Today’s bloated NDIS would never have been greenlit, its former head says. How did we get here?

The Albanese government this week launched the most significant intervention in the disability support scheme’s history Labor’s NDIS cuts: here’s what we know so far Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The national disability insurance scheme was a Labor vision brought to life with the Coalition’s blessing, an act of political bi-partisanship that would change the lives of millions of Australians and their families. But David Bowen, the first chief executive of the agency in charge of the NDIS, doubts it might ever have happened had either side known what it would become 15 years later. “Had any government, of any political persuasion, known it was going to be this size, by this time, it would have never been funded in the first place,” Bowen said. The spiralling costs of the $50bn NDIS have this week prompted the Albanese government to launch the most significant intervention in the scheme’s history to “save” the program from collapse. It will usher in new eligibility rules and subject all participants to independent functional assessments, cutting an expected 160,000 people from the scheme by 2030. The changes are projected to save the fe