Melissa McIntosh
Lindsay · Liberal Party · Australia
“The working homeless are one of our country's most worrying trends. When a working mother escapes violence only to trade fear inside her home for fear inside a parked car with her children, we should all be asking how Australia has come to this.”
“They told me they have women living in cars while waiting for transitional accommodation, women that are working jobs, women trying to keep their children safe and women doing everything right yet unable to secure a rental property because the market is simply too tight.”
“In my own electorate of Lindsay, the number of people sleeping rough in the Penrith local government area has increased by over 30 per cent in just one year. For every person counted sleeping rough, there are many more living in cars, couch surfing or remaining in unsafe situations because they simply have nowhere else to go.”
“More than four million Australians live in poverty, rents have soared, childcare costs continue to rise, and homeownership is slipping further out of reach. Mortgage arrears have risen by 6.8 per cent over the past year, while credit card arrears among Gen Z have surged by almost 29 per cent.”
“OzHarvest's latest frontline report reveals more than 350,000 people are seeking food relief every month, while more than 74,000 are being turned away because services cannot keep up with demand.”
“It cuts me to the core to hear the Penrith Women's Health Centre say that around 10 per cent of their clients are now working homeless. These are women fleeing violence, often with little more than the clothes on their back. Last year alone, the centre supported 750 women escaping violence in their homes.”
The complete record
Every one of 448 lines we hold for Melissa McIntosh, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 9.
“But Australians overwhelmingly rejected it, and they lost the election. At the 2025 election, the Prime Minister said more than 50 times that his government, the Albanese Labor government, would not impose changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. He said to Australians over and over again that his word is his bond. There would be no changes to CGT and no changes to negative gearing. Fast forward to 2026, and the Prime Minister has done the unthinkable. We can no longer say the four-letter word in this chamber that describes people who do not tell the truth. You know what word I'm talking about. The media has been reporting it for weeks now. Well, I'm sorry, Prime Minister, but Australians did not elect you to break promises and just change your mind. They will remember this, and they will be very angry.”
“The Albanese Labor government's negative gearing and capital gains tax changes demonstrate their inclination to tax ambition first and justify it later. Now Labor is once again reaching deeper into the pockets of millions of hardworking Australians. Australians deserve a tax system that rewards effort, encourages investment and supports people who want to build something for themselves and their families. That is why the coalition will take the axe to Labor's opportunity-crushing taxes. These are taxes on housing. These are taxes on savings. These are taxes on investments. These are taxes on small businesses. It's like Labor thinks Australians forget. In 2019, Labor went to the Australian people with sweeping tax changes, slashing the capital gains tax discount and abolishing negative gearing. They expected applause.”
“Lindsay is the canary in the coalmine of the Australian economy. It is the pulse of aspiration in this country. The canary knows before anyone else, and right now Lindsay is twitching. The Real Estate Institute of Australia doesn't agree with these taxes, nor does the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The list goes on, and the Australian people are really clicking their heels together right now, dreaming of a better land. They're dreaming of home, because there's no place like home, and this is not the country Australians have worked so hard to build.”
“The people being hit are not billionaires in penthouses; they are sparkies with busted knees, concrete workers with shoulders held together by painkillers, and families who missed holidays and weekends because they believed sacrifice today would mean security tomorrow. The Albanese government's changes to capital gains tax put at risk a longstanding Australian tradition of working hard to build something of your own and pass it on to the next generation—a tradition that has long defined families, tradies and small businesses across this great land, especially in mortgage belt communities like Lindsay, where we have nearly 21,000 GST-registered businesses, and they power our Penrith economy. We have 5,000 construction businesses and over 860 manufacturers. Together, they support nearly one in four City of Penrith jobs.”
“They are Australians not lacking courage, but fearful in Albanese's Australia, where every shift worked, every risk taken and every sacrifice made is just slugged with more taxes—on housing, on savings, on investment and on small businesses—because the wizard can't manage money. He's coming after yours, while one in three households wonder not what they'll eat tonight but whether they can eat at all. Every new tax, every change to investment rules, every attack on small business and family assets sends the same message to working Australians, including to our working poor: how dare you try to build something of your own!”
