Monitoring Reform. Driving Transformation. Keeping You Informed.
Monitoring Reform. Driving Transformation. Keeping You Informed.
Edition: June 2026 | Federal Budget, Legislative Change & Employment Services Reform
May and June 2026 have delivered three seismic policy moments for the disability sector. On 12 May, Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down the 2026–27 Federal Budget the most consequential for people with disability in the scheme’s history, cutting $37.8 billion from projected NDIS growth over four years. The day after, Minister Mark Butler introduced the NDIS Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 to Parliament: 113 pages of legislative change now before a Senate inquiry with, the committee reporting date extended to 6 August 2026 and not yet law. Three weeks later, Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth announced the largest overhaul to the unemployment system in decades.
1. The 2026–27 Federal Budget: What It Means for Disability
The Headline Numbers
The 2026–27 Federal Budget is the Albanese Government’s fifth, and by far its most significant for the disability community. The centrepiece is $37.8 billion in NDIS savings over four years, with analysts at MinterEllison projecting the decade-long impact at $152.5 billion. Those savings will be achieved primarily by reducing participant numbers from 760,000 to a target of 600,000 by 2030, resetting plan budgets, and tightening eligibility criteria.
PWDA has made the equity case plainly: this budget draws 60% of its savings from people with disability, who represent just 25% of the population. To put the scale in context: the NDIS is projected to cost $56.5 billion in 2026–27 alone, already higher than previous estimates.
What Is Actually Being Cut — And Why It Matters
The most immediate and concerning impact for participants is the reset of social and community participation budgets from 1 October 2026. These comprise of funding that enable people with disability to attend day programs, access employment supports, engage in community activities, and participate in daily life. Analysis by ClinicComply of the Bill indicates that social and community participation budgets will be reset by approximately 50%, while capacity building daily activity allocations face a separate reduction of around 10% with both resetting average spend to 2023 levels as noted by Minister Butler at his earlier National Press Club Lunch announcement.
This matters for a specific and under-discussed reason: participation supports are not incidental. For many people with disability, particularly those in supported employment and day programs, they are the mechanism through which employment itself is made possible. A 50% cut to community participation funding does not just reduce support to activityit directly threatens the viability of the employment pathway for a cohort of participants whose access to work depends on funded supports to get there.
PWDA Acting CEO Megan Spindler-Smith:
“It’s heartless to cut supports we need to leave the house, work and study at a time when the cost of living has dramatically increased and alternatives are simply not there.”
Key budget cuts and changes include:
•Social and community participation: Budget resets begin October 2026 as plans are reviewed, the supports most directly connected to employment participation for NDIS participants.
•Participant numbers: Target reduction from 760,000 to 600,000 by 2030. Eligibility changes using the new I-CAN v6 functional capacity assessment tool do not commence until 1 January 2028.
•NDIA staffing: According to the 2026–27 Budget papers, NDIA loses 669 staff in 2026–27 while the NDIS Commission gains 191 staff.
•Unspent funds: A legislated end date for all participant plans means unspent funds will no longer carry over at renewal.
2ig view: The investment side of this budget is heavily weighted toward children, compliance, and systems infrastructure. For adult participants, particularly those in supported employment, community participation, and transition-to-retirement programs with the net effect a reduction in available funding before alternatives are operational. Providers need to model the impact on their participant cohort now, not when plans are reset.
What Is Being Invested
The budget includes new investment, though advocates argue it falls well short of replacing what is removed. Key measures from the official budget papers include:
•Foundational Supports: $3 billion over five years (matched by states/territories) for non-NDIS supports for people outside the NDIS.
•Thriving Kids: $2 billion directed to early childhood intervention for children with developmental delay and autism under nine, plus $1.4 billion over five years to states for delivery.
•Inclusive Communities Fund: $200 million over three years for group-based community participation currently held in contingency reserve pending design.
•Integrity and compliance: $358.5 million for a new digital payment system, $280 million for the Fraud Fusion Taskforce, $182.6 million for mandatory provider registration from July 2027.
•New planning framework: $270 million for preparation, rolling out from 1 April 2027.
