The Guardian Australian Politics Podcast - 12 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

12 June 2026

Transcript

The Guardian Australian Politics Podcast

 

Topics: NDIS Senate inquiry, One Nation polling and preferences

E&EO

 

Tom McIlroy 

This is The Guardian. I'm Tom McIlroy, the political editor at Guardian Australia, recording on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people in Canberra. Federal Labor is making major changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme to cut spending and stop hundreds of thousands of people receiving care over three days of public hearings this week, advocates and Australians with a disability have lashed the plans to speak about the reform push for the NDIS from across the political aisle. My guest today on the podcast is the Shadow Minister for Disability, Melissa McIntosh. She says no one giving evidence to the inquiry has backed the government's changes, raising serious doubts about the road ahead.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

If they're rushing through terrible legislation, they can't just expect us to tick it and flick it. I think that that's what they want from us, and I'm certainly going to stand in the way, if that's what they think we're going to do.

 

Tom McIlroy 

The Western Sydney MP's seat of Lindsay is high on One Nation's agenda for the next election, and some pollsters argue it could swing towards Pauline Hanson, as her insurgent party continues to outperform both Labor and the Coalition in polls published this week. The new Liberal Party President, Tony Abbott, has said that he backs a One Nation preference deal. When it comes to her own political future, McIntosh says she will continue to raise her community's concerns on immigration and the cost of living. This is the Australian Politics Podcast. Well, Melissa McIntosh, welcome to the podcast.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Thank you.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Great to have you along in such a busy week in your portfolio. Let me come to the NDIS in a few moments, but I'd like to start with one of the big stories of the week. One Nation is having quite a moment, and they say they've managed to raise more than a million and a half dollars in just 24 hours this week, promising to bring the fight to Labor. Tell me your thoughts on the risk to the major parties. Why do you think Pauline Hanson is so compelling to voters?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I've always had One Nation in my part of the world, and have worked closely with people who support One Nation. We actually had a big rally here in Western Sydney, in some areas on the No campaign, and there were One Nation supporters there. So it's not, you know, I feel that the people that are perhaps supporting One Nation are everyday Australians that love their country and are passionate about their country, exactly like myself. I'm super passionate about Australia in the direction we are heading in, but it's very clear you can't stick your head in the sand. It's very clear that One Nation is appealing to Australians right now.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Do you think that they are traditional Liberal voters who might be moving over? Do you think you can bring some of them back into the party, into the Coalition fold as we head towards the next election?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I think it's a really important time to be a community connected member of Parliament. I held, took the seat off Labor in 2019 and held it for two elections at '22 and '25 against the tide. It's usually a seat of government, and the only way that I've done that is be really in touch with my community. I'm out every day. This is a very rare occurrence that I'm sitting in my office, speaking to you, even though it's quite clean, and it's because I love my community, and I'll fight for them every day, so perhaps that's something that One Nation's tapping into as well, is the on the ground networks and the on the ground passion that Australians have. I was really strong on the - as well as the No campaign, was 70% 'No' in my seat - I was really vocal in my party room about net zero. My community didn't want net zero, they're struggling so much under high energy prices, and the direction, don't like the direction that Labor's taking us in there. And when it comes to immigration, they want changes to immigration. I surveyed my community there as well, and this is not a race thing. This is very much around the pressures on infrastructure out here in my patch. Potholed roads, and stretched hospitals - stretched beyond, stretched beyond the seams - they're bursting now, and housing is just out of reach for many people. So all these issues together, and I guess that's where One Nation is tapping into as well.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Do you think that the landscape feels different to a year ago, perhaps, or at the time of the last election?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Not so much out here, where I am, but obviously, politically across the country, yes. You'd have to be not watching any media outlet or looking at any polls to have a difference of opinion there, so something has changed, but that's why it's up to us to really articulate our policies, and previously people were saying that they didn't like the direction the Liberal Party was heading in, and we've got Angus Taylor leading us, and we're pushing really hard on getting our policies out early. That was one of the criticisms prior to the last election was nobody knew what we really stood for, so coming into the next election, people are certainly going to know what we stand for, but it is up to us to articulate that and communicate that clearly with the Australian people.

