Sky with Steve Price - 29 May 2026

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

29 May 2026

Transcript

Sky – Steve Price

Topics: NDIS

E&EO

Steve Price 

The NDIS, regardless of what Mark Butler tells you, it's still being rorted. Opposition NDIS spokeswoman Melissa McIntosh says the Coalition will not guarantee that they will support Labor's legislation to rein their $50 billion Scheme in, and she joins me live. Is that right, that you have doubts about the way that they are going to legislate to fix this mess, Melissa.

Melissa McIntosh 

Thanks for having me on, and my comment by no means, mean that I don't agree that we need to fix this thing, it's the way they're going about it. I made an amendment in the Parliament just the other day, and it was around the lack of focus on the rorting, and we had even the cross bench One Nation, everyone on our side, because we've identified that the Government is not doing enough. And we know there is rorting in the system. I watched one of one of your takes where you were talking about a former prisoner coming out of jail and going straight onto the NDIS. One of our policy platforms is to ensure that you have to be an Australian citizen to get on the NDIS. No one knows how many non-citizens are on the NDIS. The Government won't tell Australians, so there's a lot going on in the system. This is a once in a generation chance to get this right to reduce the expenditure, but I think what the government's missing here to reduce the absolute crooks, criminals, the people that have made this completely toxic in the system.

Steve Price 

Well, we really do need an inquiry, and I'm the last person to say we need more inquiries, but you have to cut this thing off at the head, which is the providers who are treating disabled people as cash cows. They're all almost like ATMs for these people who get their hooks into someone who's got a disability, and they know that there's a pot of Government money there, Melissa, and they go and grab it.

Melissa McIntosh 

I'm glad you mentioned both the participants, the disabled people, and you also mentioned an inquiry. I fought really hard to ensure that we do have a Senate Inquiry. It will be over three days, and it will be an opportunity to prosecute and to dig deeper into this whole thing. But at the heart of this are people in need that do have severe disability, and they're the ones that are scared right now. There was no consultation by the Government when they decided to make these cuts, and I'm also concerned that the Government's already sort of said that this is about the budget, and they've already spent the NDIS savings. I'm concerned that the states haven't come on board yet, and that this will just be a cost-shifting exercise, perhaps moving from the NDIS budget to the health budget. But at the end of the day, the taxpayers still have to pay for the thing. So people with severe disability needs to be right front and centre, because they still need that support, but let's clean this thing up, get people registered as you said, get those dodgy providers out, and I want to acknowledge that's not everyone, but get the dodgy providers out of the system, because there's a lot of work to do, and I have - Steve, I have huge doubts around this target that the government has set. They want a growth target of 2%, It's sitting at over 11% now. They haven't reached their previous targets of 8 and 5% so there's big question marks whether they can actually achieve this.

Steve Price 

How will this three day Senate Inquiry work is that is that it's is that putting three days aside of senate estimates around this NDIS scheme, or is it separate to the estimates?

Melissa McIntosh 

It will be separate. So we negotiated with the Government to have three specific days run by the Senate Committee that looks after this sort of work, and it's been open to the public to make submissions. I think there's hundreds already up on the website, and then there will be an open hearing, and hopefully it'll be a chance for us to ask serious questions of the Government. I want to see its modelling. We need to know that this is going to work. You're putting a lot of Australians into high anxiety here, we need to know that the outcomes will be sufficient, and it will reduce the spending, because I think every Australian knows that that has to happen. This thing is an out-of-control train wreck right now.

Steve Price 

Melissa, more power to you, I’ll watch that three days with great interest. Thanks for joining us tonight.