3AW Melbourne with Heidi Murphy - 7 April 2026

Melissa McIntosh MP

Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services

Shadow Minister for NDIS

Shadow Minister for Women

Federal Member for Lindsay

 

7 April 2026

 

Transcript

 

3AW Melbourne with Heidi Murphy

 

Topics: NDIS

 

E&EO …

 

 

 

Heidi Murphy

I want to talk to you about the NDIS. The National Disability Insurance Scheme costs us around 50 billion, that's 5 0 billion dollars a year and it's growing up over 10% a year. The federal government wants to reduce that growth rate to 8% a year and possibly go even further to get that growth down to 5 or 6% eventually. But the billion-dollar question, the multi-billion dollar question, is how exactly, how? Two federal Labor MPs, both doctors, have spoken to The Age newspaper today outlining their concerns with the scheme. Victorian Labor Senator Dr. Michelle Ananda-Rajah told The Age the NDIS should be redesigned, redesigned by pulling elements from Medicare. The Senator was vague on detail but said it may involve internal and external checks and balances as well as accountability and pricing. You'd like to think there's already been some checks and balances and accountability and pricing on a $50 billion program, but anyway. Labor MP Dr. Mike Freelander says the problem is the scheme will lose its social license unless we can make it affordable and that is something I agree with. We need to make it more affordable. It is unsustainable, growing at the level it's growing at quite clearly. The question is how, how exactly? We approached both of those Federal MPs today with a polite decline from them. So, I'm joined Instead by Melissa McIntosh, who is the Shadow Minister for the NDIS. Melissa, thanks for your time.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you.

 

Heidi Murphy

Is it actually going to be possible to halve the growth year on year for this thing?

 

Melissa McIntosh

I want to say up front, the NDIS has moved from having vulnerable people at the heart of it to this out-of-control crisis, gaining speed, Goliath system and scheme that seems to be that the government can't get under control. And I have a lot of respect, particularly for Dr. Mike Freelander, he's a Western Sydney Member of Parliament and he has a lot of compassion, and my concern around just targeting growth is pretty much what Mike would be saying as well. You forget about the vulnerable people at the centre of this. So yes, we do have to bring down costs, absolutely, and the Coalition, I think we would be willing to work with the government because it’s too important not to.

 

We support the legislation on the NDIS, tightening it up just last week, so it is something we will consider, but we need to look at where those cuts would come from and I'm hearing through my office right now, an MP in Western Sydney, that they're just cuts, no explanation whatsoever,  cuts across the board. So, people who have severe disability are getting a plan cut and they're really distressed, people are really distressed about this. So, something else needs to happen, it needs to be based on a plan, and that's what's missing right now and that's why you're seeing Labor backbenchers coming out and speaking up and then shying away and not accepting interviews, because the government does not have a plan.

 

Heidi Murphy

I understand it has grown into this giant behemoth, but surely there is a way at the back end where they know where they're leaking money, where they know there's just unsustainable growth, where they can target those areas in particular and make sure that the vulnerable are still as protected as they should be, that the scheme was set up to help.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, I've only been in this role for probably a month or so now, and I was really surprised, even though I've got a lot of people coming through my office as an MP on the scheme, about how many loopholes there are in the system or how many protections that aren't in place. There is no minimum standard of care. 94% of providers right now don't have to be registered. So, they are looking after our most vulnerable in our community and they are not registered and this is where we're hearing about a lot of the rorts that are taking place, around $5 billion the ACCC estimates, in a year alone. So, there is tidy up in the registration system. There's rorts happening in scheme management. So, if you're on the NDIS, you can choose to be scheme managed, you can choose to be self-managed, or you can have somebody else manage a plan manager for you. There's rorting happening in the plan management component of this as well, and people getting ripped off. We know that with the NDIS, a story that came to me was somebody wanted a cleaner, they got a price for that cleaner, they said okay I'll use my NDIS plan, and that cleaner more than doubled the price of what they would be charging purely because it was on the NDIS.

 

Heidi Murphy

It's like the wedding tax.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Absolutely, absolutely.

 

Heidi Murphy

And so, who stops that from happening?

 

Melissa McIntosh

Well, this is why we need to look into the whole system and have an overhaul, I think, because it's pretty complex. There's not one easy fix and I think this is where the government is sort of getting tripped up on it as well, because they do want to bring down growth but there's rorting happening across the system, or there are inadequacies or as I said, you'd be surprised to know that 94% of providers are not registered. So, the NDIS and the NDIA also have a role into tightening up the system. But the government itself needs to come out with a plan and just saying we want to reduce growth by a certain amount and then bring it down again to try and fix a broken budget, forgetting that there are very vulnerable people at the other end of this and this is the whole reason why the system was set up in the first place.

 

Heidi Murphy

Do you think it's become too broad a scheme? Like, what is it, 40% of participants these days have autism or developmental delays, so there are lower support needs compared to what the NDIS was originally set up to take care of.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, there's no doubt that the numbers of people on the NDIS have exploded. But when you're trying to tidy up and minimise the types of disability that is covered by the scheme, risk having cost shifting. So just cost shifting to another budget, just cost shifting to the health budget. So, the costs are still there and that's why I would like to call on the government to really come up with a detailed plan on how they fix this and how the Coalition can support them on this journey. Because I think there's been a change in sentiment when it comes to the Australian public in that people do acknowledge now that there is just too much money going out the door and too much going toward it. It's not only the people that are doing wrong by the people that are on the scheme, criminal activity, people being abused. So, there's a lot going on in this scheme, we do need to tackle it, but it has to be backed by a plan.

 

Heidi Murphy

But how come there isn't a detailed plan at the moment? I thought this was one of Bill Shorten's last things he was going to do, I thought before he left, and he's been out for a good, year or more?

 

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, you’re right.

 

Heidi Murphy

Have they started on a plan? Is there a plan anywhere?

 

Melissa McIntosh

That's a very good question. I think that's what those backbenchers were trying to say because they're now freelancing. It’s very rare to see the Labor Party have backbenchers freelancing on big issues. So that means something is going on within the party and within the government and there is an acknowledgement across the board that we need to bring costs down. It's out of control, but it's heartbreaking to me walking down the street and somebody that has a severe disability, a gentleman that works in this building with me is heartbroken. You've seen what's going on with plans, people's plans being looked away from and people with disability feeling like they're caught up in a system that is full of rorts. Not in a system that is positive and helping people with disabilities, but they're in a system that is wrong. And so, I agree with Mike Freelander on the potential for the social life span of the NDIS to be gone because Australians are fed up with taxpayer money being used on unscrupulous activity and that's what's happening in the NDIS.

 

Heidi Murphy

What happened to the NDIS Amendment Bill of 2024? That was meant to fix things, that was meant to save like $14 billion. It went through Parliament, it was meant to fix some stuff, did it fix anything?

 

Melissa McIntosh

That's the issue. The bill that just went through Parliament last week was to fix up some of the rorting but it's not going to fix up the spending and that's part of the problem too. There's a lot of patchwork fixing or band aid solutions going on within the system. I agree there needs to be an overhaul, a deep look at it and a better solution because it is unsustainable and the people that need it most are not getting the care that they need.

 

Heidi Murphy

Alright, thank you for your time this morning.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you.