History has a warning for Mark Butler about the NDIS

On 14 May, Health Minister Mark Butler introduced the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill into federal parliament. He called it an administration action, a necessary intervention to preserve a plan under unsustainable financial pressure.

He may be right that action is needed. But the form the action has taken, and the gap between the bill’s rhetoric and operational logic, raises questions that anyone familiar with the long history of Australian disability policy should find troubling.