Huge cuts to national disability insurance scheme aim to save more than $36bn in budget’s largest single measure

NDIS changes foreshadowed by health minister Mark Butler will drastically reduce access to the scheme, with nearly 700 staff positions to go at NDIA

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The government expects to recoup $36.2bn by curbing the national disability insurance scheme’s growth over the next four years as it looks to return to the NDIS’s “original purpose” of supporting people with “significant and permanent disability”.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said the budget’s savings package amounted to genuine economic reform, beyond the “usual nips and tucks”.