The Foundational Supports Gap: A Bridge That Isn’t Built Yet
The $5 billion Foundational Supports commitment is the policy bridge the government says will support people who transition away from the NDIS. The problem is structural and serious: the bridge is not built, the design is not finalised, the states have not confirmed delivery arrangements, and the funding is not yet operationalised. As Advocacy for Inclusion noted, there is no jurisdiction in Australia where a ready, adequately staffed alternative will exist by the time it is due to begin and the reduction of plans begins.
NDS and multiple peak bodies have warned of a postcode lottery where access varies dramatically by jurisdiction.
A critical question for consideration:
What does Treasury expect Centrelink, Medicare, state mental health services, hospitals, and housing services to spend picking up what the NDIS drops? The whole-of-government cost accounting behind the $37.8 billion in savings has not been published.
2. The Securing the NDIS Bill: What It Actually Does
More Than an Integrity Measure
The government has largely framed the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 as a fraud and integrity measure. That framing does not hold up against the government’s own figures. The projected savings come overwhelmingly from cutting supports for existing participants and tightening access not from fraud measures wholly.
At 113 pages, this is the most substantial single piece of NDIS legislation since the scheme’s inception. Its intentions in redesign is to focus on who will access the NDIS, how plans are funded, and how decisions are made and reviewed. The government’s own modelling confirms that hundreds of thousands of people with disability will be removed from or denied access to the scheme by 2030.
The Key Structural Changes
The Bill’s key changes, drawn from the government’s official fact sheet and the legislation itself, are:
•Part 1 — New eligibility framework: Access based on functional capacity, assessed using the I-CAN v6 tool. This will commence until 1 January 2028.
•Part 3 — Supports must be impairment-linked: Funding only approved where the need arises directly from the impairment for which the participant met access criteria. This is a significant narrowing of scope.
•Part 4 — Ministerial power to cut funding categories: The Minister can make determinations to reduce funding for whole groups of supports. This is the mechanism enabling the October 2026 participation budget reset. It operates by Ministerial determination.
•Part 5 — Legislated plan end dates: All plans will have a formal end date. Unspent funds do not carry over.
•Part 6 — Financial sustainability test: The Bill amends Section 3(1)(d) to provide supports “so far as is consistent with the financial sustainability of the scheme.”
•Part 9 — Evidence hierarchy: Peer-reviewed research first, then clinical evidence, then previous plan outcomes. Where peer-reviewed evidence is limited, the NDIA CEO can decline supports regardless of clinical advice.
•Schedule 2 — Fraud and compliance: Strengthened NDIA investigative powers. Expanded automated decision-making. A full provider reform roadmap and timeline is available via ClinicComply, and QDN’s summary provides a plain-English breakdown of the schedules.
The Financial Sustainability Clause: A Rights Shift in Seven Words
The original NDIS Act 2013 was built on a clear foundation: the scheme provides reasonable and necessary supports for people with disability. That framing is rights-based.
Part 6 of the Bill needs to be considered: supports are provided “so far as is consistent with the financial sustainability of the scheme.”
Pearls and Irritations explained clearly: every Commonwealth program could be subjected to the same financial sustainability qualifier such as education, defence, health. Applying it specifically to disability supports is a political choice. The Conversation described it as a philosophical shift: once framed around individual rights, choice and control, the scheme is being redesigned to ration support and reduce expenditure for the people who need it most.
Dr George Taleporos, Every Australian Counts:
“The NDIS was created so people with disability could live ordinary lives, leave home, participate in the community, work, study, build relationships and have choice over our supports. If passed, this Bill risks changing ‘reasonable and necessary’ supports from what people with disability need into only what government decides it can afford.” See: Every Australian Counts
The Ministerial Determination Power: What It Means in Practice
Part 4 of the Bill has serious implications for people with disability. It gives the Minister the power to make determinations reducing funding for whole categories of supports. The October 2026 participation budget reset operates through exactly this mechanism.
This matters for providers because the reform timeline is not fixed by legislation that Parliament must amend to change. A future Minister of any political stripe could use the same power to cut further, or potentially to restore, without returning to Parliament. The accountability and transparency mechanisms around this power were a central concern in the joint submission from Australia’s Disability Representative Organisations, which called for expanded Ministerial powers to be “amended and subject to stronger safeguards, transparency and accountability mechanisms.”
