Autism isn’t the problem. The system is.

The Australian Productivity Commission found that roughly half of publicly funded care, including accompanied social activities, flows to people with mild or moderate symptoms, while those with severe, life-threatening conditions receive fragmented support or none at all.

Current reform efforts do not address this structural issue. The government has created a new program for children under nine called Thriving Kids and funded it with billions of dollars. Details are sketchy, but even if successful, children over nine who make up more than 80 per cent of those with psychiatric diagnoses will remain within the current mental health system, competing for the same pool of resources. Tightening eligibility criteria alone will not solve the problem. Without altering incentives, it simply produces more elaborate diagnostic justifications.

The NDIS was a well-intentioned scheme created to provide support for people with severe disabilities. Restoring that purpose requires redesign, not administrative reform. Support should be allocated according to functional impairment, whether a person can manage daily living, communicate effectively or sustain employment. This is the method NDIS uses for physical disabilities, and it should apply to psychological ones as well.

Interventions should be limited to those proven to work. Providers should be rewarded for achieving measurable improvement and independence. Assistance for milder presentations should be time-limited and regularly reviewed. As functioning improves, support should step down, freeing resources for people with profound and enduring disabilities.

The $10 billion autism bill is not the disease, but a symptom of a system that rewards diagnosis over disability and expansion over recovery. Until funding is severed from psychiatric diagnoses, the NDIS will continue to expand while those it was designed to protect compete for resources in an increasingly crowded scheme. That is not a design flaw. It is the system working exactly as built.