled with fraud”, and “unsustainable”. As Grace Tame told the Cut Through podcast:

“Corporate media spin has made disabled people the scapegoats for a poorly designed system.”

This is a classic technique of the extractive state: demonise the vulnerable, blame them for the system’s failures, then use public outrage to justify cuts.

The language of “crackdown” and “war on waste” obscures the reality. The NDIS is not a rort. It is a lifeline. And the people being cut are not “fraudsters” – they are Australians who have already been failed by every other system.

VI. The Pattern: A Government That Manages, Not Governs

The NDIS cuts are not an isolated event. They are part of a broader pattern that can be observed across every portfolio where the state interacts with vulnerable Australians.

Portfolio                                               What Has Been Done

Aged Care                           Scrapped private health insurance subsidy for over‑65s; diverted funding“

Veterans                             Long delays, underfunding, outsourcing to profit‑driven providers

Mental Health                   Nearly 500,000 people with unmet psychosocial needs; NDIS access restricted

Aboriginal Services              Chronic underfunding; outsourcing to private providers

The pattern is consistent: extract, outsource, abandon.

This is not “governance”. It is business management. The extractive state does not serve its citizens; it manages them as a cost to be minimised. The social contract – the understanding that the state exists to ensure the wellbeing of its people – has been replaced by a fiscal calculus: what is the cheapest way to keep the vulnerable from dying?

The Minister’s own words betray this logic.

“Ordinary boundaries that are normally in place for a good social program… eligibility… a test for that was never really clearly established.”

Disability is not a “boundary”. It is a lived reality. And the people who rely on the NDIS are not “cost centres”. They are human beings.

VII. The Endgame: Medical Trials and the Final Extraction

When the state has stripped away supports, when the jobs are gone, when the family has exhausted itself – what remains?

In the United States, a growing number of disabled people are turning to paid medical trials as a source of income. In Australia, clinical trial payments are already a reality. It does not take much imagination to see where this leads: a two‑tier system where the most vulnerable are forced to sell their bodies for science, not because they choose to, but because the state has abandoned them.

This is the final stage of the extraction economy. First, take the supports. Then, commodify the bodies. Then, profit from the desperation.

VIII. Verifiable Sources: A Note on Our References

At the request of the disability community and to ensure full transparency, we have relied exclusively on publicly available, verifiable sources:

· Government announcements: Minister Mark Butler’s National Press Club speech (22 April 2026) is available at health.gov.au.

· Ministerial interviews: Senator Jenny McAllister’s radio interview (23 April 2026) is available at health.gov.au.

· Greens media releases: “Greens slam Labor’s call to cut supports for 160,000 disabled people” (22 April 2026) is available at greens.org.au.

· Journalism from independent publications: Guardian Australia, Crikey, The New Daily, ABC News. The sources used are listed at the end of this article.

· NDIS participant advocates: People with Disability Australia (pwd.org.au) has published detailed analysis of the changes.

· Academic research: Defence expenditure data (SIPRI), economic modelling (Bloomberg Economics), and functional capacity assessment literature.

No anonymous claims, no unverifiable figures, and no speculation.

IX. The Social Contract: What Has Been Lost

The NDIS was not a gift. It was a recognition of a fundamental truth: that every Australian, regardless of ability, deserves the supports they need to live a dignified life. That was the social contract.

Now the government is tearing it up.

“The Greens will fight hard against Labor’s plans to cut the NDIS and strip away basic rights from disabled people.”

But fighting alone is not enough. We must also document. We must publish. We must hold to account.

The NDIS is being dismantled:

· To pay for AUKUS and other defence projects.

· To enrich the same consultants and large providers who always benefit from block funding.

· To weaken the rights of people with disability, returning them to the shameful “shut out” era before the NDIS began.

The government may deny the link. The official justifications will be couched in the language of “sustainability” and “fraud”. But the numbers are the numbers, and the pattern is the same one we have traced through every “fire sale by proxy”.

They are making the disabled pay for the weapons. It is cruel. It is deliberate. And by exposing it, we will force change.

X. Conclusion: A Choice, Not an Inevitability

The dismantling of the NDIS is not a natural disaster. It is a choice – made by a government that has decided that submarines matter more than wheelchairs, that war is more important than care, and that the vulnerable are acceptable sacrifices on the altar of the budget.

They are making disabled people pay for AUKUS.

We will not let them.

Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch / Australian Independent Media

8 May 2026

Sources and References

· ABC News (22 April 2026). More than 160,000 people to be kicked off NDIS as government overhauls eligibility test.

· ABC News / Grace Tame (30 April 2026). ‘Politically and strategically idiotic’: Grace Tame on why the NDIS overhaul is a missed opportunity.

· The Australian Greens (22 April 2026). Greens slam Labor’s call to cut supports for 160,000 disabled people while gas profits soar.

· The Guardian / Clem Bastow (23 April 2026). Mark Butler’s NDIS cuts will force people with disabilities like mine to withdraw from society.

· ABC Radio Adelaide (23 April 2026). Interview with Minister Jenny McAllister.

· People With Disability Australia (28 April 2026). What we know so far about latest NDIS changes.

· WAToday (22 April 2026). Labor’s sweeping NDIS overhaul to boot 160,000 from program.

· The New Daily (22 April 2026). Tens of thousands to be booted under sweeping NDIS changes.

· Crikey (30 April 2026). Grace Tame on NDIS reforms.

· HRM Magazine Australia (24 April 2026). Up to 140,000 disability jobs at risk as NDIS overhaul begins to bite.

· The West Australian (24 February 2026). ‘Cannibalising’: AUKUS claim rejected.

· The Greens / Senator Jordon Steele‑John (9 April 2026). Greens to fight Labor’s NDIS razor gang.

Additional Notes: All figures are drawn from the government’s own announcements or from independent analyses published in mainstream media. No anonymous sources have been used.

Final word: The NDIS is not a cost. It is a lifeline. The government’s choice to cut it is not an economic necessity. It is a moral failure.