Queensland has not signed the foundational supports agreement. We checked the document

Foundational Supports is the system meant to catch people with disability who are not eligible for the NDIS. Its first and so far only committed cohort is children aged 8 and under with autism and/or developmental delay and low to moderate support needs, delivered through a programme called Thriving Kids. The National Agreement sets the framework; clause 50 says the implementation detail for each cohort sits in separate bilateral agreements between the Commonwealth and each state or territory.

So the bilaterals are where Thriving Kids actually becomes a service. That makes the question of who has signed one a practical question, not a procedural one.

What the signature block shows

Part 7 of the agreement carries eight signatures: the Prime Minister for the Commonwealth, dated 27 February 2026, and seven state and territory leaders, each dated January 2026. They are the Premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania, and the Chief Ministers of the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory.

There is no Queensland signature block. We searched the full text: the word Queensland occurs once in the entire agreement, in the list of parties on page one, which names all eight states and territories. There is no counterparts clause providing for a party to sign separately later.

The agreement is in force regardless. Clause 13 says it commences when the Commonwealth and one other party sign, and runs to 30 June 2031.

And the bilaterals

The Federal Financial Relations website publishes the signed Thriving Kids bilateral agreements alongside the national one. There are seven: the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. Queensland does not appear on that page at all.

What the minister said two days ago

This is not a gap nobody has noticed. At a doorstop in Canberra on 19 August, the Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing, Mark Butler, was asked whether alternative support arrangements would be ready by 2028. He answered: Thriving Kids is well underway. Implementation plans have been agreed with all states and territories except Queensland, which frankly needs to get its act together.

Asked what the consequences would be if Queensland did not sign up, and whether funding would be pulled, he said: They're getting extra funding now. We're not going to hold the hospital hostage obviously to any decision by any state government to welch on a deal that they signed earlier this year. I think the consequences are for the Queensland Government to explain to the people of Queensland. He added that Queensland had indicated in an agreement they signed earlier this year that they would work with us to ensure there was a system of supports in place for children under the age of nine called Thriving Kids, and that every other state and territory, Liberal or Labor, is getting on with the job.

The deal Queensland did agree to, found

The minister refers to a deal that they signed earlier this year. The agreement we have read, the National Agreement on Foundational Supports 2026-2031, is signed in January and February 2026 and does not carry a Queensland signature. When this piece first published we said we had not identified the instrument he meant. We have now.

On 30 January 2026 the Prime Minister announced that National Cabinet has agreed to additional reforms including $2 billion, matched by states, to deliver Thriving Kids, the first phase of Foundational Supports, with the Commonwealth providing $1.4 billion of its contribution to support states to help their kids thrive. The National Agreement’s own definitions describe National Cabinet as A forum for the Prime Minister, Premiers and Chief Ministers, so the Premier of Queensland was in the room and party to that agreement.

The distinction is the whole story. Agreeing something at National Cabinet is not the same act as signing the intergovernmental agreement that implements it. On the documents as published, Queensland did the first and has not done the second. We have found no document anywhere bearing a Queensland signature on foundational supports, and if one exists we will read it and say so.

Why this matters more than a missing signature

Thriving Kids is scheduled to begin for children aged 8 and under from later this year and to be fully rolled out by the start of 2028. In every other jurisdiction the delivery arrangements are on the public record, signed, and readable by any parent who wants to know what their state has agreed to provide. In Queensland they are not, because there is nothing to read.

That is the concrete consequence for a Queensland family with a five-year-old waiting on a developmental assessment: not a dispute between governments, but an absence of any published commitment about what will exist for them, and when. The national agreement caps the whole programme at $10 billion and leaves the delivery detail to the bilaterals. Where there is no bilateral, the detail does not exist in public.

We have not asked the Queensland Government for a response. This piece reports what three public documents show and what a minister said on the record. Queensland may have reasons it considers good, it may sign, and a bilateral may be published at any time. If any of that happens we will update this page and say so.