2SM with Chris Smith - 28 April 2026

Melissa McIntosh MP 
Shadow Minister for Social Services and Families

Shadow Minister for the NDIS
Shadow Minister for Women 
Federal Member for Lindsay 

28 April 2026

 

Transcript 

 

2SM with Chris Smith

 

Topics: Penrith City to River Walk, Booing at ANZAC services, Coalition fuel plan, NDIS

 

E&EO … 

 

Chris Smith:

I've got the Member for Lindsay, based in Sydney's West around the Penrith area on the line Opposition Spokesperson for Women, the NDIS and Family and Social Services, Melissa McIntosh. How are your feet this morning?

 

Melissa McIntosh

Haha, the walk! Thank you very much. My feet are in training because we're going to have Penrith City to Lakes. It's going to happen. The East can't claim fun runs, it's time to bring one out to the west.

 

Chris Smith

So, you got so involved in your mighty walk along the Nepean River yesterday, you want to make an annual 14k walk raising money for charity, do you?

 

Melissa McIntosh

That's right. So, I wanted to do this from the very moment I came in, and what sort of sparked it again for me is Emu Plains, which used to be my electorate, lost an Anzac Day ceremony because of bureaucracy. And, you know, people used to love to go to that service. It was at 11am. So, a couple of years ago I stepped in with my public liability insurance and bought it back and even though it's not in my electorate, I went there again this year just the other day and thousands of people turned up and I was like, that's great! When you just get in and make it happen and work with your community, extraordinary things can occur.

 

Chris Smith

Good on you.

 

Melissa McIntosh

I then went out and said let’s do this again. So, we've saved the ANZAC Day. Let's now save people's health in Western Sydney, that'd would be great. But 14km, it would start in the High Street of Penrith, go out to the Nepean River and then out to the Regatta Centre, the Lakes. And you can walk, you can run, you can, you know, you can even have it open for people with disabilities to be involved and make it a true community event. We've just got to get around that stupid bureaucracy that council tends to love.

 

Chris Smith

And what are you going to raise money for? Have you decided that yet?

 

Melissa McIntosh

No, I've had quite a few organisations reach out, including Penrith RSL sub-Branch. They really want to get involved and they'd be a very worthy recipient of fundraising. We've got some food banks here as well and we've got a men's and women's walk. That's people already coming to me and making these suggestions. I think just the fact that I've been overwhelmed with community response means that we're onto something that will be worthwhile and we'll work on that because I think it'll be great. Wouldn't it be great? You’ll have to come out.

 

Chris Smith

Yeah, exactly. We'd love to come out. We could certainly do something and keep us in touch with all of that. Melissa. Now, three major Anzac Day services in three cities on Saturday and the Welcome to Country was booed. I thought it was distasteful, but why have we layered Anzac Day with space for another social issue? This is not at all an Anzac Day tradition.

 

Melissa McIntosh

No. In the services that occurred I went to, the Penrith Dawn Service and there was no Welcome to Country there, I think it's become something, and I've got a big Aboriginal population and so I'm very mindful of how we treat this issue as well. But it has become something that has become, as you said, becomes a social issue as opposed to what it was meant to be in the first place. And I think it's right in saying that the fact that people go to work and they have to do a Welcome to Country or an acknowledgement every single meeting, even if they've seen those people multiple times a day, people have just gotten worn out and the meaning has been lost.

 

Chris Smith

Well, I've been to local government meetings. I've been to local council meetings, Melissa, where the first four councillors who got up to speak on certain issues, not Indigenous issues, gave a Welcome to Country, four welcome to countries in the first one hour.

 

Melissa McIntosh

I've always questioned the productivity when you've got to spend so much time doing that. And Anzac Day, it's sacred.

 

Chris Smith:

Yes.

 

Melissa McIntosh:

We should be recognising all of our Australians who have fought, including our Indigenous Australians, but they're all as one, one Australia. Peoples level of tolerance across multiple issues, I think has frayed. Booing, no, that's really terrible. Any form of that behaviour, but that is a signal that something else is going on and that something else that's going on needs to be addressed.

