4BC with Shane Doherty - 23 April 2026

Melissa McIntosh MP 

Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services

Shadow Minister for the NDIS

Shadow Minister for Women

Federal Member for Lindsay 

23 April 2026

Transcript 

4BC with Shane Doherty

Topics: NDIS

E&EO … 

Shane Doherty

Health Minister Mark Butler yesterday announced a raft of changes, you couldn't have missed this. A raft of changes to the NDIS as costs continue to blow out, concerns about fraud increase. I'm reminded of Mr. Packer's famous line about the federal government, ‘you're not spending it so well that I should donate extra’. That's certainly the case when it comes to the NDIS. Eligibility is being overhauled, resulting in a projected drop of 160,000 participants. The new targeted cost for the NDIS for 2030 is $55 billion. That's better than the $70 billion they were expecting. The Coalition’s indicated a willingness to support measures to address the overblown budget, and the Opposition spokesperson for the NDIS is Melissa McIntosh and she joins me now. Hello, Melissa.

Melissa McIntosh

Hello, Sean.

Shane Doherty

Shane. We've just been talking about this Melissa, was that a joke?

Melissa McIntosh

I'm kidding.

Shane Doherty

A politician with a sense of humour. I've got to buy a casket ticket. You never ever see that. Does the Coalition support the changes the ministers announced to the NDIS?

Melissa McIntosh

As you said in your introduction, the NDIS budget has blown out of proportion, and it keeps growing, $50 billion of taxpayers money a year. So, we want to do the same, we are willing to work with the government to bring those costs down. I guess the surprise yesterday was around the targeting of participants as opposed to the targeting of the fraud and the rort, which I really would like the government to reconsider because so much of it's going on, $5 billion a year is being spent of taxpayers money to try and get this out of the system. But the issue is it doesn't matter how much you try to do that the whole structure of the system is broken, Mark Butler indicated this yesterday, and this is a Labor scheme. Labor created this, they designed it and he said that the fundamental building blocks of a good program are completely missing in the NDIS. Well, okay, that's really great; many years later we have this big behemoth of a scheme and it's time to sort it out. I would like them in the process of doing this to not force people with severe disability who have had to prove their disability multiple times, like someone without legs, somebody that's on a breathing apparatus or on a feeding tube, things like that, not to have to go through the whole assessment again because right now every single person on the NDIS, 760,000, they will have to be reassessed. So, they've got big plans; it was a surprise for people, my office phones are going off the hook right now. I don't know if you've had people contact you that do use the NDIS, people are pretty scared. But ultimately, we do want to bring those costs down.

Shane Doherty

Target the participants rather than the fraudsters. They're going to have to invent a massive bureaucracy, aren't they? A massive bureaucracy in order to rejig the system and that's going to cost a fortune.

Melissa McIntosh

Well, this is the thing. This seems to be either being worked out very quietly for a long time, nobody knew about it, or it's really rushed to fix up their big budget issues, which we know they have. The concern around moving all these people off, so having to reassess them, and we don't know what the tools going to be to reassess them. So, if there is a digital tool that can cause all sorts of issues as well, but then you have to shift these people off and where are they going to go? So, there's a big reliance on the states to come on board to take 160,000, they're saying now potentially hundreds of thousands of people into their systems again and we know every state is struggling right now. So yes, the bureaucracy behind all this, Labor's pretty good at building bureaucracy and adding more layers of public service. So hopefully not. It's about time, I think there's public sentiment right now to reduce the scheme, but as I said, there's a whole lot of rorting going on, really bad people doing bad things and there's also a whole lot of overcharging. But I think the brokenness of the scheme has allowed this overcharging of products and services; somebody asks for a gardener and as soon as the service provider hears that it's the NDIS, they charge a bucket load more. I think that needs to be targeted as well. So, I am concerned for people, you have to have compassion in this job too, a sense of humour and compassion. I think that's really important because we do want to protect those vulnerable Australians, that's why this scheme was built in the first place.

Shane Doherty

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think it was well intentioned, but well buggered up in the delivery. All the best intentions in the world, but a real failure and not the first time the Federal Government has had every good intention in the world and ended up with a very, very bad scheme. At least this one no one died, like pink bats and other things that I can recall.

Melissa McIntosh

But that's the thing, people actually have,

Shane Doherty

Right.

Melissa McIntosh

It's a sad thing. You hear these stories of abuse, and I've been contacted, sadly, in this new role because I'm pretty new to the NDIS shadow portfolio, even of a mother whose son couldn't get on the NDIS and was shifted around into the public health, mental health wards and then he died, sadly. Abuse of participants, so bad actors prey on people when they had those openings and the fact that the scheme was so broken, 94 per cent of providers not having to register. So, we do support the concept of registration, not registering that means it was a free for all. You didn't even need first aid certificates look after people with disabilities, let alone a Working With Vulnerable People check.

Shane Doherty

I think this has got a long way to go yet, don't you?

Melissa McIntosh

It does, yes, absolutely, As I said, we want to bring those costs down, we support that. We're going to Parliament in the next two weeks, the government wants to introduce legislation to enable them to do what they want to do. I hope they're willing to work with us and to inform us, because right now, I wrote to the Minister, Mark Butler today and said can you please share the draft legislation with us so we can have good intentions, rather than dumping it on us at the last minute? I don't think that would be in the best interest of Australian taxpayers and the participants. But let's see, I don't know.

Shane Doherty

We are, after all, talking about our most vulnerable, so a little bit of bipartisanship wouldn't go astray. Thanks so much for your time, the opposition spokesperson for the NDIS, Melissa McIntosh.