ABC Radio Canberra with James Findlay - 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 

 

ABC Radio Canberra with James Findlay

 

Topics: NDIS

 

E&EO … 

 

James Findlay

Melissa McIntosh is the Shadow Minister for the NDIS. A very good afternoon to you, Ms. McIntosh.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Good afternoon.

 

James Findlay

Are they doing the right thing here, the Government?

 

Melissa McIntosh

That's a very complicated question, thank you for that. I think there's no question that the NDIS is completely out of control and $50 billion a year and growing says that and Australian taxpayers know this as well. I think we're all hearing it, and for some time it has needed to change. The Labor Government created this, it was one of their hallmark schemes, yet even Mark Butler yesterday admitted that the pillars of a good program, there's about seven or eight of them, none of them exist in the NDIS. Because of the structure of the NDIS and the failures within that structure, all sorts of things have been allowed to happen. One of those that I'm really concerned about is the rorting in the system, the taking advantage of vulnerable people and taking advantage of Australian taxpayers. $5 billion a year alone is being spent by the Government to try and sort out the rorting in the system. Everyone has heard of those extraordinary prices that get charged for services and products. Somebody on the NDIS will call up, say a cleaner, and say, I need to have my house cleaned, they get quoted a price and as soon as they say I'll put it on my NDIS plan the pricing skyrockets four times as much as they were originally quoted. So that’s a huge issue. So, we do support the bringing down the costs. Something I am concerned about, I'm really passionate about really caring for people, is the most vulnerable people on the NDIS, those with a severe disability, have gone through a lot in their lives and they're going to have to go through a reassessment. Every single person on the NDIS, 760,000 will have to be reassessed. So, I hope the Government will reconsider those most vulnerable people, somebody on a breathing tube or a feeding tube, it's obvious that they have that need, they shouldn't have to go through that trauma again. But, it has to come down, there's no doubt about it, it's how the Government achieves that now.

 

James Findlay

Well, it looks like the registration of the providers, now what I think it's only about 10% of providers are registered, but they want everyone to be registered there. Do you think that's going to be something that will be able to cut down on the fraud that you've been talking about there?

 

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, I think that's addressing the symptoms as opposed to addressing the cause of the issue. So, yes, it will help.

 

James Findlay

What do you think the cause is, then?

 

Melissa McIntosh

Well, the cause is a broken system. So, within that system, it's been allowed, people have been allowed to have a free for all. So, you haven't had to register, and you haven't had to even have a first aid certificate, you haven't had to have Working With Vulnerable People check. So, none of these things would happen in aged care or childcare, but it's been allowed to happen in the NDIS. There's also big loopholes around the charging, as I said, those exorbitant prices that get charged. So, there's a lot of ways within the structure of the NDIS that, if targeted properly, can reduce the cost and yes, registration of course. When we don't know who these people are and when they're submitting invoices, sometimes very random scribbled on invoices to a Government scheme well yes, that has to be tightened up. The thing, though, that the Government wants to do is push through legislation in the next couple of weeks in Parliament, when we're all back into beautiful Canberra, to go through Budget week. So, I've written to the Minister today and requested that he provide the Coalition with a draft legislation so we can review it in time and do the right thing, not play politics with this. We want time to consider what's in the legislation, the impacts of that, because it's very complex and we've offered our hand of bipartisanship, even though there are some concerns in the way they're going about things, particularly with participants. Putting the pressure on participants, but letting a lot of the rorting and the criminal behaviour pretty much off the hook in some regards.

 

James Findlay

Melissa McIntosh is with you here on 666, ABC Canberra, she's the Shadow Minister for the NDIS and hearing her response to the proposed changes that the Government announced yesterday. Mark Butler, the Health Minister, was there at the National Press Club talking about this. I'd love to hear from you too, if you've got a response to this, 1300 681 666 or the text line 0467922666. Ms. McIntosh, you said that this is a Labor kind of program. It started under them, passed in early 2013, but the Coalition then took office in September 2013 and held power for what, nine odd years. Some of these issues surely were known by the Coalition during those nine years, right?