 

Tom McIlroy 

I'm excited for some good policy debates going up to the election. It must be said we've got a few on the go already. On Thursday morning, Angus Taylor ruled out carving up seats with One Nation, a proposal put forward by your front bench colleague, Tony Pasin. Do you think it's likely that there might be some cooperation between One Nation and the Coalition ahead of the next election? You will both have the combined objective of ousting Labor. Could you imagine some kind of coordination, even if it's not kind of carving up seats as was proposed?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I think that's a good intent of our thing. Labor, I did a video about the Prime Minister saying 50 times, "no, I do not plan to make any changes to CGT or negative gearing" prior to the last election. I think that's my biggest social media post I've ever had, and now One Nation is tapping into that same sentiment. So, there is a desire, people are pretty unhappy with this government, the trajectory of our country when it comes to deals that are done. That's going to be up to the party and leadership, but out here in Western Sydney, my patch, I think we've done preference deals with One Nation ever since I got in it, so it's not an unusual - this is not an unusual situation for me out here. I'm not feeling any anxiety about it. It's - I understand how people feel, and I'm pretty tapped into the community, as I said, and I think that's really important.

 

Tom McIlroy 

The party's identified Western Sydney, your patch, as its next target. Do you think that multicultural communities are taking a second look at One Nation? I mean, a lot of Pauline Hanson's history and some of her current policies are certainly based in race, and I think there's legitimate criticism to say some of the sentiment is racist or at least discriminatory.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, Western Sydney, if you know this part of the world is a very diverse place. I'm from Western Sydney, and then you've got South Western Sydney as well, and it is a changing demographic, where I am in Penrith. I think perhaps some of the commentary on coming after Western Sydney was directed at the Labor-held seats. I think I'm pretty much one of the only Liberals to hold Western Sydney, although Angus is sort of with the redistribution coming into some of Western Sydney as well, and this is where it's important how we frame our communications and the debate, even around immigration. That's why at the outset I said to you, this is not about race, my community is not a racist community, but it is very much about the pressure points, and I think population growth as well, not just immigration, but population growth, and not having the housing we need. We have Nepean Hospital, big public hospital here that takes in a lot of people from all over Western Sydney and beyond the Blue Mountains out to Bathurst and Oberon and way over the other side, so we feel the strains of population growth and immigration, I think, here in Western Sydney, and when people feel that pain and that pressure, then that becomes a big issue. And when I surveyed my community, it was well over 90% of people think that immigration is too high and something needs to change. We need to address that because of those particular issues.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Tony Barry, someone who knows a lot about your party, says that Lindsay might be winnable in the future for One Nation, do you see the race at the next election different to the last, if there's a stronger One Nation presence in Lindsay?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Lindsay's always winnable for any party. I think that's why I don't take holding it for granted. It is actually usually a seat of government. I think this is pretty rare to be in opposition and hold the seat of Lindsay and I worked for Jackie Kelly way back in the 1990s and she held the seat for 10 years, and that's when it was Howard's battlers, and although the demographics might change, the way that people - the values that people have out here - that striving to have a go, the aspiration, working hard for a better life with families, way back to Menzies' forgotten people, and I talked about this in my maiden speech, this still applies today, but you have to work the seat really hard. You have to be a member of the community, not, first and foremost, not an MP, first and foremost, and you have to be in touch with the local issues and what's driving people, so the seats always potentially up for grabs if you're not working hard in it.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Tony Abbott is the new federal president of the Liberal Party, the former Prime Minister back in frontline politics in a big way in the last couple of weeks, and certainly bringing an energy that some people would say has been missing from the Liberal Party in recent years. He has previously worked to put Pauline Hanson in jail. I'm surprised that someone like Tony Abbott is proposing preference deals. Do you see any inconsistencies there? Do you think dealing with One Nation is going to be a big challenge for the Coalition going ahead?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I don't know about the past. There's got a few things there, bringing energy that may not have been there. I hope I've been energetic enough since I got in. I'm feeling, certainly feeling like I've been using up a lot of energy these last six years or so. No, I think, and on the Tony front, he still has appeal in communities. I brought him out here to Penrith. Remember, I think I mentioned John Howard's battlers and Menzies' forgotten people. They were Tony's tradies as well. And when he came out here prior during the last election, he was mobbed like a rock star on the streets of Penrith. So there is still certainly an appeal for Tony, but I can't speak on behalf of him about his relationship with One Nation, or how that's going to go, but there's certainly an optimism amongst the Liberal Party membership for Tony to be taking such an important role within the organisational structure.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Interesting, it's going to be fascinating to watch him in that role. Let's come to the NDIS. Of course, you're the Shadow Minister, and it's a timely week to be talking about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The Senate committee has been considering legislation over three days of hearings. Where do you think we've got to? What does it look like the Coalition will do? The Government is banking a lot of savings from changes to the NDIS trajectory, trying to make the Scheme more sustainable.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, I pushed really hard for that inquiry to happen, and I'm glad that I did push hard, because there's a lot of scared Australians out there right now, and I'm hearing from many, many of them from right across the country, and it's due to the Government's lack of consultation. I think they were hoodwinked by the Government on this one when the Minister made his announcement. These are huge reforms, and there's no question, even people within the Scheme that contacted me acknowledged that $50 billion dollars a year is not sustainable, and the Scheme has to be sustainable. But this inquiry has uncovered a sense - that anxiety, I think it's representative of a broader cross section. The concerns that we're hearing around people losing that connection to society through those community supports, and the Minister having extraordinary amounts of power. So, there was one gentleman who appeared in front of the hearing, talked about his friend, whose cuts - and I'm hearing this across the board, people, the cuts already happening - cuts to him being able to have a shower, being showered a couple of times a week, and under the new legislation he might only be showered - and he's on a catheter as well, so he's profoundly disabled - once a week, and that's not right. A person can't live like that, so it is - some of these decisions are life and death, and you can't ignore when people are saying that it is life and death stuff, and people could die due to this legislation. As members of Parliament, we have a moral obligation to put people first and to be compassionate about our fellow Australians, so I certainly can't let that one go and pretend we just haven't heard that. People are more than just a number in a budget spreadsheet, so I'll continue to express my concerns. So these aren't new concerns for me. You probably, if you've been following, very early on into this portfolio, I made the statement around my concerns around the government's trajectory in trying to get to 2% growth target when they weren't meeting their current growth targets of 5% and 8%. So how are you going to get to 2%? Well, there's people on the end of those cuts. So we're hearing those concerns. We need to address those concerns, and today, just seeing that, and I haven't been able to get through the whole submission, but the submission from the states and territories, they're pretty unanimous in what they're saying, that if there's cuts to the NDIS, don't expect the states to be picking up and providing a service that is at the same level as the NDIS. So where are these people going to go if the states aren't ready? We can't have people being cut from the NDIS if there's not something else in place for them at the other side.