The Senate
The Senate as noted earlier, subsequently extended the reporting date to 6 August 2026, giving the committee nearly three additional months to examine the legislation.
This extension is significant for several reasons. First, it is a direct response to the volume and quality of submissions received from the disability community, advocates, peak bodies, and sector organisations mobilised extensively, it signals that the crossbench and committee members are not prepared to wave through 113 pages of structural reform on a compressed timeline. Third, it materially affects the legislative calendar: if the committee does not report until 6 August, the Senate cannot begin debating and voting on the Bill until after that date, pushing any realistic prospect of Royal Assent deep into the second half of 2026.
FPDN
FPDN called on the Senate crossbench to make the progress conditional on three safeguards: no First Nations participant reassessed until the I-CAN v6 tool has been culturally validated; a statutory “no exit without alternative” guarantee; and a resolute First Nations disability outcomes framework.
The Legislative Politics: Coalition, Crossbench, and the Cost of Delay
According to Sky News reporting on 31 May 2026, the Coalition has signalled it may withhold support in order to fight Labor’s controversial capital gains tax and negative gearing changes. NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister responded directly, warning that a year’s delay would cost the budget $17 billion over four years.
NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister, Sky News, 31 May 2026:
“The changes we propose do involve savings to the budget, and the consequences of delay are significant. The Coalition talk a lot about the need to restrain costs if they’re serious about that, we hope that they’ll engage with us and get this bill through.”
One Nation has been described as “stepping into a void” created by Coalition disunity on the Bill. The crossbench dynamic including potential conditions from the Greens, independents, and FPDN means the final shape of the legislation, and its commencement dates, remain genuinely uncertain.
Key legislative risk for providers: The Bill is not yet law. The Senate Committee report is due 6 August 2026. If the Bill passes with crossbench amendments, commencement dates may shift. October 2026 budget reset dates should be considered as indicative, not confirmed, until Royal Assent.
3. Employment Services Reform: The Largest Overhaul in Decades
Understnading the context
The Workforce Australia system currently costs approximately $2 billion per year and covers more than one million Australians required to engage with employment services providers as a condition of their payments, this does not cover the Supported Employment sector, but does include people with disability outside of Supported Employment and involved in other programs set by Workforce Australia.
The outcomes are, by any measure, poor. According to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, just 11.7% of jobseekers found long-term employment through a job provider in the 2024–25 financial year. For people with disability specifically, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported that only 6.9% of people with disability using Workforce Australia Services achieved a 26-week employment outcome in 2024–25 down from 8.6% the previous year.
A 2023 parliamentary inquiry described the system as built on the “myth of the dole bludger” and compared its strict mutual obligations regime to “using a nuclear bomb to kill a mosquito.” Around 1 in 5 Workforce Australia participants approximately 140,000 people have been in the system for five years or more. In Australia, with our economy and growth and jobs rate, this number is concerning, particularly those with disability - whose expectations on finding work are less positive than those without disability.
Minister Rishworth, National Press Club, 28 May 2026:
“For too long, our public debate has been stuck in a conversation about whether mutual obligations are too hard, or too soft. When the real question should be: are mutual obligations activities actually helping people get into work? Unfortunately, all too often, the answer is clearly ‘no.’” See: ABC News
Three Streams, New Incentives, $312 Million Redesign
The government has committed $312 million to redesigning the system, with a discussion paper open until 31 July 2026 and an expert advisory group to guide the process. The three-stream model is designed to replace the current one-size-fits-all approach:
•Stream 1 — Digital and brief intervention: People who are ready to work and need help finding the right job. Lighter touch, digitally delivered, reduced compliance burden. The aim is to stop treating work-ready people like welfare dependents.
•Stream 2 — Targeted provider support: People with more complex circumstances who need intensive, personalised assistance. This is where the bulk of the disability cohort currently sits, people whose barriers to employment are real but not insurmountable with the right support.
•Stream 3 — Intensive and specialised: Those furthest from employment, including long-term unemployed requiring specialised and sustained support. For people with disability in this stream, the critical question is what “specialised” actually means in practice and whether providers will be resourced and incentivised to serve this group to find meaningful and long term employment.