“But, right now, too many Australians feel like characters trapped in The Wizard of Oz . There are the scarecrow Australians, treated like they're too foolish to notice what's happening to their pay packets, to their businesses and to their futures. They're told anyone with an investment property is some kind of wealthy property baron gaming the system, when, for many Australians, property is their single-biggest financial asset. Most investors are on modest incomes. Seventy-one per cent own just one investment property and 19 per cent own just two. Then there are our tin man Australians, exhausted by a system that no longer seems to have a heart. They're small-business owners lying awake at night wondering how they will cover wages, insurances, power bills and rising costs. Then there are our lions.”
“It started in a battered ute, with 300,000 kilometres on the clock, a toolbox rattling in the trailer and a thermos of bad coffee riding shotgun, before the sun rose. They built futures for their families and helped build the economic backbone of this country—because tradies do not just build homes, roads and skylines; they build Australia itself. In 2023-24 alone, the construction industry accounted for seven per cent of Australia's GDP and employed around 1.3 million people. These are the men and women who physically built modern Australia: a plumbing company; a roofing crew; one apprentice became two, and two became 10; the ute became a fleet; the rented workshop became a warehouse with a family name on the front. That was the Australian dream—the emerald city.”
“Toto, I've got a feeling we aren't in Australia anymore! Just like Dorothy standing in a strange land, Australians are looking around and asking, 'How did we get here?' because this does not feel like the Australia we were promised. Somewhere along the yellow brick road, the Wizard of Oz has lost his plot. For generations, Australia was a place where aspiration was not something to apologise for. But the Albanese government wizard stands grinning behind the curtain right now, hands yanking rusted levers labelled 'higher taxes', 'bracket creep', 'CGT', 'negative gearing' and 'red tape'. Smoke pours through the room, while ordinary Australians—the tradies, the nurses, the small-business owners and the families—stand watching the Australian dream crumble, brick by brick. There was a time when a tradie could follow his own yellow brick road.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said ISIS sympathisers who returned to Australia would 'face the full force of the law'. How many ISIS sympathisers who arrived in Australia last night have been arrested or charged for entering a declared terrorist zone?”
“A digital payments platform, claim timeframe changes, receipt retention requirements—these are the only real changes the government is making to address fraud. You know it, I know it, Australians know it and participants on the NDIS know it. That is why the coalition has called for a Senate inquiry into this bill. That is why submissions are currently open to participants, families, carers, providers and advocates right across Australia. And that is why these proposed changes must be properly scrutinised before vulnerable Australians are asked to place their trust in reforms that the government still cannot fully explain. People with disability deserve transparency, deserve honesty and deserve certainty about what these changes will mean for their lives going into the future.”
“To put that into perspective, one provider employing 300 staff and supporting more than 800 participants told me they recently paid $35,000 for a single audit on top of existing registration costs. We all want the scheme to be sustainable into the future, to continue supporting Australians with significant and permanent disability for generations to come. When the NDIS was established in 2013, Australians overwhelmingly supported that vision. But the social licence underpinning the scheme can only be rebuilt if this parliament confronts the rampant fraud, dishonesty and abuse occurring within the system today. Disappointingly, there are very few measures in this bill that directly target that misconduct.”
“They said they've lodged six separate fraud reports in just two months, but they don't hear anything back. That is deeply concerning. Providers are also raising serious concerns about the role and the accountability of some support coordinators within the system. One provider told me, 'We work with the clients more than they do.' Another said change-of-circumstances requests are often not lodged in time, leaving participants stuck in limbo while their needs go unmet. Others raise serious concerns about participants being pressured into changing providers or living arrangements against their wishes. While honest providers are trying to do the right thing, many say the cost of registration and compliance has become prohibitive, with little meaningful incentive to remain registered beyond basic optics and credibility.”
“Perhaps the most jarring change of all for the disability community will be the planned changes and reductions to community supports. Minister Butler said costs for community supports have blown out from $4 billion in 2021 to $12 billion this year. I understand the need for us to review this—and the costs have tripled in just five years—but so far the Albanese government have failed at every turn to explain exactly where these costs have blown out. From the feedback I have received, this change alone is causing the greatest anxiety for participants and their families. Meanwhile, dodgy operators continue slipping through the cracks while legitimate providers are buried in paperwork, compliance costs and bureaucracy. One provider in my electorate of Lindsay told me participants are having their packages wiped out by fraudulent activity.”
