Sky News Politics Now with Tom Connell - 19 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

19 June 2026

Transcript

Sky News Politics Now

Topics: Senate NDIS report delay

E&EO

Tom Connell 

The report was meant to be due Tuesday. It's now going to be a week late. Joining me live is Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services, Melissa McIntosh. We thought we were getting it Tuesday, then today. What's happened here?

Melissa McIntosh 

Hi, Tom. Yeah, I think this is the Canberra carry-on that everyday Australians hate. There's obviously some political manoeuvering going on behind the scenes with the Labor Government and the Greens. It was me, a member of the Coalition, that fought for an inquiry in the first place. It was just held over three days, and as you said, the Government delayed the report being handed down till today, so we were all waiting for the report today. It was very last minute. It was meant to be delivered around 1:30pm and then we heard, no the Government's decided not to deliver that report. So, what does that say to the hundreds of thousands of Australians that are on the NDIS, that playing politics in Parliament is more important than their needs? We will wait and see what happens next. But I was all for an inquiry, I fought for it, and we just want to have some answers now from the Government about what's going to happen next.

Tom Connell 

You've been able to listen in to everything, and it's not as if the final findings, with what the Government says about it is going to sway your view, so are you going to support the Bill?

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, I'm going to be working in my party room and within Shadow Cabinet, and potentially on some amendments. I think I've spoken to you previously around some of the concerns that I have with the Bill, and I don't think that the Government's doing anywhere near enough to address the fraud in the system, nor the over-bloated bureaucracy, all those types of things that people hate about the way that the direction of the NDIS is going. But I have had very serious concerns about people that desperately need the NDIS, those with profound disability, being pushed off, and they've nowhere to go right now. And the states have confirmed that there's nowhere to go. They said we haven't been consulted enough, and despite what Mark Butler says, jumping up and down and sort of getting bit cross and angry with the states, well, the reality is there's nothing there to support these people coming off the NDIS. So I support an inquiry, I would support a lengthier inquiry to get some more answers, but right now it's in the hands of the Greens and Labor doing deals behind the scenes while the NDIS participants wait.

Tom Connell 

What sort of profound disability would no longer be eligible under these changes?

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, that's going to be up to the Government to decide that, isn't it. Right now, we're hearing it is children with mild autism being pushed off, but that doesn't meet the numbers that we've found through Senate estimates. So originally it was an estimation of 160-odd thousand or so people, but now we’ve heard that it's 300,000. So what's next on the list? And you asked me that question, but the reality also is every single day my phones are ringing off the hook with participants who have had their plans cut already, so explain that to me when you have people like a woman who's contacted my office whose son needs a feeding tube to live and their plan was cut and they had to fight really hard through my office to get an extension, but the maintenance of that feeding tube is no longer included on the NDIS. And I think every NDIS participant that would be listening to me now would be in agreement, because this is happening already, Tom, and I'm not talking about mild disabilities, I'm talking about people with severe disabilities.

Tom Connell 

Yeah, okay, I mean, I can't speak to the individual examples you mentioned. Obviously all the changes outlined by the Government talk about the mild level, I haven't seen anywhere that someone with a severe disability would be taken off. There's obviously aspects of plans, such as community support, they're looking to reduce. Let me ask you this, though, the states took $27 billion in extra GST and hospital money in 2023 as part of their pledge to pick up the slack from removing people from the NDIS and putting them on to different care, another $8 billion in 2025 and the Federal Government is going 50/50 on Thriving Kids. Surely the states have to come to the party on this, don't they?

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, I'm not being a mouthpiece for the states at all. That's not my job, but my job is to be a strong opposition and to care for Australians. And right now, the states are saying that they don't have things in place, and they haven't been consulted on this, and the agreements weren't around the cuts to the NDIS, when they made these agreements, there was no discussion -

Tom Connell 

They should have the money, shouldn't they?

Melissa McIntosh 

- major cuts to NDIS -

Tom Connell 

They should have the money, shouldn't they?

Melissa McIntosh 

Yes, but they also - Yeah, but that's not up to me, that's up to the Government to negotiate with the states to make sure that they get this right. Right now, the states are saying, well, these people are going to end up in our hospital systems, and that's not what we want, because the taxpayer is still paying. It's showing that this is a pure cost shifting exercise, moving from the NDIS budget to a health budget or to the state's budget. Ultimately, it's the Australian taxpayer that's still paying for it, and the fraud and the rorting, all that sort of stuff is still going on in the NDIS, and it's not being addressed by this bill at all.

Tom Connell 

But the premise is that people with lower-level needs, if they're off the NDIS - the NDIS is a very high-level system of care with a lot of reporting, red tape, and bureaucracy for a good reason - remove them to another system, and that's a more efficient way to look after them. Isn't that the whole premise of this reform that you do agree with?

Melissa McIntosh 

But there's also the bureaucracy of people having to get reassessed, and the costs of that as well, and if you've got, you know, however, hundreds of thousands of people being reassessed to stay on the NDIS, that's costly to the Australian taxpayer as well, and why are we doing it? It's decisions like this that this Government is making, of course, I want the NDIS to be sustainable. There is no - pardon?

Tom Connell 

So, are you saying you wouldn't reassess anybody because it costs money?

Melissa McIntosh 

No, that's not what I'm saying. I was saying the Government's made a decision that everyone has to get reassessed, and like I've said before, once you've lost your legs, you're never going to grow your legs back, and you've got children with real severe disability, and that's not going to change. So, I think it needs to be done in a more streamlined way, and the Government hasn't gone into detail yet of how they're going to work that out.

Tom Connell 

All right, look, we've been following it closely, so have you. We'll get the report one day soon. Next week, it sounds like. Melissa McIntosh, speak then. Thank you.

Melissa McIntosh 

Thank you very much.