Butler Defends NDIS Cuts, Promises Access for All

0:00It's April 23rd, Sydney news today starts now, AI powered and ready, I'm Cory with the story. Australia's health minister, Mark Butler, is standing by big changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, or NDIS, right after the government. Drop $53 billion on new defense spending over the next decade. The overhaul aims to slow the program's growth to just 2% a year below inflation, so it's a real cut and slash projected participants from. 900,000 to 600,000 by 2030. Those extra folks would shift to other supports, like state programs, still being worked out. Butler says the tweaks fix major flaws, like dodgy providers and runaway costs that could sink the whole thing. Aussies are feeling uneasy about it, since the NDIS transformed lives for 760,000 people and was a point of national pride. The Greens are slamming at a cynical and cruel, warning it kicks out folks with invisible disabilities, or those a computer says don't need help.

1:01Butler insists access will hinge on functional capacity, how much a disability impacts daily life, not just the diagnosis like autism or schizophrenia. He's promising to hash out details, including new checks for every participant and appeal rights with the disability community. Even after these shifts, Butler calls the NDIS the government's biggest social program outside aged pensions, bigger than Medicare and pharmaceuticals, combined and still the best disability support anywhere, locking in its future for decades.