“If you are entering someone's home and providing any personal care, I believe you should have basic qualifications—first aid certificates, working-with-vulnerable-people checks, criminal history checks. This is not going on right now. The NDIS was established to support and protect people with disability, not expose them to greater harms. These checks and balances are everywhere else in our work. Our healthcare providers have them. Our aged-care workers, childcare workers and teachers—anyone who works with vulnerable people—must have these checks for safety, and the NDIS should not be excluded from that. I recognise that there are some providers who provide services where people may think these aren't necessities, but if we want to provide people with the best service and the best care, these shouldn't be considered barriers.”
“Unfortunately, there are also a lot of bad actors who are doing the wrong thing. They are not looking after clients or their packages. They're charging hundreds of dollars for printing documents that were never provided, charging for services never coordinated or inducing people with disability with food, alcohol, cigarettes and iPads to become the new plan manager. This is wrong, it is abhorrent and, unfortunately, the actions of some have meant we need stronger safeguards in place to protect participants. I was appointed to this portfolio only a few months ago, and one of the very first things I identified was a lack of mandatory requirements for providers managing people's plans or daily supports.”
“People are waiting for months for applications to be processed to the point where six-month waits for an age pension barely even make the headlines anymore. The disability community should never be expected to accept that as normal. The bill will also introduce some additional categories for provider registration. Supported independent living providers will already have mandatory registration requirements applied this year, and this is a good thing. You are caring for and responsible for our most vulnerable people. You must be held to the highest standards. There will be mandatory registration requirements for plan managers. I've heard from many plan managers over the last month who I can tell are genuine, caring and compassionate people. They have the participants' welfare front of mind.”
“There can be no gap between the end date of one plan and the commencement of another—not one day, not one hour and certainly not many weeks or months—because, when you are talking about feeding supports, personal care, mobility equipment or essential therapies, even a short administrative delay can have devastating consequences. The government must get this right administratively. No participant should ever lose access to essential supports because of bureaucratic delays or failures within the system. Consider yourselves on notice, government, because Australians have already seen what happens when delays and backlogs become normalised in other parts of the system. We see it in Centrelink every single day.”
“The bill also seeks to clarify that NDIS supports will be funded only where the need arises directly from the participant's recognised impairment, with broader health conditions intended to be treated through Medicare and the mainstream health system. There will be changes to the existing settings for plan renewals. Currently, plans don't have a specified end date and, for ease, have been continued while a participant's plan is reassessed and a new plan is created. In many cases, unspent funds from the previous plans have been carried over. From 1 February 2027, this won't be the case. Plans will have a legislated end date, and any unspent funds will no longer roll over into the new plan period. Let me make this very clear to the government.”
“One provider described the planning process as a lottery, saying, 'Outcomes depend on who receives the report and whether the assessor actually understands the participant's needs and medical evidence.' Another said, 'Reviews are already proceeding without providers present if they're unavailable at the scheduled time, leaving decisions to be made without the full picture of a participant's circumstances and care needs.' That does not inspire confidence, and it raises serious concerns about how these tighter reassessment rules will operate in practice for vulnerable Australians and their families.”
“According to the minister himself, most reassessments are currently resulting in funding increases, not decreases, of around 20 per cent, which is a major driver of the scheme's escalating cost. This bill seeks to tighten that process. Under these changes, only participants, their nominees or their guardians would be able to request an unscheduled review and only where there has been a significant and ongoing change in functional capacity. But herein lies yet another problem. Providers are already telling me the review process is inconsistent, confusing and difficult to navigate.”
“They have a wealth of knowledge. They have lived experience, and, more than anything, they want the scheme to remain for themselves and generations to come. Please do not exclude them from this process. The bill will also make changes to plan reassessments. A participant or their support team can ask for a plan reassessment if they believe their needs have changed. In Minister Butler's Press Club speech, he stated: One in five plans are currently subject to an unscheduled reassessment each year. You do the maths—760,000 participant plans divided by five equates to roughly 150,000 plan reassessments a year, or around 12,000 reassessments every single month.”
