Sky News Politics Now with Tom Connell - 11 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

11 June 2026

Transcript

Sky News Politics Now with Tom Connell

Topics: NDIS Senate inquiry, One Nation preferences

E&EO

 

Tom Connell 

Joining me live now, Shadow NDIS Minister Melissa McIntosh. Thank you very much for your time. So, from the states, they're saying states and territories are not in a position, have made no agreement to deliver like-for-like services to people who are exited from the NDIS. What's your reaction to that?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, thanks, Tom. I fought really hard for this inquiry, and I've been expressing my concerns until I've been blue in the face. But the states today have really put a spanner in the works for the Government, and I am not surprised. This is why I pushed so hard, because we needed to get to the bottom of what the Government was up to. And the very fact that the states are now saying, well, don't look at us, we've got nothing in place. Well, where are these hundreds of thousands of NDIS participants going to go? The Minister needs to make a commitment and say to the Australian people, no one's going to be pushed off the NDIS until something is in place for them on the other side, because as people have been saying throughout the hearings, this is life and death stuff. People could die. We need to be listening to these people. It is absolutely essential that we don't just brush them away after what we've heard over these last three days.

 

Tom Connell 

For the vast or quite a large number of people that are going to be taken off the NDIS over the future, it's children with some level of behavioural or autism need, but the lower level. Is it incumbent on the states to work with the Federal Government to provide the framework for that, some form of Thriving Kids? They used to provide this, they can do it again. Is that also a reality the states need to front up to?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, but working with the Commonwealth means that the Commonwealth needs to consult. The states have said, and so have disability stakeholders and participants, they have said that there has been no consultation. Consultation doesn't happen after the fact, it happens before and during a major reform. The thing with Thriving Kids is there's been a lot of talk from Minister Butler about what this might be, but I can't find a single person across the country that actually knows what Thriving Kids is in practical terms, and you mentioned it's low-level autism, but this isn't the whole cohort that will be pushed off the NDIS. This is just the start, so we have low-level autism to start with, but for the Government to get to its cost savings that it has, those ambitious cost savings of reducing the growth of the scheme right down to 2%, more people are going to have to come off the NDIS than what they've indicated already.

 

Tom Connell 

So, are there any parts of the Government's plan in terms of how it says it will save money that - not worrying about implementation right now, that matters - but on principle, that you disagree with?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

On principle, I disagree with people dying. I think there's a moral obligation for us as members of Parliament to hear when people have high anxiety across the country, they're saying that people will die. We can't accept that at all. The whole fact of getting us to agree to an NDIS overhaul has to do with the $50 billion that's spent every year, and the amount of rorting and corruption that is within the Scheme, but the reality is this Bill doesn't do very much at all to address the fraud within the Scheme right now, nor does it do enough to address those what people call wedding taxes. Somebody calls up a cleaner or a gardener, and when they say they'll use their NDIS plan, they get quoted quadruple the amount. So the Coalition does want to work with the Government. We did have good intentions going into this, but I have expressed my concerns from the very beginning. The fact that we're now being told that people might die. Well, we can't just let legislation go through just because the Government wants to have some savings in its terrible budget.

 

Tom Connell 

So, for what reason are you being told people will die, and what part of that plan is the problem? Is it implementation, or again, is there a principle, there's some aspect of the Government's plan, people that would be taken off or plans reduced that you disagree with?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, there's a part of the NDIS that is around social and community supports, and I think the Government needs to go into more detail here. The legislation has a lot of words in it, it's pages and pages long, but when you dive into it, there's very little detail. So, at one end of the spectrum, the social and community supports could be people going on surfing lessons, and this is what Australians have really kicked up a stink about. People don't want to hear an overuse of these supports, but fundamentally, these supports are in place, and we've heard this throughout the inquiry. There's an example of a gentleman, his friend has a provider going into his house to shower him, and right now his plan has been cut already, probably in anticipation of what's coming, to two days a week, and under this legislation his showering will be cut to one day, and he has a catheter as well. He has profound disability. So, one person getting showered one day a week, that's not acceptable, that you can't accept that morally or ethically. So this is a part of the legislation that I'm saying to you, we can't have that. We need to have some amendments, or the Government needs to spend some more time to get this right, because we do want to have this NDIS scheme to be sustainable into the future for people who do need it most, the very people this was set up for in the first place.

 

Tom Connell 

What part of the legislation would mean that this particular person has their plan cut to one shower a week? What part is that?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, it could be the ministerial discretion. The Minister has granted himself extraordinary powers to make cuts, to make changes to plans. He has that power now, and that is one of the other issues that the Coalition has, and disability advocates have. We've heard it throughout these last three days, and also to those social and community supports. If there can be more detail around that, if the Government can guarantee that people will not be left to basically have no showers, we don't want that. We don't want people to be left in their homes, not being taken care of, not going outside. This is the issue, Tom.

 

Tom Connell 

Yeah, no, I understand. Having one shower a week does not sound fair, but if this person, if you say the issue is ministerial discretion, and you're saying this person's plan is being cut, that wouldn't make any sense. The Minister hasn't used their discretion yet to cut that plan, have they? How could that have happened?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

You asked where the issues are. I said there is ministerial discretion, but there's also the issues around the social and community supports within the legislation. They're two separate things. But the Minister, in this legislation, has granted himself -

 

Tom Connell 

But social and community support are external, are they not external excursions, they're not social and community supports to have a shower, that's personal care, isn't it?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, but that's all lobbed in together into this one part of the legislation, which is what I'm saying to you. There is not enough detail to be able to decipher what constitutes one part of legislation where people go out and have social supports. But also Tom, do you think it's okay for somebody not to be taken outside?

 

Tom Connell 

But social and community supports is not showering, is it?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

It's lumped into the personal care as well in that part of the legislation, that's what I'm saying to you. There is not enough definition around what constitutes what part, where it can be somebody coming in, getting looked after, versus somebody going out. But do you know what people have also said? They don't want to be stuck in their house, never seeing daylight again, going back to those dark days of how people were treated before the NDIS. I think it's pretty reasonable for somebody to have a provider that takes them out to have some sort of social interaction with the outside world.  We can't take that away from people, but what I'm saying to you here, there's not one individual participant, not one organisation, not one advocate, who has appeared over the last three days that says the legislation, as it is, should go through.

 

Tom Connell 

Yeah, the social community aspect, Labor looking to pare the plans back from an average of $34,000 to $21,000. So, just for, if someone's watching and they're involved in the plan, it's not getting removed. I want to ask you about One Nation. Is Tony Pasin right? Do the Coalition, do you need to look at divide and conquer, perhaps, to overturn Labor in government?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I think Angus Taylor made a position on that pretty clear today when he said straight out no.

 

Tom Connell 

Do Liberal voters want you to team up with One Nation, do you think?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Liberal voters in my patch, when I'm out speaking with them, and I'm out a lot in my community, want us to be listening to them, fighting for them, and getting on with the job of laying out our policies as quickly as feasibly possible, and showing them how much we care about our country, the same way they care about our country, because the feedback I've heard is that they love Australia so much, and they feel under this Government, they're losing that.

 

Tom Connell 

Going to leave it there, Melissa McIntosh. Appreciate your time today. Thank you.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Thank you, Tom.