FiveAA – Mornings with Graeme Goodings - 22 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 

22 April 2026

Transcript 

FiveAA – Mornings with Graeme Goodings

Topics: NDIS

E&EO … 

Graeme Goodings

Well, the Government is considering a series of NDIS reforms. Most people would say long overdue. It's costing the country $50 billion and rising but the Shadow Minister Melissa McIntosh has a warning, and she joins us now. Senator, good morning, thanks for being with us.

Melissa McIntosh

Pleasure. Good morning to your listeners.

Graeme Goodings

Now, what would you like to see done with the NDIS? Do you concede at first that it is a vital component and important in Australia's future?

Melissa McIntosh

Yes, absolutely. The NDIS was set up to protect our most vulnerable people with severe disability. The issue now has grown into this huge $50 billion scheme that is like a runaway train and there's no stopping it, it's growing a year on year. But even more dark than a scheme that's growing out of control is the fraud and the rorting and the manipulation of participants by bad people basically, within the scheme. $5 billion a year is being spent by the Government, which is taxpayers money, on trying to sort out the rorting that's going on. And I was equally really aghast to read today that at least 20 convicted criminals have been barred from working in the scheme. But barred doesn't necessarily mean for life, some of these people do come back. So, it is a big mess, it’s costing a lot of money, but at the very heart of it, we do still need to have a scheme that protects people with severe disability.

Graeme Goodings

So how did it get to this? How did it? I mean, it's a rorters paradise.

Melissa McIntosh

It is, and that's a really logical question, and I don't know that anyone can answer it. It's become a big mess on the inside and on the outside. So some of it has got to do with the legislation, some of it will have to do with the running of the NDIS, and some of it has got to do with the fact that if you want to be a provider of the NDIS - so looking after people, or you might mow lawns, but you also might be a person that has direct contact with somebody who has severe needs, you don't need to be registered. 94% of providers are not registered, and this is what has opened the scheme up to this mass rorting. You don't even need to have first aid, you don't need to have a Working With Vulnerable People check. There are no safeguards in place, and I think Australians would be probably surprised that this has been allowed to happen. But now it's time to stop it, and that's one measure that we would support the Government on. We're all waiting on Minister Butler to make his announcement today about the NDIS but reducing fraud and rorting and the really bad behaviour that's going on in the system is something we do support.

Graeme Goodings

There'll be a lot of people very fearful today who rely on the NDIS. What should the government be saying to them?

Melissa McIntosh

This is something that has concerned me, I've only been in this role for a couple of months, over the last few weeks as the government has been floating ideas about what to do with the NDIS. Every time they've suggested they may cut something, my office phones light up and people email me and they call and they even come into my office concerned because they rely on it, or they've got a family member with a really severe disability and it's actually caused a lot of anxiety, and it has been scaring people. The reason why they're scared is because they're already seeing their plans being cut. I've had horrible stories, a woman who has her prosthetic leg gaffa tape to her who couldn't get funding through the NDIS. A mother contacted my office, for her son to eat he requires a feeding tube and it took them forever to get the new plan done, and then when they did the plan doesn't include any maintenance of that feeding tube. So, these are the real-life stories that the NDIS was set up for, and these people actually falling through the gaps. While these on the other end of the scale, it seems like some people are living the life off the NDIS in their mansions and having a good time by rorting the system. So, we do need to clean it up, we need to reduce the fraud, we need to stop the unregistered providers, the criminals, and we also need to stop the overcharging of services. I'm sure you've probably heard from some of your listeners or examples out there, somebody will call up and say, I need a cleaner and they get offered a price, and then they say they'll use their NDIS plan, and then the price is quadrupled. This is taxpayers’ money on these exorbitant pricing structures that just don't make sense. So that needs to be sorted out as well.

Graeme Goodings

And to think that 10 years or so ago, the NDIS didn't exist at all and has grown to this monolith, that it's about the most expensive department in the Government.

Melissa McIntosh

Yes, $50 billion. And one of the things I've found out as well, is that there's no quality, there's no outcomes, there's no measurement. So, if you get a service as a participant just say it’s speech pathology, no one comes to you after a couple of years to say has it improved your life? Has it helped you? Do you need something else? No, there's no checks and balances. You can just keep using that service forever, and it might not be doing anything for you. So the accountability, the measurement of outcome, quality, all these issues. That's why it becomes so complex, because it's not just about reducing spending, it's how you do it, how you keep vulnerable people at the heart while it gets done. How you get rid of these terrible, horrible people who have infiltrated the system.

Graeme Goodings

Do you think, I don't know if Mark Butler will be talking about it today in his press club discussion, but when the budget comes around that there will be wholesale cuts to the NDIS.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, I think the Government certainly does want to reduce the growth, they've said that. They want to bring it down to 5% from they're sitting up above 10% growth at the moment, it's just how they do that. So, we do support reducing it, it's just too much money being spent, but as long as it's not to the detriment of the people on it. We've seen the government flagging that they might want to move psychosocial support out of the NDIS. So originally, it could be people that have schizophrenia or bipolar, originally that sat with the states, and the states then pushed it onto the NDIS, the NDIS picked it up and now the Commonwealth, the Government does not want to have it in the NDIS, they want to push it back onto the states. The issue with all this back and forward is that people fall through the cracks. So, you already see it on the streets of Australia now, people with severe mental health issues, and they can't get into our public health system, they can't get seen to, then they sort of get turned back out onto the streets again, and this can't continue. So, if the states won't pick up some of these issues that the current government wants to push onto them, then people could be left without those supports, and that's a big concern as well.

Graeme Goodings

Yeah, there's no doubt an overhaul is long overdue. Melissa McIntosh, Shadow Minister for the NDIS.