2CC Breakfast with Stephen Cenatiempo - 29 June 2026

Melissa McIntosh MP
Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services
Shadow Minister for the NDIS
Shadow Minister for Women
Federal Member for Lindsay

29 June 2026

Transcript

2CC Breakfast with Stephen Cenatiempo

Topics: Polling, NDIS bill

E&OE

Stephen Cenatiempo 

Melissa McIntosh is the Shadow Minister for the NDIS and Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services, and joins us now. Melissa, good morning.

Melissa McIntosh 

Good morning.

Stephen Cenatiempo 

Before I get on to the NDIS, recent polling is not looking good for the Coalition again, although One Nation seems to be slipping, but the Coalition's not picking any of that up. Where is it all going wrong?

Melissa McIntosh 

It's certainly disappointing to see that polling. It's really interesting. Obviously, we're not tracking just yet, even though the work's been put in and the policy work's been put in. On the ground in my electorate, I was out all weekend, and it's feeling really strong on the ground, so it's quite an interesting read out that the polling and the on the ground feeling are not comparable right now, but we've obviously got a lot more work to do to turn things around.

Stephen Cenatiempo 

Now, Parliament has, well, at the end of this week will rise for the winter break. When it comes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, last time you and I spoke, we were going to talk about the report from the Senate inquiry. That's now been delayed until August. What happens between now and then, and is this a good sign that we might actually get some proper changes to this legislation?

Melissa McIntosh 

As long as the deal between the Greens and the Government isn't just a political stitch up. We don't have the details about this extended inquiry yet. As you know, we've talked about it before, I pushed really hard to have the three day inquiry, and I supported a longer inquiry, but we don't know if people are going to get a chance to speak at a hearing again, and how many days that might be, whether submissions will be open again. There were over 4000 submissions to the inquiry, and the Government's been really slow in uploading those onto their website, so there's still a lot of unknowns. I would hate for this to just be a political play, because the Greens have already said they're not supporting the inquiry. In fact, the amendment that they said that they got, the deal done with the Government, was something that Butler had already said he would do, and that was around the living supports and pulling them out to make sure that they're not caught up with in some of the cuts, so there's still a lot of unknowns. We're expecting that the legislation will come back to the House this week, and I hope there's some decent amendments from the Government to address the concerns.

Stephen Cenatiempo 

The biggest concern I have with this legislation is the permanence issue, and with people who are profoundly disabled having to prove that they are permanently disabled. I mean, I would have thought these things were fairly self-evident.

Melissa McIntosh 

That was one of my big concerns as well, and so many people have contacted me. So, if you're profoundly disabled, if you're missing limbs, if you have Down syndrome, these aren't resolvable disabilities, they're lifelong, and people have gone through enough already to get on the NDIS, and it's costly to be reassessed, and it takes a lot of time. So, I agree, it should be a bit of common sense applied to the reassessment of people with disabilities, and then also a bit of clarity from the Government around who's actually going to be coming off the NDIS. We know there's 100-odd thousand kids with mild level autism, but in Senate estimates we uncovered there was over 300,000 people that will be kicked off. So, who are the rest of the people? What sort of disabilities do they have? I think Australians need those answers.

Stephen Cenatiempo 

No doubt about that. Well, good luck this week for the last week, Melissa. Good to talk to you this morning.

Melissa McIntosh 

Thank you so much.