The end of a parliamentary week offers a great opportunity for government to drop information it doesn’t want closely examined. That’s why nobody noticed the sudden surge in numbers dropping off the NDIS by the end of the decade. It’s not 241,000 but actually 346,000 being moved off the scheme.

The number first reported was brutal enough.

A Treasury document tabled in the Senate late last Thursday, just before it rose for the weekend, showed 241,000 people already on the NDIS before 1 January 2028 are expected to be off the scheme by 30 June 2031. Guardian Australia reported the figure last week. It was not a leak. It was Treasury modelling.

But the table actually says something more.

Read it carefully and it becomes clear that before the reforms, the NDIS was expected to have 944,000 participants. If 241,000 existing participants are removed, that would still leave about 703,000 people in the scheme.

Nevertheless Treasury’s post-reform estimate shows just 598,000 in the scheme and that’s the missing number. Another 105,000 people.

Not 241,000 fewer than otherwise, but 346,000 fewer.

To be fair the Mark Butler, that’s what he told the National Press Club back in April - it would reduce the number in the NDIS to “about 600,000” by the end of the decade. What’s news is that this number is an extra 185,000 below even today's estimate.

This is the sharper point. The NDIS is not merely being slowed - it’s being shrunk.

Government insists the scheme will be sustainable and points to foundational supports.

But those supports are still promises. Treasury figures on exit numbers are not.

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Guardian Australia originally reported modelling tabled in the Senate showed 241,000 people who were on the NDIS before 2028 are expected to be off the scheme by mid-2031. It said participant numbers were forecast to peak at 817,000 next year and the NDIS would support 598,000 people by 2031, compared with 944,000 without changes.

And this is where the arithmetic becomes politically explosive.

If the pre-reform projection was 944,000, and 241,000 existing participants are assumed to exit, the remaining total would be 703,000.

But the post-reform total is 598,000.

That is a gap of 105,000 people.

The Government has explained the 241,000 existing participants who are expected to leave but not the additional reduction implied by the total participant figure.

Some of this may be people who would otherwise have entered the scheme but will now be diverted elsewhere. Some may be children shifted into Thriving Kids. Some may be adults who no longer meet the new functional-capacity test. Some may be people who never get through the new gate at all, but this is the point.

The table models absence - people that aren’t there, but we don’t know why.

Public framing is that the NDIS is growing too quickly and needs to be returned to its original intent, which is why Butler said in April the scheme would be down to around 600,000 participants by the end of the decade, instead of growing to more than 900,000.

That sounds like a moderation story, but it’s more than that.

The numbers supplied in Ref No MC26-010216 suggest a scheme smaller than today. The user-supplied reading of the table places the estimated 30 June 2026 participant count at 783,000. The post-reform figure for 30 June 2031 is 598,000.

That is 185,000 fewer people and the question changes.

It is no longer simply whether the NDIS should grow from today’s level to 944,000 by 2031. It’s whether the scheme should shrink below today’s level while the promised alternatives remain incomplete.

That is a different political argument; a different service-delivery risk; and for people with disability, a different kind of fear.

The Government insists people moved out of the NDIS will not be abandoned. It says a broader system of foundational supports will be built. Minister Jenny McAllister told Sky News the Government was working with states and territories to build supports outside the scheme “so that the NDIS isn’t the only place that people can turn to if they need help.”

That’s the promise but the replacements aren’t real.

A participant losing eligibility does not move from one functioning support system to another. Where they go isn’t clear, and that’s why the unexplained 105,000 matters.

It is not just a budget line. It is a hidden implementation question.

Where do they go?

The Guardian story identified the 241,000 as people already in the scheme before the new eligibility rules begin. That is the visible cut.

But the larger figure is 346,000 fewer participants than the pre-reform projection. That is the full cut against the future scheme.

The Government could argue many of those additional 105,000 people are not “exits” because they would never enter under the new rules. Technically, that may be true.

Practically, it is less comforting.

People denied entry can need support just as urgently as people removed after reassessment. Families do not experience a refusal as an accounting distinction. They experience it as a closed door.

This is why the language around the reform is doing so much work. “Eligibility” sounds neutral. “Functional capacity” sounds clinical. “Sustainability” sounds responsible.

But the modelled result is blunt. Hundreds of thousands fewer people in the scheme.

Greens disability spokesperson Jordon Steele-John, who requested the modelling, says, “you cannot make cuts on this scale without disabled people feeling the consequences in their everyday lives.” This is the political attack.

The Government’s defence is that the NDIS must be preserved for those who need it most. McAllister told Sky News the reforms are designed to ensure the scheme “will be here in a decade’s time and will retain public support.”

But both arguments now turn on the same missing number.

If the Government can explain why 598,000 is the right figure, it should do so.

If the 105,000 are expected to receive support elsewhere, it should identify where, from whom, under what eligibility rules, and with what funding.

If they are not expected to receive support elsewhere, it should say that too. That’s what occurred before the NDIS.

But the key point is the table points to a scheme significantly smaller than today and this is not just reform.

It is contraction.

The people missing from the NDIS should not be missing from the explanation.