 

Tom McIlroy 

You've covered a lot of ground in that answer. I'd like to go back to community supports for a moment. This section of the NDIS allows assistance for people to live full lives and to be active participants in the community get out of the house, undertake leisure activities. It's one area that the Government is focused on. Is it a need to have, or is it, in a tough discussion about saving money in this big program, is it one area that there could be some savings made?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, well, you're right, it's what, $13.2 billion, I think. But again, and this is the issue with this piece of legislation - there's a lot of pages, there's a lot of words, but not much detail when you dig into it. So you're lumping all of this into the one thing when it could mean many things. So when we go back to the fundamentals of what it means to have somebody to have dignity and choice, well, we're not talking about the surfing lessons, and maybe some of the stretching it out on one end of the scale. We're talking about here keeping somebody alive, ensuring that they're safe, and that they can have some form of quality of life. So, I think the legislation - we actually need to take the time to decipher through all of that, and maybe to split that out and say, okay, this needs to be kept, but you can forego this because it is a lot of money, but we don't have that detail. If you've been able to find that detail, you know, you're doing better than pretty much the rest of us.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Is that a sign that this process is moving too quickly, and the Government might need to slow things down?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

There's not one person that has appeared before the inquiry, an organisation, an advocate, a participant, and even the states now, saying that the legislation, as it is, is something that they can agree to, and I'm feeling that way too. I know the Government has spent its savings. That's the Government's problem. If they're rushing through terrible legislation, they can't just expect us to tick it and flick it. I think that's what they want from us, and I'm certainly going to stand in the way if that's if that's what they think we're going to do, because, as I said to you, there's a moral obligation to our fellow Australians.

 

Tom McIlroy 

What will that look like? Could it be the possibility that the Coalition and the Greens push back on this timeline from Labor, extend the inquiry, or potentially hold up the legislation until you get the answers that you're looking for?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I'm not wanting to intentionally hold up legislation, but when it's bad legislation, you can't allow it just for the sake of allowing and letting the Government have some savings. That's not right. I'm not against a longer inquiry either. I think having over 4000 submissions in what, about 10 days or so, is pretty extraordinary, and the Government hasn't even, last I saw, uploaded all of the submissions. They were merely in the hundreds last time I had a look, so it means that this is really important to people, and I think to get it right, so we don't have to backtrack or have unintended consequences, the time needs to be taken, because it's pretty rushed, and as I said in the outset, it's $50 billion a year. I'm not saying that it's - we do have to make it sustainable, that's not what I'm arguing here - but we have to make it right, so it is sustainable and is fit for purpose in the future, and it continues to support people most who need it most, the very people this scheme was set up to support in the first place.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Yeah, the growth rate is incredible. I think it was more than 20% before Labor came to government. As you said, they set an arbitrary figure of cutting it to between 6% and 8% and now we're going down to 2%. On the current trajectory, the NDIS is going to cost $70 billion by the end of the decade. Do the states need to do more? You know, they're warning that some of the program capacity is going to move to them, and they don't have the financial resources to provide similar services, but are they going to have to close some of this gap? Is that just a reality of how things are going to go?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, you can't push people off into the never-never, or, you know, off a cliff into nothing, so the states are going to have to step up, but the problem is all of these services and supports went from the states to the Commonwealth, and then they sort of went like this, and even the corporate knowledge is gone, so there's a lot that would have to be done to get the states up to speed, and Thriving Kids is a prime example of that. No one knows what Thriving Kids actually is. I haven't met one stakeholder in this country that can give any details about the practicalities of Thriving Kids, so if this is what's happening with Thriving Kids, well, what's going to happen when more people, because we know, like, through Senate estimates, there's going to be more than just kids with low-level autism coming off the scheme. So, if that's not in place, well, what's happening if there's more people coming off? So, yes, the states, without a question, they're going to have to be on board, but that's up to the Commonwealth. I think I just read that the states are saying that the Commonwealth hasn't even consulted properly with the states. So the Commonwealth, the Albanese Labor Government here, hasn't consulted with the disability community. Consultation is not something you do after the fact, it's something that you do prior to test out how people are on things, and they have the states saying that, well, the government hasn't consulted with them either. So, what's going on here? Yet the Government's expecting everyone just to wave through this legislation, and it seems more and more that it's purely for their budget bottom line.

