Sasha Barbagat

Australians with autism are set to be the cohort most impacted by sweeping changes announced to the NDIS.

Health Minister Mark Butler yesterday unveiled the reforms, which will include tightening eligibility rules, which is set to kick 160,000 people off the scheme.

The changes are designed to slow the ballooning costs of the scheme, which last year grew at a rate of 10% to $50 billion a year, Helen.

Yeah, so basically doing it on a needs basis, not, oh, you have been diagnosed with X disability, therefore you are eligible for the NDIS.

It's saying we need to look at what people need and their functional capabilities.

Now, while that seems like an intuitive move, one of the big reasons autistic Aussies have been funnelled to the NDIS is because support services are lacking outside the insurance program.

The federal government says it is looking to alleviate those issues through the already announced Thriving Kids program, which is designed for children on the spectrum.

It's also asked the states and territories to create more supports outside the NDIS.

Health ministers from the states and territories were briefed late yesterday following Butler's announcement.

Yeah.

And interestingly, financial sustainability reports show that this cohort of Australians is nearly the only group by primary disability type who are growing significantly faster than population growth.

So participation rates in other disability types are stable and they're in line with population growth.

So there's something happening with autism diagnoses, like you said, Helen, where people are just being funneled onto the program so that they can get support.

Now,

This change is designed for people with low support needs.

It does not mean that all people with autism are going to be kicked off the NDIS, but it's so that people who maybe don't need the level of help that the NDIS offers are going to be able to get it somewhere else.

The Home Guarantee Scheme became eligible to all first home buyers as long as they're an Australian citizen and over the age of 18, and it allows them to purchase a house with a deposit as low as 5%.

So eligible properties were also expanded under these changes last October with caps on prices lifted last year.

Now, they're based on how much homes cost in your city or where you live.

So the cap in Sydney, for example, is $1.5 million, while in Darwin it's $700,000.