“In cases like these, I am imploring the government to not burden participants with reassessments and with having to provide new medical evidence. Their condition isn't changing. A lengthy, stressful and traumatic reassessment process is cruel and unnecessary. Media reports have said the number of people on the scheme will be reduced by around 160,000 participants, but that number will be far greater when you combine the number of people who won't enter the scheme with the number of people who'll be exited from the scheme because they won't meet the new functional capacity assessment. From mid-June, the government has committed to establishing a technical advisory group to develop a new functional capacity assessment. My ask of the Albanese government on this is to please consult with the disability community; it's really important.”
“The family support coordinator was not even informed, and suddenly the family was forced to ration essentials: feeding supplies, continence aids—the basic items their son depends on every single day to survive. Again, this is sometimes about life and death. A feeding pump was approved, but there was no funding to repair or replace it if it failed. Without intervention from my office, the consequences could have been catastrophic. It should never have reached this point. I want to be able to tell families like this that everything will be okay. I want to tell them that, if their loved one clearly needs NDIS support, they will continue to receive it, but right now I cannot honestly give them that guarantee.”
“Australians are effectively being asked to sign a blank cheque on reforms nobody has seen. This unknown test is set to apply to all new participants from 1 January 2028. It does not stop there. Every existing NDIS participant will also face reassessment between 1 January 2028 and 31 December 2030—reassessment against criteria that remain completely unknown. That uncertainty is terrifying families. I had one mother recently contact my office at absolute breaking point. Her son relies on a feeding tube to stay alive. Imagine the panic of this mother as she wondered how she will keep her son alive after his plan reassessment was rejected.”
“This is the system as it stands today. I've also met with many of the peak bodies and advocacy groups about the proposed changes. They're scared too. They don't know what these changes mean for them and the people they support. Why? Because the government has yet again made a big announcement that lacks any substantive detail. We've had a month of media stories talking about cuts, cuts and more cuts by this government, which has done nothing but induce and escalate that fear. This bill is substantial. It proposes introducing an entirely new functional capacity assessment for people applying to the scheme. From 2028, new participants will be assessed against a threshold of significantly reduced functional capacity. But here is the problem: the criteria have not been designed. The details have not been released.”
“Every interaction has been a plea from a person with a disability, their families, their friends, their support workers and providers to fix this, to stop participants being caught in the fallout of a failing system. They are scared and their families are scared, and they are looking to this parliament for certainty. I've spoken to families who are doing everything right and still being let down by the current system. A mother was waiting for more than eight months for a wheelchair for her 13-year-old son, leaving him unable to safely get to school or to appointments. A woman with Huntington's disease whose condition is deteriorating is now receiving just 13 hours of care a week, but medical experts say that she needs more than five times that. She's at risk of choking, falling or even worse. This is happening across the board.”
“But it's not the criminals fleecing the NDIS nor the dodgy providers who are billing for services never delivered who are under attack; it's people with disability and the honest providers trying to do the right thing who are feeling the government's wrath on this. I've received thousands of emails since Minister Butler's speech just a month ago from participants, their families, their carers and providers, all desperately seeking answers about whether they will keep the supports they rely on as the government moves to reassess every participant's plan. We haven't just read those emails; my office has been on the phone speaking directly with participants, families and providers right across our country.”
“That's $5 billion that could otherwise help fund vulnerable people, our hospitals, our schools, our roads and our critical infrastructure. Criminals know it. They continue gaming the system because they know the guardrails are weak and the fences meant to protect are flimsy. With Australians hearing these stories day in and day out, the NDIS has lost the social licence it once had. In Minister Butler's Press Club speech, he admitted seven in 10 Australians believe the NDIS is too large and struggles with dodgy providers. Worse still, six in 10 Australians think the NDIS is broken. What was once a beacon of pride for our country has become a national disgrace.”