 

Melissa McIntosh

I'm not going to be super political and say, of course we didn't own any of those issues, but we did try to do something similar with registrations and also with people being able to be on the scheme. But at the time Labor jumped up and down, and it was Bill Shorten, and accused us of all sorts of things, so it didn't get through Parliament at the time, so we weren't able to get any changes through. But Labor's been in Government now for four years and the scheme's been growing hugely. I think it's more than doubled since they've been into office. So, they've known about these issues for some time. So, we do now recognise that it is time, I think there's a change in public sentiment about the spending of this sort of money, people are particularly sensitive now in a cost-of-living crisis, that’s a lot of Government money. Another concern I do have is that it can't be a cost shifting exercise, you're moving hundreds of thousands of people off the NDIS, where are they going to go? Someone's going to have to pay for them. I hope the Government is working really hard with the states to ensure that these services are picked up, because otherwise people are just going to fall through the cracks.

 

James Findlay

Gail in Fadden has given us a bell and I think has something on that in particular to ask about. Gail, what did you want to say?

 

Gail in Fadden

I just have some questions about the figures quoted by Labor in their plan. They say there are currently 760,000 people on the NDIS, that by 2030 they want to take it down to 600,000, which is a decrease of 160,000 but at the current rate of intake, there will be another quarter of a million people on the NDIS by 2030. Where does that number come in? Even if they make it twice as hard for people to get on, there will be over another hundred thousand people on the scheme. Does that mean that there's 260,000 people need to be removed to get to these 600,000?

 

James Findlay

Yeah, these are a lot of numbers that you're throwing here. We have the Shadow Minister of the NDIS here, so probably won't be able to answer your question Gail, probably for the Minister. But is this something that you're concerned about? Are you participant?

 

Gail in Fadden

Well, I just think it's when they start quoting figures to us and they're talking about large numbers of figures coming off. On the figures they're quoting, they won't end up with 600,000 they will end up with more on. Unless they're not going to take anyone in between now and 2030.

 

James Findlay

Yeah, I think that the states and territories will be taking some of these participants on with different programs that they're going to be working on.

 

Gail in Fadden

But not the numbers, not 230,000, and the people going on, there will be genuine applicants between now and 2030. So that 760,000 of today has to grow. Even with natural attrition due to death on NDIS, that figure will still grow.

 

James Findlay

Yeah, very interesting point, thank you for bringing it up, Gail. Gail in Fadden there. Melissa McIntosh is with you, the Shadow Minister for the NDIS, it's four to five. So hopefully you said, Ms. McIntosh, that you're hoping to see some draft legislation, to see what the Coalition might be able to work towards here. Do you think there might be some ways forward to get this legislation through with support from the Coalition?

 

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, it's our intention that we will ensure that this is bipartisan, but I think it would be really good for the Government to respect that bipartisanship, for the benefit of both the Australian taxpayers and the people on the scheme. And just to your caller earlier, it was Jenny McAllister said yesterday in an interview that that 160,000 right now is just an estimate, they're not sure of how many, and Minister Butler said that in the first period they're going to try and slow growth on the NDIS to 2% and then it will increase again to about 5%. So, there's a lot of uncertainties, but as long as the most vulnerable Australians are looked after in the way this was intended, we need to keep focused on that, and there is no question that there has been too much taxpayer spending on this scheme, way above what was ever anticipated. And as I said in the opening, there's too much of that going to corrupt rorting behaviour and worse than that at times, really criminal behaviour.

 

James Findlay

Yeah. Look, we've only got a minute before the news, but does the Government or the Coalition have a clear idea of how much fraud is happening?

 

Melissa McIntosh

We’re, as taxpayers, spending about $5 billion a year trying to deal with this. So, it is a big issue and the issue in addition to that is around criminal behaviour, I think there were 20 cases, criminal cases recently, where the Commission as part of the NDIS was looking at. But some of this, if you get a ban, you can be back in the system within a couple of years, so we really need to ensure that bad actors aren't let in and out, every time they do something wrong, they wait a couple of years and come back again. That is something that needs to be really tightened up.

 

James Findlay

Well, great to hear your response to this, Ms. McIntosh. We'll talk to you again next time.

 

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you.

 

James Findlay

That's the Shadow Minister for the NDIS, Melissa McIntosh, here on 666, ABC Canberra.