The National Agreement on Foundational Supports 2026-2031 is published on the Federal
Financial Relations website, signed by the Prime Minister and by the Premier or Chief
Minister of every state and territory. Its own opening describes a system
designed to improve access to inclusive and sustainable supports for people with
disability who are not eligible for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
. That is
the whole point of it: a support system for the people the scheme does not reach.
It runs until 30 June 2031, and commenced once the Commonwealth and one other party had signed.
The one cohort it actually commits to
Part 4 is headed National Priority Cohorts, and this is the part to read closely. Clause 49(a) commits the parties to deliver General and Targeted Foundational Supports for children aged 8 and under with autism and/or developmental delay with low to moderate support needs, and their families, carers and kin, through the National Model for Thriving Kids and through bilateral agreements.
That is the list. There is no second cohort in the agreement.
Clause 49(b) says negotiation on future cohorts will be undertaken by First Ministers.
Clause 49(c) says arrangements for those cohorts will be agreed in writing through bilateral
agreements. Clause 49(d) says the Commonwealth will provide the states, at the earliest
opportunity, a definition of proposed future cohorts, an estimated cohort size, a
Commonwealth-preferred start date, and the estimated funding required
from the capped, jointly funded, $10 billion Foundational Supports funding envelope
.
So the structure is a signed commitment for young children, and a process for everybody else. If you are an adult with disability who does not meet NDIS access criteria, this agreement does not yet say what you get or when. It says who will decide, and where the money will come from.
The money, and the word that governs it
| Provision | Clause | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| Total envelope | 54 | Up to $10 billion new investment over 5 years, capped for all parties, split 50:50 on a per capita basis |
| Commonwealth share | 58 | Up to $5 billion over 5 years, capped, pending states matching |
| State and territory share | 57(a) | Matching the Commonwealth up to $5 billion over 5 years, capped, per capita |
| Thriving Kids | 59 | At least $1.4 billion of the Commonwealth's $2 billion, per capita 0-64 with no loadings, paid direct to states, GST exclusive |
| If a state does not match | 55 | Remedial action first; as a last resort the Commonwealth may withhold its contribution to that state |
| Additionality | 60 | Funding must be additional to any funding of the same or similar programs in place in 2022-23 |
The word doing the most work there is capped, and it appears in the
agreement rather than in our reading of it. Clause 54 commits up to $10 billion
capped for all parties
, and then says, in the same sentence, that
demand management strategies
are required to sustain services within that cap.
That is an unusual thing to find written down, and it deserves to be read plainly rather than dramatically. It does not mean supports will be rationed tomorrow. It does mean the envelope is fixed first and the service response is expected to fit inside it, which is the opposite of the NDIS design that Foundational Supports sits beside. The NDIS is demand driven: if you meet the access criteria, the scheme funds your reasonable and necessary supports. Foundational Supports, on this agreement, is capped and managed to the cap. Anyone comparing the two systems should start there.
The additionality clause is the other one worth holding on to. Clause 60 requires that money spent under the agreement be additional to what parties were already spending on the same or substitutable programs in 2022-23. That is the clause that makes it possible, later, to ask whether the $10 billion was new money or relabelled money.
What kind of document this is
Clause 31 says the parties do not intend any of the provisions of this Agreement to be
legally enforceable
, adding that this does not lessen their commitment to it.
We would rather explain that than make it sound sinister, because it is standard for intergovernmental agreements in Australia and it is not hidden. What it means practically is that if a commitment here is not met, nobody takes it to court. Accountability runs through the mechanisms the agreement does create: publication of the agreement and its bilaterals on the Federal Financial Relations website, First Ministers overseeing it, the reporting and review provisions, and, on the money specifically, the Commonwealth's ability under clause 55 to withhold payment from a state that does not match its share. That last one is the only hard lever in the document, and it points at states rather than at outcomes for people.
What to watch, and what we could not answer
The agreement repeatedly defers detail to bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth and each state or territory. Signed Thriving Kids bilaterals for the states and territories are published alongside it, and they are where the delivery detail for the one committed cohort actually lives. We have not read those individually yet, and we will not summarise what is in them until we have.
The questions the document leaves genuinely open, and which we will follow:
- Which cohort is next, and when. Clause 49(d) obliges the Commonwealth to give the states a definition, an estimated size, an estimated cost and a preferred start date for future cohorts. Those four things becoming public is the moment the rest of the system stops being an idea.
- Whether the cap holds. Clause 16 says the parties' ongoing commitment to funding Foundational Supports is not limited by the terms of the agreement, which sits interestingly beside a capped envelope.
- Whether the money is additional. Clause 60 sets the 2022-23 baseline that makes that checkable.
The agreement does not define General and Targeted Foundational Supports separately in a form we could quote, and we have not invented a distinction between them here.