“Participants allegedly are being trafficked for their support packages, left without the essential care they need and deserve, coerced into approving invoices for services never delivered, having their identities stolen to drain the very funding meant to support their independence and their dignity. The list just goes on and on, and it is utterly horrific and a disgusting abuse of power against some of the most vulnerable people in our society. The Australian National Audit Office estimated that up to 10 per cent of payments are noncompliant, incorrect or fraudulent. That's 10 per cent. That's up to $5 billion a year on today's expenditure. That's $5 billion of taxpayers' money just walking out the door.”
“We believe the scheme must be there for Australians with significant and permanent disability, exactly as it was intended, but the integrity of the scheme is weak, and Australians see this. Day after day we see shocking stories of criminals exploiting the NDIS for hundreds of thousands of dollars and in some cases millions. Just a few weeks ago, a Sydney man appeared before the courts, accused of fraudulently claiming NDIS payments as a registered provider. The man, who authorities allege has links to serious organised crime, is accused of claiming more than $1.5 million for services that were never provided. But it is not just the theft of taxpayer money that should horrify this parliament. Behind the fraud statistics are vulnerable Australians being exploited, manipulated and abused by people entrusted with their care.”
“If this is what the government calls sustainability, Australians are right to ask whether anyone is truly in control, because the current trajectory of the scheme is simply not sustainable. We need to be honest about that, especially when this is now the Albanese government's third attempt to rein in the growth of the scheme. In August 2023, the government promised growth would be reduced to eight per cent. They failed. Then in January this year, despite missing that target, they pledged to reduce growth even further to between five and six per cent. They failed again. Now, just four months later and with no achievements under their belt, the 2026-27 budget pledges to reduce growth in the NDIS to just two per cent. I want to be very clear about this. The coalition's support for the scheme remains unwavering.”
“Instead, while this government shuffles numbers around Treasury spreadsheets to make a near-trillion-dollar deficit look more manageable, Australians with disability, their families and their carers are left wondering why they are paying the price for Labor's inability to control spending. There is no denying the NDIS has grown far beyond what was originally expected when it was established 13 years ago. A scheme designed to support around 410,000 Australians is now supporting more than 760,000 people and growing at 10.3 per cent a year. A scheme originally expected to cost $13.6 billion is now approaching $50 billion a year and projected to blow out to around $70 billion by the end of the decade. By the government's own figures, the cost of paid supports continues to surge. This is the NDIS Labor built.”
“Your experiences matter, and I thank you for sharing them. That is why the coalition has called for a Senate inquiry into this bill. Submissions close this Friday, and I encourage anyone who wishes to make a submission to do so. Public hearings will then be held in the week commencing 8 June. These changes are too significant and the consequences too serious for this parliament to simply wave them through without scrutiny. To every person with disability, every family, every carer and every provider watching this debate unfold: you deserve answers about what these changes mean and how they will affect you. Australians still do not know exactly how the Albanese Labor government intends to deliver these savings or what the real impact will be on people with disability.”
“It is independence, it is dignity and it is the chance to work, to participate in community life, to live with greater freedom and confidence, and to access the support they need without feeling like a burden on the people they love. It is meant to provide hope for the future. But, right now, too many people in the disability community feel like hope is slipping away. They feel invisible, they feel unheard and they feel like they are being reduced to nothing more than a line item in the Albanese government's budget papers. But behind every number in this debate is a real person, a real family and a real fear about what comes next. I want people in the disability community to know this: I have read your emails. My office and I have read your stories. We have listened to your fears and we have heard your frustrations.”
“I rise to speak on the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 and I move: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that: To the 761,426 participants and your families: I have heard you. That is why I fought so hard on behalf of the coalition for you to have your say at a Senate inquiry. I hope the government hears your anxiety, worries and concerns too. For Australians living with significant and permanent disability, the NDIS provides not just support but opportunity, and sometimes it is life and death.”
“They deliver thousands of meals and hours and hours of support each year, but they deliver more than food. They deliver connection and they deliver that one person that comes to the door if somebody's lonely. They do so much for our community. As Llandilo RFS marks 75 years and as the Penrith nashos close the chapter on their final commemorative service, we are not just marking dates; we are watching one generation of service hand the torch to another. Thank goodness we still have people like this in our communities—particularly mine—willing to step forward and support people when they're most in need.”