Provider incentives will also be redesigned to reward long-term, suitable employment outcomes rather than short-term placements. The current Points-Based Activation System where jobseekers must hit a 100-point monthly target or face payment suspension will be overhauled.
What This Means for Disability Employment — And What It Doesn’t Address
The Rishworth reform is directed at the Workforce Australia / Jobseeker system not at supported employment or ADEs. It sits alongside the November 2025 transition from DES to Inclusive Employment Australia (IEA). The critical unanswered question how people with disability move between IEA and the new three-stream Workforce Australia — remains unresolved in the design phase, and there needs to be further understanding of how it may work, given that IEA is specifically for people with illness, injury, and disability. A person who exits an ADE may need IEA support; a person whose NDIS plan is cut may fall back onto Workforce Australia. If those two systems are designed in isolation, the gaps between them become the places where people fall through.
The Disability Royal Commission’s recommendations on supported employment need to be considered here, and they are unresolved: Rec 7.30 (all commissioners) called for a transition plan to inclusive employment with ADE as a retained choice with safeguards; Rec 7.32 (commissioners only) proposed phasing out ADEs entirely by 2034. Neither recommendation has been acted on, and neither the budget nor the employment services reform addresses them directly.
2ig view: The three-stream model creates genuine opportunity for disability employment, but only if the complex-needs stream is backed by provider incentives calibrated to long-term outcomes for people with disability specifically. The discussion paper closes 31 July 2026 a rare moment when the system design is still genuinely open. Sector organisations should lodge submissions.
4. A Bold Proposal: Consolidation, Capital, and the Future of the Provider Market
Michael Traill’s Case for Sector Consolidation
While the government’s reform debate has focused on eligibility and budget savings, social impact investor Michael Traillfounding CEO of Social Ventures Australia, Chair of the Paul Ramsay Foundation, and Executive Director of For Purpose Investment Partnershas gone public with a more structural argument: thatthe provider market itself is broken and needs to be fundamentally reshaped.
Writing in the Australian Financial Review (28 May 2026), Traill proposes mass consolidation of the current 270,000 providers 250,000 unregistered and 17,000 registered into a handful of large-scale organisations backed by social impact investors, including superannuation funds.
Michael Traill, AFR, 28 May 2026:
“The answer is not more fragmentation. It is fewer, larger, better-resourced providers. The sector needs organisations with the scale to invest in quality systems, retain good staff, absorb compliance costs, fund the technology a modern sector requires and be genuinely accountable for outcomes.”
The Market Case: Why Fragmentation Is Not Sustainable
Currently, no provider holds more than 5% market share. Almost half of providers are loss-making. Those that turn a profit do not, in his assessment, reinvest returns back into services. The result is duplication of finance, compliance, rostering, and technology functions across thousands of organisations operating in isolation at a systemic cost that falls ultimately on participants and taxpayers.
The compliance burden being introduced by the new Bill makes this problem acute. Mandatory provider registration from July 2027, real-time digital claims and payment systems from July 2026, and new evidence requirements embedded in the planning framework all create fixed costs that organisations will struggle to absorb. A revenue base to sustain these costs is absolutely required for any provider.
The Capital Argument: Super Funds and Social Infrastructure
Traill cites the 2010 acquisition of collapsing childcare operator ABC Learning by a syndicate of non-profits creating Goodstart Early Learning as the template. Lin Hatfield Dodds, a director at For Purpose Investment Partners and previously CEO of The Benevolent Society significant disability provider and not for profit; suggested consolidation down to between five and 20 organisations. The capital could readily be available: Australian Ethical’s chief investment officer said his fund would be “very supportive” of increased investment in the sector. Australian Retirement Trust has already invested $75 million in For Purpose Investment Partners.
But there are genuine tensions in the model. The sector has legitimate concerns about what “scale” means. The sector remembers what happened when profit-seeking dominated aged care. Getting the governance and accountability architecture right is not optional. The government’s social impact investing taskforce, which Traill chaired, made recommendations in 2021 that were never acted on, a proposed government-bank “wholesaler” to invest in social enterprises has not materialised. The capital argument is sound; the institutional infrastructure to deploy it at scale has not been built.
