Eight goals in a single season, a spot on the Panthers hockey team, and an unshakable love for the sport: for 13-year-old Western Australian Year 8 student Annabelle Shaw, hockey is more than just a hobby—it is a gateway to independent, community-embedded life. Annabelle, who has Down Syndrome, has built that life thanks to funding from Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), a landmark social program that has transformed disability support across the country. But now, proposed federal government cuts to rein in the scheme’s ballooning budget could force her to give up the sport she loves.
Annabelle’s story is far from unique. She is one of more than 700,000 Australians relying on NDIS funding, a figure that has already far outpaced initial projections when the scheme launched under the Gillard government in 2012. Designed as a revolutionary alternative to Australia’s patchwork, underfunded pre-NDIS disability support system, the program was built around a core principle: putting disabled people and their families in control of their own care by providing individualised funding that they could allocate to their own needs. The goal was simple: to boost independence and improve quality of life for people living with severe, permanent disabilities.
When the NDIS was first rolled out, planners projected it would reach 475,000 participants and cost around $22 billion annually by 2020. This financial year, the scheme is set to hit $54 billion in spending serving 700,000 participants, with growth projected to continue. To address this unsustainable trajectory, the federal government introduced amendments earlier this year that would implement tighter budget controls, stricter compliance rules, revised assessment processes, and cuts to funding for social participation—slashes that could reach 50 percent for some participants.
The NDIS Amendment Bill passed the House of Representatives in early July, but has since been delayed by an extended Senate inquiry, with the inquiry’s final report due August 14 and a final Senate vote expected shortly after. As the legislation nears a final vote, disabled participants, their families, and experts are sounding the alarm over the far-reaching harm the cuts could cause.
For Annabelle specifically, NDIS funding covers the cost of a dedicated support worker who accompanies her to hockey training, where up to 50 girls often train at once. Her mother, Gillian Croft, explains that the on-field support is critical: Annabelle can struggle to keep up with fast-paced instructions and disengage when she can’t follow what’s being asked of her. Without the support worker paid for through NDIS social participation funding, she would have to step away from the team.
Croft adds that the benefits of Annabelle’s participation in mainstream hockey stretch far beyond the pitch. Years of training and playing alongside her peers builds the independence and social skills she will need to join the workforce after graduation—an outcome that will ultimately reduce long-term costs for the government, not increase them. “This is independence training for her,” Croft says.
Debate over the reforms has split experts and advocates, even as many acknowledge the need for changes to secure the scheme’s long-term future. Hannah Orban, senior associate at the Grattan Institute and co-author of a report on NDIS sustainability, agrees that rapid, unregulated growth has left the program on an unsustainable path, and that thoughtful reforms are needed to ensure it survives for future generations. But even Orban argues that cutting core social participation funding runs counter to the NDIS’s core mission. “It is a core goal of the NDIS to help people with disability participate in society and their communities,” she says. “So it really doesn’t make sense to be attacking this part of the scheme.”
Bill Shorten, who was instrumental in designing and launching the NDIS as a junior Labor minister, and now serves as Minister for the NDIS, acknowledges that structural issues have driven the scheme’s rapid growth. After the NDIS launched, other mainstream systems—including hospitals, schools, and community health services—pulled back on disability support, leaving the NDIS to cover gaps it was never intended to fill. He also admits that some unethical providers have gamed the scheme: the NDIS’s integrity commissioner estimates that $3.7 billion in funding was distributed inappropriately in 2025 through a combination of fraud and misuse. But Orban notes that cracking down on fraud would generate only a tiny fraction of the savings the government is targeting through its broader reforms.
Critics of the cuts argue the proposed changes miss the mark entirely on the value the NDIS generates for the Australian economy. Darryl Steff, CEO of Down Syndrome Australia, points out that every dollar spent on the NDIS generates more than two dollars in activity for the broader national economy, through direct job creation in the disability and health sectors and increased economic participation by disabled people.
Disability advocate Hannah Diviney, an actor and author with cerebral palsy, told a parliamentary inquiry in June that the proposed cuts show a fundamental misunderstanding of disabled people’s daily lives. For Diviney, NDIS funding covers the support she needs to leave her home, build her career, and participate in community life—opportunities non-disabled people take for granted. “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,” she said. “This amendment is reckless, ill thought-out and entirely devoid of any shred of understanding of what living a disabled life is actually like.”
As the Senate prepares to vote on the changes, Annabelle and thousands of other disabled Australians are waiting to see if their access to the community life the NDIS promised will remain within reach.
