Sky News First Edition with Peter Stefanovic - 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 

Sky News First Edition with Peter Stefanovic

Topics: NDIS

E&EO … 

Peter Stefanovic

The Labor Government is making the biggest changes to the NDIS in its history to save the program and help the budget. The Shadow NDIS Minister, Melissa McIntosh joins us live this morning for her thoughts on it. Melissa, good to see you today.

Melissa McIntosh

Good morning.

Peter Stefanovic

So, with more time to look at things, to study what Mark Butler had to say yesterday, will the Opposition support the legislation that will be put up?

Melissa McIntosh

The Coalition absolutely supports the fact that the NDIS has blown out of proportion, and we welcome that Mark Butler has admitted that its own behemoth of a project or program, the NDIS, is now broken. The thing that Mark Butler did yesterday, he really put all the pressure on participants, was hard on the participants, yet soft on the perpetrators of crime and fraud within the NDIS. Just in Western Sydney alone you turn on the TV and every day there's stories about the hot spots and 15 per cent of the bans within the NDIS coming from Western Sydney. There was nothing said about the $5 billion a year being spent on the rorts within the NDIS. So yes, the costs need to come down. Big questions around whether the Government can achieve it. They haven't achieved their first targets of eight per cent and five per cent, now it's at two per cent. But with a system and a scheme that is so out of control, I think the Australian people want this Government to fix its broken NDIS.

Peter Stefanovic

Just to pick up a point there, but isn't that wrong though? Isn't the Government going after unregistered providers?

Melissa McIntosh

Well, being unregistered is only one part of the picture and we're still yet to see the full details around registration. It doesn't seem like it will be full registration, which is something that we would certainly have supported. And yes, 94 per cent of unregistered providers, but that is treating the system, the sickness, it's not treating the cause of it. The cause of it is that there's really bad actors within the scheme and some of these people are still getting away with it. The Quality Safeguards Commission, which is part of the NDIS is sometimes only slapping a two year ban on people. So, they've done something wrong and within a couple of years they're back in the system again doing the wrong thing and some of these are abhorrent crimes, you know, sexual abuse of participants. So, we want them to be stronger on that, also tougher on this overpricing, this overcharging that you see, you know when someone calls up and asks for their house to be cleaned and as soon as NDIS is mentioned, it quadruples in price. The Coalition is willing to support the measures once we see them. We've got to remember that Mark Butler surprised everyone yesterday when he said that he'll be ramming legislation through Parliament as part of the Budget week. So, I've said many times we want to be bipartisan, it's really important, but we would also like to see the details of any legislation. I hope they don't just dump it on us one day in Parliament and they give us enough time to scrutinise complex legislation. You have to remember that vulnerable people are at the heart of this and we want to get it right for them.

Peter Stefanovic

Sure. So a big, a key part of this is going to be the implementation of it, and they're still going to work that out over the next 18 months or so. But how should the assessment tool be applied here? Have you got a view on that?

Melissa McIntosh

Well, this is a really decent question that you've asked, and I do want the budget to get under control, completely support it, it's out of control, but I also have compassion for people who have severe disability and may have to get reassessed again. So, I'm talking about people on breathing tubes, feeding tubes, people without legs, all these things. They've gone through a lot throughout their life, and they've been through a lot to get on the NDIS in the first place. So, I hope there will be a carve out for them to not have to go through such an arduous process yet again. So, we don't know what this tool is going to be like. It was announced yesterday.

Peter Stefanovic

Have you got a suggestion though on how it should be applied?

Melissa McIntosh

Well, of course we want people that perhaps shouldn't be on the NDIS, not on the NDIS. But then you've got the question of where are they going to go if the NDIS doesn't pick them up, and the Government needs to be ready for that and they need to be working really closely with the States, because there could be a couple of hundred thousand people that may need to go on to other services. But this is the Government's mess to fix up. Mark Butler said yesterday that there's certain building blocks within a good system and the NDIS has none of these. So right from the very beginning, the whole building of this structure, that is where all of the terrible design of the scheme started, and this goes back to the Labor government. So, it's about time somebody stepped forward to say we got it wrong and we’re going to turn this around.

Peter Stefanovic

I mean to be fair, this Labor government's gone further than you guys did when you were in power last.

Melissa McIntosh

Well, when we were in Government and we tried to make changes, you might remember Bill Shorten at the time really kicked up a stink and put the pressure on us. So, we did attempt to make changes to make it fairer, it was tough going; Linda Reynolds, I believe, was the Minister at the time. But as I said, we will support decent measures. We want to bring the costs down. We're sceptical about whether the government can get to two per cent. Look after the people who need it most and stop the rorting in the scheme.

Peter Stefanovic

Okay, just a final one here because Pauline Hanson still argues that it should be means tested, which others have suggested as well, other agencies, which would save the budget even more. Are you at all open to that?

Melissa McIntosh

We never said we were completely against it; the government – it was Mark Butler that opened the door and then caused mass anxiety in amongst the disability community and the Prime Minister closed it, now they said they're not looking at that at all, so it's almost a moot point. But you have to really get into the evidence and see if this is going to work because it was never set up as a welfare system, it was an insurance scheme for those who needed it.

Peter Stefanovic

So, you're shutting the door on that now as well.

Melissa McIntosh

Well, it would require a lot of work to see if it would be effective, if it would in fact, save money and it wouldn't just turn into another welfare scheme which we already have.

Peter Stefanovic

All right, Melissa, we're out of time, but good to chat this morning.