Sky News First Edition with Alex Thomas - 25 June 2026

Melissa McIntosh MP
Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services
Shadow Minister for the NDIS
Shadow Minister for Women
Federal Member for Lindsay

25 June 2026

Transcript

Sky News First Edition

Topics: Labor/Greens deal on NDIS, inflation, cost-of-living

E&OE

Alex Thomas 

I'm going to speak to the Shadow NDIS Minister, Melissa McIntosh. Thanks for your time on Sky News today. We've spoken before about the delays to NDIS reforms. Those are set to continue after the deal the Government has done with the Greens over its tax reforms.

Melissa McIntosh 

Yes, that's right, and I've long expressed my concerns around this particular piece of legislation, and this highlights the playing of politics when it comes to people's lives in this place, and this is the thing that people are fed up with. So, the Greens and Labor have done a deal in the Senate to extend the inquiry into the NDIS legislation, but there's no details. We don't know if that means that Australians will get a chance to have their say for an extended period. Right now, it's only a few hundred submissions from the inquiry initially loaded onto the Government's website, when over 4000 people have made a submission, so no details. Is this a real inquiry, or is this just a bit of a political stitch up on the NDIS? And, in addition to that, the Greens came out and said they had a big win when it comes to an amendment to the legislation, but that big win, it was around people's living supports, was already announced by Mark Butler weeks ago, so I don't know, I don't like the way it smells, and if you scratch at it a little bit, it really does show what's underneath this, and it's all politics.

Alex Thomas 

I mean, there is cross-party consensus that the NDIS is essential, but it's also too costly and needs to change. Is there any part of the way the Government's going about this that is collaborative?

Melissa McIntosh 

At the very outset, I said I wanted this to be a bipartisan effort, and of course the NDIS is way out of control at $50 billion a year, but the thing about this legislation, it doesn't address the criminals in the scheme, and I'm really concerned about this. The NDIS is currently funding paedophiles that come out of jail. They're funding people that have been convicted of terrorism. Can you believe that? Somebody convicted of a terrorism act is on the NDIS? And another case, a person convicted of murder. So there is a lot in the NDIS that needs to be tackled, in addition to the fraud that's going on, the crooks and criminals. There's no checks on people's criminal history when they're entering the NDIS, and there's no checks on people's criminal history when they want to be a provider in the NDIS. So right now the Government is focusing on those people with disabilities, profound disabilities, who are so scared, and they've said to us, to the parliamentarians in this place, that they're worried people will die. So that's really serious, and I think the Government has got its focus really wrong.

Alex Thomas 

Trying to find those few individuals who are defrauding the NDIS as part of the cost, though, right?

Melissa McIntosh 

I think it's around the safeguarding of the NDIS when it comes to looking after people who are our most vulnerable, and there is fraud in the system - $5 billion a year of fraud, and I think Australians want us to tackle this. This is what the Government did to frame the whole overhaul of the NDIS, saying it wanted to get rid of the crooks and the criminals, yet this legislation doesn't do any of that. So, I think there's an expectation from the Australian public that we really get into the nitty gritty, and I don't think any of your viewers this morning would be happy at all to know that it's reported that there's people with terrorism charges, murderers, and paedophiles that are receiving the NDIS.

Alex Thomas 

We've been talking a lot this morning about the economy, the influence the federal spending has on inflation. Is NDIS spending a crucial part of that discussion?

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, of course it is, and we already know that the Government has spent its savings on the NDIS. It's already allocated that money, and that's why it's trying to rush this legislation through Parliament right now, and we know that inflation is having an impact on Australians. Just the inflation results yesterday showed that households are struggling like never before. Electricity is up, the cost of food is up as well. Yet the Prime Minister, in his address there, was about the state of the nation. Well, I can tell the Prime Minister, the nation is in a mess, and people are feeling that, and they are desperate for the Government to provide them with some solutions to ease their cost of living, to be able to get them ahead in life, and not to be doing what's happening in electorates like mine, having to line up at food banks. 25,000 people are being fed across my patch in Western Sydney every year by this one little food bank, and that's extraordinary that people are having to do this right now, and the Government seems to have their fingers in their ears.

Alex Thomas 

Okay. Shadow NDIS Minister Melissa McIntosh. Thank you.