 

Chris Smith

Yeah. Before you go off that topic, I want to take a couple of calls on this issue because I've got a full board here.

 

*Break for calls on Welcome to Country use*

 

Chris Smith

Melissa, where do we use it?

 

Melissa McIntosh

I don't think it should be used first and foremost for Anzac Day. I think that's clear. That's well established by the reaction of Australians. I think it should be used at events only once and once only, not every person getting up. But I think it's actually time that we have a proper discussion about when it gets used because Australians aren't really clear on why it's being used as well and you can see that the gentleman just before me had heard, you know, why it was used. But there's, there's no clear understanding of the significance of that and when it has been overused, which it has done and the Voice campaign has contributed to this, you know, it was meant to solve all the issues of the world, it has caused more issues. I think it's time for, for a bit of a national conversation because it would be beautiful to respect the Aboriginal culture and Indigenous Australians and how long they have been here. We don't want to turn to something where every time somebody does it that causes a level of anger within other Australians. That would be a terrible thing if that continued, and got worse. So, I think that needs to be sorted out.

 

Chris Smith

Ok, I want to take a quick break of. I'm getting ahead of myself on ads here. I'll get to a quick break and I'll come back and we'll talk about energy and the latest Coalition policy.

 

*Advertisement break*

 

Chris Smith

Melissa McIntosh, your leader Angus Taylor has been very forward thinking on this fuel crisis. The Coalition has promised a 60-day storage of onshore fuel if elected.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Yep, that's correct. I don't know, how did we get here, Chris? We went through COVID and it seems like our country didn't learn from the lack of, you know, the supply chains and we were meant to sort that out and the Government has been all over the shop on this particular issue. So, we're committing to doubling, and we hope the Government picks this up as their policy, doubling Australia's minimum fuel reserves to 60 days and increasing storage, a billion litres of new storage through an Australia Fuel Security facility. So that's our commitment.

 

Chris Smith

Well, it's a good commitment. The Prime Minister in 2020 said we should have 90 days, but we've got very little more than about 28 days onshore.

 

Melissa McIntosh

That's right. And Australia has an obligation, it's an international oil stockholding ambition. It's meant to get to 90 days. So, 60 days puts us within reach where we are right now. I think we today's stocks are petrol 46 days, diesels 33 days and jet fuel 30 days. So, we're improving our position, the Government's improving it. The means that they're trying to improve it is not through our own supplies though, it's through international stocks and we need to have more. The word sovereign capability is being thrown around a lot at the moment, but it is, you have to have your own sovereignty. We've got to be able to protect ourselves and we've got to ensure that Australians aren't paying exorbitant amounts of money, which they have been over these last few weeks, when we have some form of global shock, like the war that's going on or something, because this is going to keep happening. So, I think this is a good measure and let's see if the Government wants to actually be pragmatic and take it up.

 

Chris Smith

And briefly, just on the NDIS, I know you've got a meeting to go to shortly. The more I looked into what the Minister had to say about changes last week, the more I found a drastic lack of detail. Am I right?

 

Melissa McIntosh

That’s correct, that's correct. Lack of detail and people are scared. It's just interesting how things happen. I just walked down the street, I like to do it, as I've said before to you, and a woman came up to me, I don't know her very well, and she burst into tears and hugged me. Her daughter has an intellectual disability, she's been diagnosed and they've just been refused to be on the NDIS and she's got nowhere to turn. She's a single mother doing her best for her child, but this is where the gaps are right. So, the Government's not wanting to put young children onto the NDIS. I think she has some autism as well, but there's nowhere for them to go. So, you've got families right across the country, I said this to you before; there's no detail like you just said. Families that are in a huge amount of distress because they don't know what the future is going to hold for their loved one who has a disability and some people with severe disabilities. Yes, we have to bring down the budget. I completely support that. We need to be going after the rorters and the crooks and the criminals. First and foremost. My heart's breaking right now for some of these families because the Government's given them no consultation and no detail.

 

Chris Smith

Yeah, it creates an anxious environment and they need to come up with detail quick, smart. Melissa McIntosh, thank you so much for your time.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you, Chris, and to your listeners.