Early Intervention or Empty Promises? Questions for "Thriving Kids"

I see the human cost of these decisions up close. In children, in families, in futures on the line. The government’s Thriving Kids reform might sound promising, but unless it answers the hard questions, it risks leaving young people stranded at adulthood’s edge. Reform is needed. But it has to be the right reform

Autism Doesn’t Stop At 8

When Minister Mark Butler unveiled the Thriving Kids initiative at the National Press Club, it sounded promising: a $2 billion investment, a vision of children with “mild to moderate autism or developmental delay” being supported in schools, clinics, and local services instead of joining the NDIS. On the surface, who wouldn’t want more kids helped earlier and closer to home?

But here’s the blunt truth: autism doesn’t stop at 8.

The speech has made it sound as though it exists in isolation, as if a diagnosis neatly expires when the candles are blown out on a birthday cake. It doesn’t. Autism is lifelong. Supports that might look “moderate” in primary school can morph into crippling barriers in adolescence and adulthood, when demands escalate and support structures vanish.

And while the idea of early supports sounds noble, this scheme announcement raises more questions than it answers. Families deserve clarity, but instead they’ve been left wondering:

• Do these kids automatically move into the NDIS at 8 — or do they have to reapply from scratch, after already applying for Thriving Kids in the first place?

• If they’re forced to reapply, what will that process look like? Adult NDIS eligibility requires costly Functional Capacity Assessments (FCAs), updated diagnostic evidence, and reports from multiple allied health professionals. Families can be hit with thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs just to prove what they already know: their child still has autism and still needs support.

• What if the transfer isn’t guaranteed? Families could spend that money, go through the stress, and be left with nothing but rejection letters and bills.

• What happens during the fragile transition years? The leap from school to adult life is already one of the hardest stages. Forcing families to navigate a fresh round of bureaucracy right then is setting them up to fail.

• And if doors close altogether? The mainstream systems that Thriving Kids relies on are designed for children. Once schooling ends, the scaffolding collapses. Adult equivalents simply don’t exist at scale.

So, the government can dress this up as reform, but unless these fundamental questions are answered, it isn’t a bridge to adulthood at all. It’s a cul-de-sac. One that risks leaving autistic young people stranded at the exact stage of life when continuity matters most.

The Illusion of “Mild” vs “Moderate” Autism

One of the most dangerous assumptions underpinning Thriving Kids is the idea that children can be neatly categorised into “mild,” “moderate,” or “severe.” On paper, it looks tidy — a bureaucrat’s dream for rationing resources. In reality, it could be a disaster.

Autism is lifelong. It doesn’t disappear because a child learns to read, can hold a conversation, or makes it through a school day without incident. Functioning isn’t fixed; it fluctuates constantly depending on stress, environment, and available support. A child who looks “mild” in the structure of a Year 2 classroom can unravel in high school when academic pressures, social dynamics, and anxiety ramp up.

And here’s the truth policymakers ignore: what looks like ‘mild’ independence is often powered by the unseen labour of families, the constant planning, regulating, and absorbing of fallout that no policy ever takes into consideration. Parents and carers are the ones scripting conversations, managing meltdowns, regulating routines, and absorbing the emotional fallout after every tough day. Governments rarely see that unpaid labour, but they rely on it. Strip away NDIS supports, and you don’t just isolate the child, you push families to breaking point.

Another question on my mind… will Thriving Kids actually fund any form of community access? Because therapy alone cannot fix one of autism’s biggest challenges, social isolation. Speech therapy and OT sessions matter, yes, but they don’t replace the safe, structured environments where children actually practise those skills: group activities, community programs, day outings, sports, and peer networks. That’s where confidence and connection are built.

Some of the most meaningful gains don’t happen in a therapist’s office at all. They happen in the park, at the bowling alley, in a cooking group, places where children connect with peers who understand them, where practice becomes participation. Therapies are the backbone, but without opportunities for social inclusion, therapy becomes an island.

If Thriving Kids reduces support to therapy alone, children won’t thrive, they’ll simply grow up lonelier. What’s being presented as reform is, in reality, the reinforcement of isolation.

And if the government thinks it can patch that isolation by sprinkling money into generic “community activities,” then let’s be clear: that isn’t new funding, it’s just funneling money from one scheme to the next.