“As flames tore through parts of Australia and volunteer firies worked around the clock, the spirit of Llandilo reached all the way across the world when the Welsh town of Llandeilo, in Carmarthenshire, held fundraisers to support our local brigade, a small town in Wales standing beside a small brigade in Western Sydney. This year I was also deeply proud to stand with the Penrith nashos as they celebrated 75 years since that first national service intake in 1951 and held their final organised commemorative service. It was profoundly moving to read the prayer for our service men and women alongside men who have carried the values of duty, sacrifice and mateship through an entire lifetime of service. I also want to acknowledge the more than 80 volunteers at Nepean Food Services.”
“They are people like the volunteer firies of the Llandilo Rural Fire Brigade, who I had the great honour of joining this year to celebrate their 75th anniversary. That's 75 years of ordinary locals hearing the pager sound and walking out the door whilst the rest of the community shelters inside. That spirit still burns brightly in Llandilo today in people like the late Kevin Crameri, who dedicated an extraordinary 63 years of service to the brigade. I was incredibly proud to help replace the brigade's old, tattered flag and with a new flag that flew over Parliament House on National Flag Day 2025, a very small gesture for a brigade built on generations of sacrifice, courage and service, with a spirit so strong it was recognised across the oceans during the 2020-21 Black Summer bushfires.”
“Right now, in the middle of a relentless cost-of-living crisis, community spirit has never been more important. Behind the economic statistics are real Australians skipping meals, turning off heaters and quietly lining up for food relief for the first time in their lives. In those moments, there is usually a volunteer nearby saying you don't have to do this alone. Across Australia, 9.5 million people volunteered in 2025 through formal or informal volunteering or both. That is almost 43 per cent of Australians over the age of 15. In my electorate of Lindsay, I'm proud to call more than 15,000 people my friends in deeds, because they really are the engines helping those struggling financially, emotionally and socially to keep going.”
“He started plumbing at 17, worked three jobs to get ahead and sacrificed holidays, family time and weekends. His honeymoon was the only break he had. It broke my heart to hear him say about Labor's taxes, 'It makes you not want to get up in the morning and go to work.' When hardworking Australians start asking whether effort is still worth it, we have a serious problem. This government has made it crystal clear: work harder, take the risk, build the business and, the moment you finally get ahead, the Capitol—that is, the Albanese Labor government—swoops in for its cut, and that is how aspiration dies. One extra tax, one extra penalty and more reminders that, in Labor's Hunger Games economy, the harder you work the harder it becomes just to survive the arena.”
“People in Western Sydney are not living in some Canberra fantasy. They are tired of being treated like the districts in T he Hunger Games , expected to do the hard labour, carry the economy on their backs and stay quiet. The people in the Capitol—that is, the Albanese Labor government—beat them down tax after tax, and nowhere is this more true than in my electorate of Lindsay. The people of Lindsay are worried about the changes to the capital gains tax and what it will mean for the workshop they built, the business they sacrificed for or the investment property they bought after hard years of labour—decades of overtime and work on weekends. As I said, these people are extremely concerned. 'The more I have, the more I get punished,' says Aaron, from Penrith.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Last year the Prime Minister said changes to negative gearing would 'push up rents'. Budget papers confirm rents will rise as a result of the government's new housing tax. Why is Labor pushing up rents for all Australians when it promised not to?”
“The real miracle of Easter is finding a chocolate egg that does not require a second mortgage. Here's the part that isn't funny. Families are skipping Easter. One in six Aussie kids are growing up in poverty. Forty-five per cent of people are too ashamed to ask for help. One in three households are wondering what, if anything, they can put on the dinner table tonight. It won't be chocolate, that's for sure. The Albanese Labor government is saying, 'Everything is under control,' while families are frantically doing mental arithmetic in the aisles. The sky is falling. It sounds like a bad April Fools' joke, except it isn't; it's just what it costs to live right now—#costsofcelebratinginaustraliaunderthealabaneselaborgovernment. (Time expired)”
“Once upon a time there was a little chicken running through a village shouting, 'The sky is falling, the sky is falling!' Everyone laughed. They laughed because it was too much—too over the top to be real. But let's picture her for a minute not in a village, but in a supermarket. She's in the Easter aisle, surrounded by pretty foil wrappers, and everything looks exactly as it should. She reaches for a 300-gram bag of mini eggs and turns it over—$37! Since when is a bag of Easter eggs $37? Suddenly, she's not a chicken; she's a mathematician. That bag is 11 bottles of milk. It's 12 loaves of bread. She grabs a 100-gram Cadbury bunny instead—$9.50! That's three loaves of bread for one hollow ear. Even the hot cross buns are $1.38 a pop. I suppose we should be grateful.”