2ig view: Traill’s consolidation thesis deserves serious attention from sector leaders. The current provider market structure highly fragmented, largely unregistered, and financially marginal is not sustainable under the new compliance regime regardless of what happens to the NDIS budget. Organisations that are well-governed, outcome-focused, and open to partnership or acquisition discussions are better positioned for what comes next. This is territory 2ig works in directly and we can talk to you further about your transformation plans.
5. The Structural Adjustment Fund: 30 June and What Comes Next
The Structural Adjustment Fundthe federal government’s primary investment in ADE transformation expires on 30 June 2026. Delivered across two grant rounds totalling $29.5 million, the SAF funded 65 organisations to develop innovative employment models, expand open employment pathways, and build workforce capability for people with high support needs. Funds provided were set a minimum of $50 000 and some exceeded $500 000.
The Funding Cliff in Context
The SAF expiry lands at precisely the moment of maximum disruption. October 2026 will bring social and community participation budget resets that directly reduce the purchasing power of participants funding their own employment-related supports. The new compliance regime is coming into effect.
There is currently no successor program. At the end of 2025 DSS sought submissions on what happens next with supported employment we hope that soon enough detail of options will be released, and that outcomes from both SAF rounds will be published. The 2026–27 Budget contained no dedicated ADE transformation investment.
It is also a missed opportunity in the government’s own policy narrative. The budget’s investment in Foundational Supports and the employment services reform both rest on the assumption that people leaving or not accessing the NDIS will have somewhere to go. The ADE market is waiting to be advised on funding options to support transformation.
2ig view: The SAF expiry without a successor is a concerning and unaddressed funding cliff in disability employment policy. Organisations should be documenting and actively communicating SAF outcomes for advocacy, for commissioners, and to demonstrate return on transformation investment to government and peak bodies. The window to shape what comes next is now.
6. Fair Work Commission: Wages Decision and What It Means for Supported Employment
The Decision: 4.75% From 1 July 2026
On 2 June 2026, the Fair Work Commission handed down its Annual Wage Review 2026 decision, lifting the national minimum wage and all modern award minimum rates by 4.75% from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. The national minimum wage rises to $26.44 per hour ($1,004.90 per week). This is the most significant wage increase in three years and lands at a moment when disability providers are already absorbing the compounding costs of the new compliance regime, post-SAF uncertainty, and the impending participation budget resets.
The Commission described the decision as “particularly challenging” given rising inflation the RBA forecasts headline inflation of 4.8% to June 2026 and the disruption to oil supplies and fuel prices flowing from the Middle East conflict that began on 28 February 2026. The Commission granted 4.75% less than the 6% unions sought on the basis that it would not be “practicable or responsible in the current uncertain circumstances” to close the real wage gap entirely in a single decision.
For disability support workers covered by the SCHADS Award the primary award covering most disability services workers the 4.75% increase applies in full of 1 July 2026. The combined effect over three years has been a significant uplift in the cost base for services funded through NDIS price limits that have not kept pace with the same trajectory.
The SES Award: A Critical Transition Moment for ADEs
For Australian Disability Enterprises, the Fair Work decision lands at an inflection point in the Supported Employment Services (SES) Award. The SES Award has been in transition since 30 June 2023, when significant changes to classification structures and pay arrangements took effect. That transition has an endpoint: 30 June 2026 the same day as the SAF expiry and just one day before the new wage rates apply.
The SES Award introduced Grade A and Grade B classifications in 2023 for employees with disability who, because of their disability, cannot perform at the level required by the existing Grade 1–7 structure. These grades recognise the reality of supported employment: that many participants perform meaningful, productive work within a framework that accommodates their support needs. The transitional minimum rates for Grade A and Grade B have been increasing incrementally since 2023.
That transitional period ends on 30 June 2026. From 1 July 2026, Grade A minimum rates are $7.10 per hour, and Grade B minimum rates are $14.19 per hour, and both will now also attract the 4.75% Annual Wage Review increase. Critically, any ADE that has not completed a Supported Wage System (SWS) assessment for employees with disability who were employed before 30 June 2023 must have done so by 30 June 2026. After that date, those transitional protections which prevented wage reductions during the assessment process no longer apply in the same form. ADEs that have not completed this compliance obligation are exposed.