Reality Check: Mainstream Systems Are Already Broken

The government claims mainstream systems will be able to “pick up the slack.” On paper, that sounds logical. In reality, those systems are already buckling under the weight of unmet demand. Expecting them to absorb tens of thousands of additional children is like patching a leaking roof with paper towels, it looks fine for five minutes, then collapses the moment it rains.

Education is stretched past breaking point. Teacher aides, the lifeline for many autistic children in classrooms, are in chronic shortage. Schools ration hours, forcing principals into impossible triage: who gets support this week, and who misses out. Teachers are running on fumes, with burnout rates soaring and staff leaving the profession in droves. What’s left are overcrowded classrooms where autistic children are too often “managed” rather than meaningfully included.

Healthcare bottlenecks are the norm. Public paediatric clinics carry waitlists of 6–12 months just for an initial appointment. Families who can’t wait are forced into private care, where costs climb into the thousands. That’s not choice. Either wait indefinitely or go broke? Neither outcome keeps children thriving.

Allied health access is tokenistic. Under Medicare’s Better Access scheme, children receive just 10 rebated psychology sessions a year. Ten hours to address a lifelong developmental condition is laughable, and families almost always have to top up privately at enormous personal cost. The same applies to speech therapy, occupational therapy, and social skills programs: capped, underfunded, and inaccessible for many.

Postcode inequality is rife. A child in a capital city may scrape together some access to supports. A child in regional Queensland or rural WA? They’re left with little more than waiting lists and empty promises. “Equal access” under mainstream systems has never been real, and without NDIS funding, those gaps will only widen.

If these systems aren’t fixed first, this isn’t reform. It’s not innovation. It’s simply shifting responsibility from one overstretched system to another, and leaving families caught in the middle. In practice, children who currently receive consistent supports under the NDIS will face the same broken systems that families outside the scheme have already been battling for years, the same system that families battled before the NDIS came into play.

Let’s be blunt: if mainstream systems were working, families wouldn’t be fighting tooth and nail to get onto the NDIS. Parents don’t drag their child through diagnostic assessments, mountains of paperwork, and endless evidence-gathering for fun. They do it because every other door has been slammed in their face.

Pushing autistic children out of the NDIS and back into systems that are already broken isn’t reform. It’s abandonment, dressed up as sustainability.

The Financial Pressures — True, But Misdiagnosed

There’s no denying it: the NDIS is growing fast. Around 70% of new participants list autism as their primary diagnosis, and overall scheme growth has pushed beyond the government’s preferred ceiling of 8% per year. That rate is unsustainable, and yes, reform is necessary. But the way the government has chosen to address it reveals a fundamental misdiagnosis of the problem.

The assumption is that autistic children are a “cost blowout.” But ask any family why they fought so hard to get onto the NDIS, and the answer is simple: because there was nowhere else to turn. Broken schools. Endless health waitlists. Capped Medicare sessions. When every mainstream door was slammed in their face, the NDIS became the only lifeline.

That’s not abuse of the scheme, that’s parents doing what any parent would do: finding a way to get their child the help they need.

Meanwhile, the real financial leaks are being ignored. Fraud and rorting are well-documented across the scheme. Providers overcharging for basic services. Inflated travel claims. “Ghost supports” billed but never delivered. And yes, some participants have also learned how to game the system. Billions are being siphoned off by exploitation, and the government itself has admitted fraud is rife. Yet instead of cracking down on dodgy providers or tightening oversight, the proposed “solution” is to cut off an entire vulnerable population.

And let’s not pretend the scheme is fair or consistent even for those who do get access.

Funding often depends less on genuine need and more on which planner you happen to be assigned. I’ve seen psychosocial participants with seven-figure packages, while at the same time, a young man with a severe intellectual disability had his funding slashed from $90,000 to almost nothing. His Local Area Coordinator never communicated. His family was blindsided. And because I refuse to pull supports (because doing so would have had catastrophic consequences for him and his parents), I work for free — for months now — because his life matters to me.

That’s the reality of this scheme as it sits today: Where life outcomes hinge on luck, postcode, or the arbitrary decision of a planner. Where some are overfunded, others abandoned, and families are left broken in the middle. Where do we draw the line? Who decides whose life is worth “funding properly,” and whose can be short-changed? These are the cracks that should be fixed, not stripping early intervention supports from autistic children altogether.

It’s a sleight of hand: punish the most visible group, while leaving the core governance and accountability issues untouched.