 

Tom McIlroy 

So, what's the Coalition going to do? I mean, push could come to shove relatively quickly, we're what, a week and a half away from Parliament coming back, and the decision might have to be made by you and by the Coalition front bench relatively soon.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, you're right. There's no denying that. I said from the outset that I went into this in good faith, and I have been. I've been working constructively with Mark Butler, but that doesn't mean I have to accept everything that they're putting forward, but we'll have to have those discussions in our party room, in our Shadow Cabinet, and come to a resolution. But that's why I really pushed for this inquiry as well, so we could get the evidence and get the facts, and people had the opportunity to have their say, because we have to make a call at some point as well, and perhaps there's parts of the legislation that we can pull out, perhaps there's amendments that we can make. It's going to depend what comes out of the inquiry and the work that we can do. Remember that the Prime Minister cut staff off the Coalition, so I have one portfolio person working on this, and another, so they're working so very hard, and I'm very fortunate to have good people working, and our Senators have been working really hard these last three days, you know, and I give credit to all of them, because it's been pretty harrowing, the stories and the lives that we've been hearing about, and I thank the participants as well. So, there's a lot of work to do, but not much time to do it, is the point that I'm making.

 

Tom McIlroy 

And on first principles, you say, have come to it with good faith. Would this be a correct summation of the Coalition's position? You understand the challenge, and you agree that the sustainability question needs to be addressed. Costs need to come down. You want to work with Labor, but you're leaving open the option of either a longer process than the Government's timeline or some kind of negotiation to make changes to the legislation, potentially leaving parts for further consideration?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, I'm hoping that the Government's hearing what I'm hearing, and what we're all hearing. Surely they can't be that heartless. Surely, they've got compassion towards Australians as well. So I feel like what I'm saying is not going to be surprising them, because if they're good, decent people, they would be feeling the same way right now, and thinking, well, maybe this part we can't progress with right now, and I hope that that compassion overrides the desire to bring the budget under control short term. I hope the longer term good outweighs the short-term budget benefits. So that's certainly the angle I'm going, and I think that - I feel like there will be some more negotiating with the Government happening over the next couple of weeks. I have faith in my fellow politicians that they do have that compassion for Australians.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Good, good. Okay. Well, Melissa McIntosh, our traditional last question on the podcast is to ask people about their passions outside of work. As you say, you're working pretty hard as a shadow minister and a local member, but what about a day off? How do you relax? How do you get away from politics when you've got a little bit of free time?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I've actually just started sort of walk-running again. I used to run, but I'm closer to 50 than I am 40 now, so my running has now turned into sort of mum walk running, and I'm trying to get back into that and enjoying our beautiful country, and I do get stopped a lot, though, and have a chat, but that means that I get to do my exercise and be a good local MP at the same time. So I think that's a pretty good balance.

 

Tom McIlroy 

Multitasking, it's a good way to clear your head. Do you listen to music? Do you listen to a podcast? What do you do when you're running?

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I'm going to have to listen to this one. Is that a pitch for your podcast?

 

Tom McIlroy 

You said it. I'm happy for the plug. Thank you, I appreciate it.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

I did say I was trying to relax didn't I, while I was doing that. I actually don't really do that. I just try to enjoy. My kids say to me, just enjoy the moment, Mum, enjoy the moment. So I try to enjoy the moment a little bit while I'm doing that.

 

Tom McIlroy 

That's great, that's great. Well, look, we've loved having you on the podcast. Really appreciate you making some time in a busy week.

 

Melissa McIntosh 

Thank you.