Compliance risk: SWS assessments must be complete by 30 June 2026
Any ADE with employees who were employed before 30 June 2023 and have not yet had a Supported Wage System assessment completed is in breach of the SES Award transitional obligations. ADEs should audit their compliance position immediately before the July wage increase lands on top of an unresolved classification and assessment gap.
The Funding Gap: When Wages Rise and Price Limits Don’t Keep Pace
The core financial tension for disability providers is structural and worsening. The 4.75% wage increase applies to the largest cost line in most disability services organisations labour. For NDIS-registered providers, revenue is constrained by the NDIS Price Guide, which the NDIA sets annually. Historically, NDIS price limit increases have not fully tracked wage cost growth, creating a margin squeeze that has accelerated since the Care Sector Wages policy began layering additional increases onto the SCHADS Award from 2023.
2ig view: The 4.75% wage increase is not a surprise, but it arrives at the worst possible time for providers already managing the compounding pressures of NDIS budget reform, compliance uplift, SAF expiry, and a participation support funding reduction from October 2026. For ADEs specifically, 30 June 2026 is a triple deadline: the SAF ends, the SES Award transitional period closes, and the new wage rates apply the next day. Providers need to have modelled the combined financial impact of all three and have a clear position on how they will manage it. Organisations that haven’t yet stress-tested their business model against this combination of pressures should treat this as urgent.
7. The 2026–27 South Australian State Budget: What It Means for Disability
A Budget Largely Silent on Disability
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis delivered the Malinauskas Government’s 2026–27 State Budget& financial management | Department of Treasury and Finance on 4 June 2026 three weeks after the federal budget with a forecast net operating surplus of $223 million and projected surpluses through to 2029–30. The budget’s stated priorities are health, housing, education, cost-of-living relief, and the Whyalla steelworks. For the disability sector, the blunt assessment is that this is a budget that says very little directly about disability.
What Is in the Budget That Touches Disability
Several measures in the budget, while not framed as disability spending, have direct relevance to people with disability and the organisations that serve them:
●Children and young people in care: $350 million over five years (including $97 million in 2026–27) to support children and young people in care, with a focus on increasing family-based placements. Children in care have disproportionately high rates of disability, developmental delay, and complex support needs. This investment addresses the care system but does not directly address the disability-related support needs of children in that system who will be affected by NDIS access tightening from 2027–28.
●Carer support: Two small but notable carer-specific allocations appear. An increased grant to Connecting Foster and Kinship Carers SA Inc brings annual funding to approximately $120,000. Grandcarers SA receives approximately $82,000 per year over four years. These are welcome signals of recognition, but modest relative to SA’s carer population and the increased load that carers will carry as NDIS access narrows and Foundational Supports are not yet operational.
●Dementia SA: $500,000 in 2026–27 for a specialised education and wellbeing program for unpaid carers of people living with dementia. This sits in the Supporting Communities chapter, it is realistic to explore opportunities for funding for people with disability, especially those ageing and remaining in the NDIS.
●Mental health: $28 million over four years for a specialised mental health unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Mental health in relation to psychosocial disability remains in the NDIS. Investment in acute mental health infrastructure does not substitute for community-based psychosocial supports, but is relevant context given that participants exiting the NDIS are more likely to present to public health services.
●Homelessness services: $6 million over four years to Catherine House, St Vincent de Paul Society, and Hutt Street Centre for CBD homelessness support. People with disability are significantly over-represented in homelessness statistics and as NDIS access narrows and supported accommodation funding tightens, homelessness services will absorb increased pressure.
Thriving Kids as part of the Foundational Supports commitment
$230.3 million over five years to implement South Australia’s commitments under the National Agreement on Foundational Supports to deliver the Thriving Kids program. This will support children aged 8 and under with developmental delay and/or autism who have low to moderate support needs, along with their families and carers
Thriving Kids is the first phase of the Foundational Supports commitment that is the program designed to support children aged eight and under with developmental delay and/or autism who have low to moderate support needs, and who will not qualify for the NDIS under the tightened eligibility criteria commencing January 2028. All state and territory governments, including South Australia, have committed in principle to jointly fund Thriving Kids as part of the National Agreement on Foundational Supports, with governments collectively contributing $4 billion over five years $2 billion from the Commonwealth and $2 billion matched by states and territories.