Let’s be brutally clear. The government isn’t fixing the scheme; it’s rationing it. By removing autistic children, they can instantly point to reduced growth and claim “savings.” But the underlying cracks (fraud, inefficiency, poor planning, lack of mainstream investment) remain wide open. That means the “savings” will be temporary at best, while the long-term costs will explode when unsupported children become unsupported adults in crisis.

Families are not the problem here. Vulnerable children are not the problem here. The problem is a system that has allowed profiteering at one end and abandonment at the other.

If the government truly wanted to make the NDIS sustainable, it would:

• Invest upstream in health, education, and early supports to reduce pressure on the scheme.

• Stamp out fraud and exploitation with robust oversight and real enforcement.

• Build transparency and accountability so participants aren’t penalised for systemic failures.

• Hire and properly train staff who understand disability and the scheme they’re administering. Right now, you can ask the same question to three different NDIS employees and get three completely different answers. Two participants with near-identical needs can walk away with wildly different funding allocations, simply because they landed with different planners. That isn’t a system — it’s a lottery.

Instead, we’re watching a vulnerable population become the scapegoat for failures they didn’t create. And the cost of that scapegoating won’t be measured in neat budget savings, it will be measured in children’s futures.

What Happens After Thriving Kids?

Even if Thriving Kids manages to deliver something meaningful in the early years (a generous assumption), the glaring question remains: what happens when the program ends at age 8?

The NDIS was designed as a lifelong scheme. Scaffolds remain in place as children grow, carrying them into adolescence and adulthood with continuity of therapies, supports, and opportunities to participate in community life. Under Thriving Kids, there is no such guarantee.

How will continuity be retained? What happens when a child turns 8 and is told their supports now “belong in mainstream”? Will they be able to transition smoothly into the NDIS, or will families be forced into yet another exhausting cycle of assessments, applications, and out-of-pocket costs — thousands of dollars just to prove their child still has the same lifelong disability they had yesterday?

Right now, none of this is clear.

The cliff is real. Instead of a smooth pathway, families are staring at sharp drop-offs: first at age 8, when early supports risk vanishing, and later at 18 (if the NDIS is no longer available to them), when young people step out of school and into adult life. Both cliffs leave autistic people without continuity, and both lead to predictable outcomes.

• Mental health services are already under siege; strip continuity and you’ll see surging crisis admissions and suicide risk.

• Employment outcomes are already dire for autistic adults; without funded transition supports, unemployment will only climb.

• Housing instability, homelessness, and interactions with the justice system become inevitable when scaffolds are pulled away.

• Families, already carrying the bulk of the burden, are pushed to breaking point. Parents burn out, marriages fracture, siblings grow up neglected.

None of this is cheaper than providing consistent support. Every dollar “saved” by excluding autistic children is a dollar that reappears, multiplied, in hospitals, Centrelink lines, housing queues, and prisons.

And let’s be clear: this isn’t just about whether Thriving Kids helps a child at age five. It’s about what happens at eight. It’s about what happens at 18. It’s about whether children step forward into a supported teenage years and adulthood, or fall into the abyss of neglect.

Until the government can answer that most basic of questions — what happens after Thriving Kids? — this is not reform. It risks becoming a dangerous gamble with children’s futures. One that history will judge harshly if it’s allowed to proceed without answers.

The Human Toll

Behind every statistic is a human story. And those stories don’t magically end when a child turns 8.

For many families, that’s the first cliff. A child who has been receiving consistent supports is suddenly told those needs must now be met by “mainstream” systems already stretched to breaking point. The scaffolding falls away just as their needs are becoming more complex, leaving parents scrambling to fill the gaps.

The second cliff comes at 18. Teens and young adults who once appeared to be coping can spiral quickly when supports (regular school days and schedules especially) vanish. A student who managed school with the help of a teacher aide and predictable routines is suddenly expected to navigate job interviews, public transport or university timetables alone. Anxiety spikes, mental health deteriorates, and progress made over years unravels in months.

Employment is fragile without continuity. With accommodations, autistic young adults can thrive in the workplace. But take away funded job coaching, transport assistance or social-skills support, and that same job can disappear overnight. Losing work doesn’t just mean losing income; it strips away confidence, social connection and the possibility of long-term independence.

Families carry the fallout, often to breaking point. Parents don’t just witness their child’s struggles, they absorb them. They become unpaid case managers, carers and crisis responders. Over time, the relentless strain corrodes families: marriages collapse, siblings feel neglected, parents burn out.

