Thriving Kids used as political 'bargaining chip', expert claims

Thriving Kids program not intended to be state-based, advisory panel member claims Fri 26 Jun 2026 at 5:36am In short: A member of the Thriving Kids advisory panel says the state-based model being adopted is a departure from the original intention of the program. Tim Jones says he fears the program has been used to gain leverage during negotiations over public hospital funding. What's next? Federal Health Minister Mark Butler says the government is working constructively with the states and territories on the changes. A member of the Thriving Kids advisory panel has voiced concern about how the program is being rolled out, saying a state-based model is a departure from the panel's original intention. Tim Jones said when the Thriving Kids Advisory Group handed its report to the government, it did not expect the states to take on as much responsibility for services on the ground. He said he feared the program was used to gain leverage during negotiations over hospital funding. "We were all still very much under the understanding that we were delivering the federal government something that it was really keen to implement," Dr Jones said. "I think that ultimately this may have acted as one of the bargaining chips in securing the National Health Reform Agreement (NHRA)." The NHRA was agreed after a long-running stand-off between the states and the Commonwealth over who should pick up the extra cost of funding hospitals as Australia's population grew older and sicker. Under the deal, the Commonwealth agreed to chip in an extra $25 billion over five years to public hospitals. For their part, the states agreed to restart what are now known as "foundational supports" — state-based disability services which closed when the NDIS began. The Thriving Kids advisory panel completed its report in December 2025, a month before the states agreed to deliver the bulk of the program. But in August 2025, the government said the "final program design will be settled between the Australian government and the state and territory governments". Thriving Kids forms a major plank of the government's plan to rein in the cost of the now $50 billion National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) by handing over responsibility for some disability services to the states. Queensland is the only state not to have signed on to the deal. When it is fully operational, the $4 billion program will provide support to children under nine with autism and developmental delay who have "mild to moderate" support needs. The states and territories have agreed to deliver most of the program's services on the ground, such as support for parents, access to allied health services and capacity building for families with complex needs. "I am going to struggle with knowing the quality of what we designed and worrying that that implementation will be lost through the complexity of state and territory-based rollouts,"Dr Jones said. "I'm worried about any family that moves states because the problem with complex models is they don't transfer across state and territory lines." Thriving Kids is slated to start in October and the program is planned to be completely rolled out by January 2028. 'Cost-shifting exercise' The disability minister from the last remaining state to sign up to Thriving Kids says it is "an outright lie" to suggest people with disabilities will not fall through the cracks as the NDIS undergoes major changes. Queensland Disability Minister Amanda Camm said the federal government had not consulted effectively with the states and therefore did not know where participants would go to have their needs met. "They're making commitments to families without any of the detail," she said. Ms Camm said Queensland had not signed a bilateral agreement with the Commonwealth because it had not been provided enough information about what it would be responsible for. She said states were being asked to create services without agreement on how different levels of autism were defined and without a definition of developmental delay. "It's a cost-shifting exercise from the federal government to the states and territories with little detail," Ms Camm said. A spokesperson for NDIS Minister Mark Butler said the states and territories had been provided with a definition of low to moderate support needs and consultation had begun on that in early May. In an address to the Press Club in April, Mr Butler announced sweeping changes to the NDIS that would significantly limit who had access to the scheme and how much support they would receive. Mr Butler detailed plans that would cut $38 billion from the NDIS's spending over the next four years and remove about 240,000 people from the scheme. State and territory disability ministers were briefed on the proposed changes by the Commonwealth on the same day as the speech, a move Ms Camm said displayed "arrogance and disrespect". "It's now up to states and territories … to pick up the pieces for families who will be left stranded,"she said. However, last week Mr Butler said the government was working constructively with the states and territories. "Disability ministers know better than anyone else in government … just how important these reforms are," Mr Butler recently told the ABC. "I'm absolutely convinced the plan I announced eight weeks or so ago is the right plan for the NDIS." The federal government will contribute $2 billion to set up Thriving Kids. At least $1.4 billion of that money will go directly to the states on a per capita basis. Other experts optimistic about program’s future Paediatrician and independent MP Monique Ryan said the government was rolling out Thriving Kids too fast and before the states were able to set up alternative services. "There aren't yet supports in place for vulnerable children," Dr Ryan said. "It's very clear that there's real risks." Dr Ryan said it was reasonable that the government was looking for a more cost-effective way of providing children with the support they needed, but it was moving ahead with the changes before they were fully formed. "When the NDIS was being rolled out, it was likened to a plane being built while it was flying," she said. "We're repeating that mistake with Thriving Kids." Dr Jones, who is also the Child and Young Person's Health Chair for the Royal Australian College of GPs, said he was also concerned by the pace at which the government was pushing ahead with rolling out the Thriving Kids program. "It's going to be some time before we can adequately meet the needs of those kids," he said. "I do worry in this budget-critical environment that the bottom dollar at a federal level is driving things faster than it should necessarily happen." Dr Jones said he was hearing from many of his colleagues that it was becoming more and more difficult for autistic children to find the support they needed on the NDIS. "I have GPs reaching out to me through my networks, sharing stories about how kids who need that timely support aren't receiving it," he said. Dr Ryan said she was concerned there was no alternative for children who would no longer have access to the NDIS. "I don't think the government should make significant sweeping changes to the NDIS until we know that no child will fall through the cracks," she said. The government has said that no child would be removed from the NDIS until alternative services were up and running. Leading paediatrician and chair of the Thriving Kids advisory panel, Frank Oberklaid, said he was optimistic about the program's aims but admitted it was not going to be "perfect" on day one. "This is a major transition. It's a major reconceptualisation of the way we support children and families," Dr Oberklaid said. "I think it'll evolve, the introduction of any new approach like this is going to be messy in the first instance." Dr Oberklaid said throughout the design process he expected the states would be heavily involved in running the program. "The targeted services that we're talking about, have always been the responsibility of states," he said.