“I commend the bill to the House and move: That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: "whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House: (1) the Government and the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) have been unable to clearly quantify the scale of fraud within the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS); (2) the NDIA Fraud Fusion Taskforce estimates that up to 10 per cent of NDIS claims are inappropriate, mischievous or outright criminal; (3) the Government must do more to prevent the fraud and rorting that is rife within the NDIS; (4) the changes in the bill will do little to remove bad actors from defrauding participants and taxpayers; (5) the changes in the bill provide no direct regulation or fraud controls for the 94 per cent of NDIS providers who are not registered; and (6) robust integrity systems are critical to not only protect taxpayer funds but also to protect NDIS participants from exploitation by unscrupulous providers".”
“We cannot allow either outcome. The coalition's goal is to deliver a stronger NDIS, delivering better outcomes for participants, providers and the taxpayers who fund it. The NDIS is one of Australia's great reforms, but right now it is drifting under poor stewardship. Getting this right really matters. Every dollar matters; every participant matters. The future of the NDIS depends on it.”
“In New South Wales, three people were jailed for defrauding the system of $5.8 million in 2024. Another case involved an alleged $14½ million scheme tied to major provider networks, and, in Western Sydney, a $10 million NDIS fraud syndicate was uncovered in 2022. These are just some examples of the systemic exploitation occurring within the NDIS. Every dollar lost to fraud is a dollar taken away from someone who needs support and from taxpayers. Let me be clear—this bill is a step in the right direction, but tougher penalties alone will not fix the problem. If the system itself is weak, bad behaviour and bad actors will continue to infiltrate it. The NDIS is at a critical juncture. It risks sliding into an unsustainable free-for-all or hardening into a soulless bureaucracy that stifles dignity under the weight of processes.”
“If six to 10 per cent is going astray, we are looking at a staggering loss of between $2.9 million and $4.8 billion every single year. If nothing changes, that could rise to as much as $8 billion annually by the end of the decade. These losses are driven by systemic misconduct, fraud, overservicing, false claims and claims for services never delivered. Law enforcement has warned that organised crime is now targeting the scheme. The examples are right in front of us. In March this year, the Federal Police raided a Sydney home linked to a suspected $3.5 million NDIS fraud syndicate. Days earlier, a man was jailed after misusing the details of 90 NDIS participants to generate fraudulent claims of more than $190,000. In February, a Darwin NDIA employee was charged over an alleged $5 million fraud.”
“These providers are exploiting vulnerable participants and the taxpayers who fund their support, and they're getting away with it because weak checks and inconsistent oversight have opened the door to bad actors. That has to change. The NDIS must detect fraud early and stop exploitation before it harms participants, because, when the system fails, it is participants and their families who pay the price. We cannot pretend this is a small problem. Fraud within the scheme is happening every day. The Australian National Audit Office estimates that six to 10 per cent of payments could be noncompliant, incorrect or fraudulent. The system is identifying around 50,000 potentially risky claims every single day. In 2025, $48.83 billion was spent through the NDIS.”
“Too often, families are left carrying crushing debt because someone chose to exploit them for profit. This sort of conduct is completely unacceptable. Supporting the intent of this bill does not mean ignoring its gaps—and there are serious gaps. With around 94 per cent of providers operating unregistered, there is a massive regulatory blind spot. This bill fails to establish direct fraud controls for the majority of the market, and we see the consequences of this every day. Participants are quoted one price for basic services—cleaning, gardening or everyday supports—then, the moment they mention they are using an NDIS plan, the price jumps. Sometimes, it quadruples. It's the same service, the same job, for a higher price because it's the NDIS. That is unacceptable and an affront to the integrity of the scheme.”