And when families collapse, the costs don’t disappear, they shift. They reappear in emergency rooms after suicide attempts, in housing queues after evictions, in police watch-houses when behaviours of distress are criminalised instead of supported. None of these outcomes are cheaper than preventative foundations. All of them are more destructive.

These outcomes are avoidable. With consistent support into adulthood, many autistic young people live rich, independent lives. Without it, too many end up in crisis. Research shows autistic people face unemployment rates of 34%, labour force participation below 41%, and a suicide risk up to seven times higher than the general population. Those are not inevitable statistics, they are the result of policy choices.

This is the human toll of decisions made in boardrooms and parliaments, far from the families who live with the consequences. Whether these young people thrive or fall through the cracks isn’t about ideology or sustainability. It’s about whether governments have the foresight to build continuity instead of cliffs.

Data That Wakes You Up

It’s easy for policymakers to talk in abstract terms about “sustainability” and “growth caps.” But step away from the spreadsheets and look at the actual numbers on autistic people’s lives, and the picture is stark.

Australia-wide, more than 290,000 people are autistic—and that number is rising fast. According to the ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (2022), there were 290,900 autistic Australians, a 41.8% increase from 205,200 in 2018. Autism is not rare. It is a significant and growing part of our community, and our systems need to adapt accordingly.

Now look at the outcomes:

• Unemployment is crushing. Around 34% of autistic people are unemployed—more than three times the rate of people with other disabilities, and up to eight times that of non-disabled Australians (A4 / ABS). Imagine if any other group had unemployment that high — there would be national outrage. For autistic people, it’s quietly tolerated.

• Labour force participation is dismal. Only 40.8% of autistic adults participate in the workforce, compared to 53.4% of people with other disabilities and 83.2% of non-disabled Australians (A4 / ABS). That’s not a gap — that’s a chasm.

• Workplace inequality is baked in. Even when autistic people do find employment, they are far more likely to be in part-time or casual roles, underemployed, and clustered in lower-skilled jobs despite holding the same or higher qualifications as their peers (Autism CRC).

• The mental health toll is staggering. Autistic individuals are estimated to be three to seven times more likely to die by suicide than the general population (Wikipedia summary: Suicide among autistic individuals). That's not a side note—it’s an emergency.

Now ask the real question: what happens when thousands of children are funneled away from the NDIS under Thriving Kids and never given access to consistent, lifelong support, not just therapies, but the daily living assistance, community participation, transport, job coaching, respite, and social inclusion programs that actually make independence possible? We already know the answer. It’s right there in the data. Without strong, ongoing support, these children face a future where unemployment is the norm, participation is the exception, and crisis is the inevitable outcome.

This isn’t about “growth caps” or “budget savings.” It’s about whether we want to keep fueling a cycle of exclusion or finally break it.

The Ripple Effects on Society

The outcomes of neglecting autistic people don’t just land on individuals and families, they ripple through the whole of society. And those ripples carry a staggering human and economic cost.

Economic exclusion bleeds billions. Unemployment and underemployment among autistic Australians cost the economy an estimated A$7.2 billion every year, according to a Deloitte Access Economics report commissioned by Autism CRC. Later modelling by Synergies Economic Consulting suggested the true figure could be as high as A$11.2 billion when you include the burden of disease and broader social impacts. That’s not just wasted potential, it’s a self-inflicted economic wound.

Social isolation is deadly. Loneliness isn’t just sad, it kills. Research consistently shows that chronic social isolation carries health risks comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day or living with obesity, backed by a meta-analysis of 3.4 million people published in Perspectives on Psychological Science (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015). For autistic people, who already face access barriers, stripping back group supports risks making disconnection a full-blown public health crisis.

Suicide risk is alarmingly high. Autistic individuals face a 3–7 times higher risk of suicide compared to the general population. Behind every number is a person who could have been supported but wasn’t.

The justice system, homelessness, and early death. Autistic adults are overrepresented in the justice system, often not because of “criminal intent,” but because behaviours of distress are criminalised in the absence of appropriate supports. Rates of homelessness and housing insecurity are disproportionately high among autistic people. And studies show autistic people have reduced life expectancy compared to the general population, much of it linked to suicide, co-occurring health conditions, and systemic neglect.

This isn’t about “inconvenience.” These are life-threatening gaps. When governments reduce supports, the costs don’t disappear, they reappear in emergency rooms, prisons, housing queues, and coroners’ reports. They resurface in systems already buckling under workforce shortages, chronic underfunding, and burnout.

