2024-25 Federal Budget: What’s in it for NDIS and Aged Care?

May 15th 2024

What’s in the 2024-25 federal budget for the disability and aged care sectors?

Let’s look at the highlights of the government’s budget, handed down on 14 May.

Getting the NDIS back on track

The federal budget provides a further $468.7 million to support people with disability and “get the NDIS back on track.” This builds on the budget provided in the 2023-24 Budget.

The budget allocations aim to boost the NDIS’ tech infrastructure and fraud-detecting systems, reducing costs in the long term.

Key investments include:

$160.7 million to upgrade the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission’s information technology.
$214 million over two years to fight fraud and to co-design NDIS reforms with people with disability. Read about the NDIS Reform Bill introduced by Minister Shorten in March.
$45.5 million to establish an NDIS Evidence Advisory Committee.
$20 million to start consultation and design on reforms to help NDIS participants and people with disability navigate services.

According to the Budget Papers, the cost-saving measures will offset an increase in NDIS payments of $14.4 billion over four years from 2024–25, projected by the NDIS Actuary based on data up to December 2023.

Disability employment

$227.6 million will be invested in a new specialised disability employment program to replace the existing Disability Employment Services program by 1 July 2025. This includes:

Delivering a modern digital platform to deliver better supports.
Expanding eligibility to include jobseekers not receiving income support and those with less than eight hours per week work capacity.

Improving the aged care system

The 2024-25 Budget provides $2.2 billion to deliver key aged care reforms and to continue to implement recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

Good news for older Australians wanting to live at home for as long as possible: the Government is investing $531.4 million to release an additional 24,100 Home Care Packages.

Other key investments for aged care include:

$110.9 million over 4 years to increase the regulatory capability of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission.
The Government is continuing to develop and consult on a new Aged Care Act (read our summary). It is investing $1.2 billion in critical digital systems to support the introduction of the new Act.
$37 million for the My Aged Care Contact Centre to reduce wait times for people seeking information and access to aged care.
The Government has committed to fund the Fair Work Commission decision to increase the award wage for direct and indirect aged care workers once the final determination is made. This will build on the $11.3 billion already allocated to support the interim 15 per cent wage increase for aged care workers.
$87.2 million for workforce initiatives to attract nurses and other workers into aged care.

For more info about the 2024-25 budget, please visit the Treasury website.