By Nicole Rogerson, CEO, Autism Association of Australia

Last week, I sat down with the Minister for the NDIS, Jenny McAllister, to talk about something that will reshape early childhood support in this country.
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You can watch our full conversation here: https://youtu.be/6TujeYiqzSs?si=m5x8xbi5pG70uh1Q

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The reforms to the NDIS and the rollout of Thriving Kids are not minor administrative tweaks to be glossed over. They represent a fundamental shift in how Australia thinks about and delivers early intervention for children with developmental delay and autism.

Thriving Kids is the first stage of what governments are calling Foundational Supports. It is designed to identify developmental differences earlier, connect children to supports sooner, and deliver services in the environments where children live, learn and play.

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You can read more about Thriving Kids and how it is intended to work here:
https://www.autismawareness.com.au/navigating-autism/thriving-kids

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If those at the helm really do get this right, it could be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to positively change the trajectory for thousands of Australian children.

For years, families have told us the same thing. Early support matters. The earlier the better. And importantly, the evidence supports this. Decades of research from around the world tell us that timely, developmentally appropriate intervention improves long-term outcomes, strengthens families and reduces secondary challenges. Waiting until a child has fallen significantly behind, or until a system says they are “disabled enough”, is not good policy and it is not good practice.

Thriving Kids is designed for children aged eight and under with developmental delay or autism who have “low to moderate” support needs. It is not an individual NDIS funding package with a personal budget. Instead, children are connected to supports based on developmental needs.

National Cabinet has agreed to jointly contribute up to 4 billion dollars over 5 years to implement these supports for children under 8 with developmental delay or autism and low to moderate support needs. That level of investment signals that our governments understand the stakes.

But money alone does not build a system.

In our discussion, the Minister was clear on an important point. The NDIS will remain for children who need additional, substantial supports. Children with permanent and significant disability, including those with high or complex support needs, will continue to be eligible for the NDIS under usual arrangements. That reassurance matters too.

The states and territories will be responsible for delivering parenting supports, information and navigation, and targeted allied health services. That means workforce planning at scale. It means expanding allied health capacity. It means training early childhood educators and teachers. It means building services in regional and outer metropolitan areas that currently struggle with waitlists.

The first services are expected to begin on 1 October 2026, with full rollout by 1 January 2028. I would be surprised if, by October 2026, this system is fully mature and consistently available across the country. Reform of this size never rolls out evenly.

Some of us remember the not-so-great old days before the NDIS, when states ran these services. I seem to recall Western Australia and the ACT as being better at this than others. That unevenness is exactly what we must avoid. We cannot afford to recreate a postcode lottery for early intervention.

This is why the Autism Association of Australia is leaning into this reform conversation. Not to criticise for the sake of it. Not to catch governments out. But to help shape the system as it is being built.

We will support reforms that improve access to timely, evidence-based supports. We will also call out blind spots, workforce gaps and implementation risks where we see them. That is the responsibility of a national peak body. Constructive, but not silent.

There are genuine challenges ahead. Workforce shortages are real. Allied health capacity is stretched. Delivering supports in mainstream environments is sensible policy, but it requires advanced coordination between health, education and disability systems that do not always work seamlessly together.

At a personal level, this is not abstract policy for me.

Someone once said to me, “your child will be an adult for many more years than they will be a child”. That sentence has stayed with me. As the mother of a now 30-year-old autistic man, I am the world’s biggest five-star fan of early intervention. I have seen its impact. It not only changes lives. It makes lives.

When we invest early, we are not just funding therapy hours. We are building communication, confidence, independence and long-term wellbeing. We are shaping adulthood.

Thriving Kids has the potential to reset how Australia thinks about early intervention. Whether it succeeds will depend on political will, genuine federal-state cooperation, workforce investment, and ongoing accountability.

The Autism Association of Australia intends to be at the table for all of it.

We owe that to our children. And to the adults they will become.

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