We either pay for inclusion upfront, or we pay for exclusion later — in lives and in dollars.

Priorities Laid Bare: The Money Is There

Here’s the bitter irony. While autistic children are told that money is tight, Australia has no trouble finding billions elsewhere.

• AUKUS submarines — $2.7 billion allocated in the 2025–26 budget, as part of a $268–$368 billion program over ~30 years.

• Brisbane 2032 Olympics — $7.1 billion committed for venues, including about $1.2 billion for the main stadium.

• Hobart Macquarie Point Stadium — Estimated at $775 million, with long-term costs projected to ~$1.1 billion over 30 years.

• Perth’s Optus Stadium — $1.6 billion already spent.

• Sports funding — $385–$386 million pumped into the Australian Sports Commission’s Play Well / Win Well high-performance pathways for LA 2028, per Reuters.

• Infrastructure spending — The 2024–25 budget earmarked $16.5 billion for new and existing projects, with states/territories projected to spend $270.4 billion over four years (see investment.infrastructure.gov.au and Infrastructure Australia’s Budget Monitor PDF).

• Overseas aid — Since October 2023, Australia has delivered over $100 million in aid to Gaza/West Bank and pledged another $20 million (total ~$130 million) — see Foreign Minister media statement and live updates via The Guardian.

• MH370 search — The underwater hunt cost about US $155 million (~AU$200 million+), with Australia paying roughly one-third.

Let’s be clear, I am not arguing these things should cease. Defence matters. Humanitarian aid matters. Infrastructure and sport matter. But their existence proves the point: the money is there when the government decides it is.

So why, when it comes to autistic children, is the conversation suddenly about “sustainability” and “taxpayer burden”? Why is the rhetoric always that “we can’t afford it”, but only when the supports in question are for disabled kids?

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: the cost of neglect will be far greater than the cost of support. A lifetime of crisis mental health services, Centrelink dependency, homelessness, unemployment, and justice system entanglement costs taxpayers more, in lives and in dollars. Cutting early intervention isn’t savings. It’s a transfer of costs to every other part of society, multiplied.

If we’re going to talk about taxpayers, then let’s be honest: the real question isn’t whether we can afford to support autistic children. It’s whether we can afford not to. Thriving Kids may look like reform on paper, but without careful design and real guarantees it risks becoming cost-shifting dressed up as progress, stripping supports from children today while handing tomorrow’s taxpayers a much bigger bill.

The Early Intervention Question

The entire philosophy of the NDIS was built on one clear idea: early intervention matters. It was designed as an investment, support children early, provide therapies and scaffolds while their brains and skills are still developing, and you give them the best chance to thrive as adults. The logic is simple: pay now, save later. Every expert, from paediatricians to educators to economists, agrees.

And the evidence backs it up. Decades of research show that early intervention improves communication, social skills, emotional regulation, and independence. Children who receive timely, tailored supports are more likely to finish school, gain employment, and participate in community life. Studies consistently show that every dollar spent early reduces the need for more expensive crisis care later, whether that’s emergency hospitalisations, unemployment benefits, or contact with the justice system.

So why, then, are we cutting children out?

The Thriving Kids initiative, if not done well, risks flipping the very principle the NDIS was founded on upside down. Instead of protecting and strengthening early access, it singles out autistic children with so-called “mild to moderate” needs, exactly the group who benefit most from early supports, and places their future in jeopardy. If executed poorly, this reform could leave children more vulnerable, push families into burnout, and create adulthood outcomes that are harder, costlier, and more damaging to fix.

That’s not just a moral risk, it’s an economic one. If we fail to invest in children at the stage when interventions have the highest impact, we are all but guaranteeing higher costs later. Crisis mental health services. Unemployment and welfare dependency. Housing instability. Family breakdown. All of these outcomes are far more expensive than early, preventative support. Without careful design and real guarantees, this reform won’t save money, it will simply defer the bill, and when it comes back, it will be bigger.

And here’s the contradiction. Government messaging still praises early intervention, trumpeting it as a cornerstone of the NDIS. Ministers repeat the line that we must “invest early” to give children the best start. Yet this policy risks doing the opposite: pulling away supports at the very point they are most effective, leaving children to struggle until cracks widen into crises.

This is not inevitable, but it is the path we are on if critical questions go unanswered. Families see it. Advocates see it. And the children who will pay the price deserve better than political doublespeak.