At least $1.4 billion of the Commonwealth’s $2 billion contribution will flow directly to states as funding to deliver Thriving Kids services in their jurisdiction. Rollout is due to commence from 1 October 2026, with full implementation by 1 January 2028 timed to align with the NDIS eligibility changes that take effect on the same date. The SA 2026–27 Budget Papers (Budget Paper 4, Volume 4) list “health, disability and foundational supports” as an active whole-of-government workstream led by the Department of Premier and Cabinet, confirming SA’s engagement at a senior level. However, the SA budget does not yet publish the specific dollar quantum of SA’s matching contribution or a detailed delivery timeline for Thriving Kids.
Thriving Kids services will be delivered through three tiers: low-need children accessing parent-led approaches through mainstream services; moderate-need children accessing a broader range of funded supports; and children with permanent and significant disability who will remain eligible for the NDIS. The program targets children in schools, childcare centres, and community settings without requiring NDIS access. Design of the service model is still being finalised, with states undertaking their own jurisdiction-level engagement.
How Other States Are Responding
Victoria has explicitly confirmed in its 2026–27 state budget a commitment of $2.4 billion over five years under the National Agreement on Foundational Supports, including Thriving Kids. Victoria also committed $265.2 million in 2026–27 alone to continue its Disability Inclusion in Education program. NSW and Queensland are engaged at the National Cabinet level but have not yet published standalone state budget lines for the program. South Australia is not out of step with most states but is behind Victoria in transparency and specificity.
The Thriving Kids program is not due to be at full scale until January 2028. That is a 15-month gap in which children and families most affected will need to be managed through existing systems not designed for this volume.
2ig will bring you more detail once it is available as the state government releases more detail.
2ig view: Thriving Kids is rea, the national commitment is genuine, and the Commonwealth funding is confirmed. The question for SA organisations is not whether Thriving Kids will happen, but whether SA’s delivery arrangements will be in place on the timeline the federal cuts assume. Victoria’s explicit budget commitment sets a benchmark. SA organisations working with children under nine with developmental delay or autism should be actively engaging with DHS now to understand what SA’s Thriving Kids model will look like, what the access pathway will be, and what it means for their service model from October 2026 onward.
8. Key Dates: What Happens When
Date
Milestone / Action
16 June 2026
Original Senate Committee reporting date. Now superseded — see below.
30 June 2026
Structural Adjustment Fund expires. SES Award transitional period ends — all SWS assessments for pre-June 2023 employees must be complete. No successor SAF program announced.
1 July 2026
Fair Work Commission 4.75% wage increase takes effect (first full pay period on or after). SCHADS and SES Award rates increase. Grade A SES minimum $7.10/hr, Grade B $14.19/hr, both attracting the 4.75% uplift. National minimum wage rises to $26.44/hr.
31 July 2026
Employment Services Reform discussion paper closes. Sector submissions due. A rare opportunity to influence system design while it is still open.
6 August 2026
UPDATED: Senate Community Affairs Committee report due on the Securing the NDIS for Future Generations Bill 2026. Extended from the original 16 June date following the volume of submissions and sector pressure for adequate scrutiny time. This date now sets the earliest realistic window for Senate debate and passage.
1 Oct 2026 (indicative)
NDIS social and community participation budget resets begin. Capacity building daily activities reduced 10%. Contingent on Bill passing — now more uncertain given the 6 August committee reporting date.
30 Nov 2026
Government funding for the Worker Retention Payment expires. No clarity in the budget on whether this will be extended.
31 Dec 2026
CRRS and Hotline (DES/ADE complaints service) closes.
Mid-2026
NDIS new framework planning begins rolling out for selected participants over 16.
July 2026 onward
NDIS claims and payments system upgrades begin rolling out (through to 2030). Providers must enrol and supply contemporaneous service records.
1 April 2027
New NDIS planning framework formally operational.
July 2027
Mandatory registration of high-risk NDIS providers commences.
1 Jan 2028
Eligibility changes based on functional capacity assessment (I-CAN v6) commence.
2026–2028
NDIS reform transition period. Ongoing community and sector consultation on longer-term changes.
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