Because here’s the truth: early intervention isn’t a luxury. It’s not optional. It is the single most effective tool we have for changing life trajectories. The government knows this, they helped build the system on that very premise. To undermine it now would not just be short-sighted. It would be a betrayal of the founding vision of the NDIS.

Questions That Demand Answers

It’s not enough for the government to announce a $2 billion “Thriving Kids” fund and pat themselves on the back. If they want credibility, they must answer the questions families are already asking, loudly and urgently.

Where do autistic young people go after 8? Autism is lifelong. Supports can’t magically expire at a certain age. Within the NDIS, supports carry forward into employment, housing, and independence. Under Thriving Kids, does the path simply stop? Do young people automatically transfer to the NDIS, or are families expected to reapply from scratch, paying thousands in new assessments and risking rejection at the door?

How will isolation be addressed? Will Thriving Kids focus heavily on therapies? The most profound growth often happens outside therapy rooms, in group programs, peer mentoring, supported sport, and community participation. If those are stripped away, how do children avoid sliding into deeper isolation? Is there a plan for social scaffolding, not just clinical appointments?

What precedent does this set? Today it’s autistic children with so-called “mild” or “moderate” needs. But once the government establishes that entire groups can be excluded, who’s next? People with psychosocial disability dismissed as “too temporary”? Those with intellectual disability but “higher” IQ scores told they’re “not disabled enough”? Where does the government draw the line, and who gets to make that call?

And beyond those immediate concerns, here's a few more the government must answer before this plan goes anywhere:

• How will rural and remote families access “foundational supports” when allied health deserts already exist? Waitlists of 6–12 months are common even in cities — what about small towns?

• What guarantees exist that mainstream schools will actually receive extra resources for these children?

• Where is the evidence that Thriving Kids leads to better teenager/adult outcomes? If none exists, why risk an entire generation’s future on an experiment?

• How will “success” be measured — by whether children actually thrive as teenagers and adults, or simply by whether fewer remain on the NDIS?

• Who defines “mild” and “moderate,” and how consistent will those decisions be across states, planners, and schools?

• Is this initiative actually going to save Australia money? If the government insists the answer is yes, then how? Thriving Kids will still require millions — if not billions — in new funding to prop up mainstream services already stretched to breaking point. Is this reform a genuine path to sustainability, or just a Band-Aid fix to make the NDIS look smaller on paper while the real costs explode elsewhere?

Reform is possible, and it’s necessary. But until these questions are answered, Thriving Kids isn’t a solution, it’s a slogan. Families don’t need PR soundbites; they need ironclad guarantees their children won’t be abandoned the moment they turn 8. And taxpayers deserve transparency that this reform is about actually fixing the system, not just making it look fixed.

My Conclusion

Autism doesn’t stop at 8. It is lifelong.

Yes, reform is needed. Everyone knows the NDIS has cracks. Families know it. Providers know it. Participants know it. But reform on paper is easy; reform in practice is where governments have a track record of missing the mark.

On paper, Thriving Kids looks promising. But without clear answers, it risks becoming a dangerous gamble... One that could leave children stranded, families exhausted, and society footing a far heavier bill.

Here’s the core question the government must answer (because this is how they frame their reason behind creating Thriving Kids): HOW will this actually save money? Will it really deliver long-term savings, or is it just a short-term PR manoeuvre to take the heat off the NDIS? Because funneling billions into another scheme, while starving the NDIS and mainstream systems, isn’t saving, it’s cost-shifting. And Australians have seen this before Big promises up front, bigger costs down the line.

And beyond the money, how exactly does this government plan to prop up public systems that are already buckling? Emergency departments are overcrowded, allied health deserts stretch across regional Australia, and mental health services can’t keep pace with current demand. Meanwhile, schools are already rationing teacher aide hours and teachers are burning out. If health and education are both collapsing under existing pressure, what’s the plan when thousands more autistic children are suddenly shunted their way?

This reform might have good bones. But bones aren’t enough. Without guarantees, transparency, and hard numbers, it’s just another glossy policy designed to look good now and collapse later.

So, if this government wants credibility, it needs to answer the real questions. Clearly, publicly, and in detail. Until then, families, advocates, and taxpayers alike are right to remain concerned that Thriving Kids, while promising on paper, may not deliver in practice.

Because reform matters, but only if it truly strengthens the supports children need, not shifts them into another system that can’t cope.

And at the heart of this, we must remember: these aren’t budget line items. They’re our kids. And their futures are not negotiable.