Radio interview with Minister McAllister, ABC Hobart & Northern Tasmania Mornings – 15 June 2026

Media event date: 15 June 2026 Date published: 15 June 2026 Media type: General public LEON COMPTON: What would you like to know about the federal government's proposed changes to the National Disability Insurance Scheme? Jenny McAllister, Senator and Minister for the NDIS, joins us this morning, Minister. Good morning to you.

JENNY MCALLISTER: Good morning, Liam. LEON COMPTON: And thank you for coming on this morning. You know that Tasmania has as many people, in fact, more per capita than anywhere in the country reliant on the NDIS.

So, this is a huge issue for our listeners. Are you actually ready to make these changes? Would it be appropriate, Minister, to delay some of what you've put on the table?

JENNY MCALLISTER: We've been discussing NDIS reform since 2023 when we received the independent review of the NDIS. We've been consulted widely through that review and we've been talking since with people with disability and also with the states and territories around this. The NDIS is an absolute game changer for people with disability and their families.

It is a huge human rights achievement and we want that to continue into the future, but right now it's not on track. It does cost much more than ever expected. There is too much fraud and the quality of services being provided to people with disability isn't always up to scratch, and our package of reform is designed to tackle all of these issues.

LEON COMPTON: On Mornings Around Tasmania, I'd like to play you a little bit of Emma Bennison. She joined us earlier this morning, she's a Tasmanian and also the CEO of the Disability Advocacy Network of Tasmania, Minister, this is Emma Bennison. [RECORDING] EMMA BENNISON: What I would like to know is, you know, what is going to happen to people who are no longer eligible for the scheme, and where are they going to go, and whether there will be a guarantee that no matter where in this country you live, you can expect to get a comparable level of service to what you would have had under the NDIS.

LEON COMPTON: Will there be a guarantee, Jenny McAllister, of a comparable level of service to what you would have had under the NDIS? For those that you're planning to shift off the scheme? JENNY MCALLISTER: This scheme was always intended for people with significant and permanent disability, but the guidelines around eligibility were never made sufficiently clear, and so the scheme now covers many more people than was originally intended.

We are really confident that working with the states and territories, we can provide appropriate supports, get the supports that people need for people whose support needs are lower. Individualized packages are incredibly significant for people with permanent significant lifelong disability. For people with lower support needs, we think there are different ways that we can provide those supports.

States and territories and the Commonwealth agreed some time ago that we would together invest $10 billion to stand those supports up, and they're the kinds of supports that were once widely available in community prior to the NDIS. We need to build that system back up. LEON COMPTON: And people have real concerns, and you'll hear this every day about the ability of the state to step in and reactivate what are now atrophied abilities to develop services that had been taken over by the NDIS.

How confident are you that the state and this state, Tasmania, can step in and do that responsibly? JENNY MCALLISTER: Two things here, I'm really pleased with the progress that's being made on thriving kids. We have a national model of the kinds of supports that each state and territory will deliver, and they've agreed to that.

They're now getting on with the business of designing a tailored package for their state, co-funded between the Commonwealth and the state, to put those supports back in place for kids. I'm really confident that we'll be able to do similar things for other kinds of supports targeted at the adult population. LEON COMPTON: Are you confident that Tasmania, so you've talked about the national relationship between yourself and the states and territories, are you confident that Tasmania can deliver what is promised under thriving kids?

JENNY MCALLISTER: I work really closely with my counterpart, the Minister in Tasmania, and really that is a question for them, but all states and territories have said they want to do this, and $10 billion just for reference for your listeners, is about the same amount that was being spent on disability prior to the NDIS. We really think that there's a chance here to build up some really strong community services and mainstream services that people will be able to access.

LEON COMPTON: Mornings around Tasmania. My guest this morning, Minister for the NDIS, Jenna McAllister, Senator for New South Wales. Lots of change on the way.

What would you like to know? Lots of texts coming in. This is from Mary, Minister, regarding NDIS reform, if this legislation is passed, we know that the social and community budget is first on the chopping block for cuts.

However, this legislation gives the Minister of the day the power to set prices, any prices in the future for cuts, despite it might costing 100% In other words, a minister might demand that personal care is cut by 80% leaving a significant shortfall that could leave people in jeopardy. How does the minister explain the power shift? Asked by Mary this morning.

JENNY MCALLISTER: It's a good question from Mary. Our intention is to reset social and community participation budgets back to where they were in about 2023 This is an incredibly fast-growing part of the scheme. It's grown very significantly in recent years.

Currently, just this part of the scheme alone costs about as much as we spend on the PBS. Unchecked, it will grow to $20 billion a year by the end of the decade, and so we're making an intervention to reset the amount of social and community participation budget that will be in participants' plans. Importantly, it will still be a feature of participants' plans.

We recognize that this is a key feature of the scheme, and we want our participants to still be able to access supports of this kind. LEON COMPTON: So Emma Benison warned us earlier that, you know, it's been branded as, you know, cutting people's ability to access coffee or holidays, when in reality it might include medical treatments or important social activities that, you know, connect Tasmanians with their communities.

JENNY MCALLISTER: Two things; we want people to be connected, and social and community participation will continue to be a key feature of the scheme. But secondly, we thought really carefully about how to tackle runaway costs and we chose this area so we could preserve the supports that are available in other areas, assistance at home, medication management support, for example, for consumables like products to help manage incontinence.

Those things are unaffected by this change. LEON COMPTON: So, how will you save money then in that social inclusion space? What is your goal?

How will you save money? How should our listener, relying on the NDIS this morning, understand what's coming down the line there? JENNY MCALLISTER: So, the average participant budget spend on social and community participation at the moment is around $31,000 a year.

That's not their whole spend within the NDIS, that's just for this part of it. Under our changes, we expect that for the average participant that will go would be around $26,000 a year. So, you can see that there is a change, but there's still a substantial investment being made in that person's ability to connect the community, and that's a good thing.

We want people with disability to live good lives and connected lives. We're also making an investment of $200 million in the Inclusive Communities Fund. In part, we see some of these activities as being not very social or community focused at all.

We're worried that sometimes people are leaving the house accompanied by a carer, but actually not really connecting with anybody, and the Inclusive Communities Fund is designed to make sure that mainstream organizations, sports clubs, art centres, community organizations are actually able to welcome people with disability into those communities and actually generate that connection that people rightly are so hungry for.

LEON COMPTON: 936 ABC Hobart, ABC North Tas, Jenny McAllister, Australian Senator for New South Wales, Minister for the NDIS, along with Mark Butler, I think, who is your co-minister in this space. What would you like to know? Get in touch. 1300 222 936.

Minister, we spoke to Jamie before news at 9o'clock He's a NDIS provider on Flinders Island. In fact, he's the only provider on Flinders Island. Here was his concern. [RECORDING] CALLER: How much consideration has been given to providers of supports in very remote areas across the country?

One of the challenges that we face is, I guess supporting our staff to become appropriately qualified in time, and that's a really hard thing to do, to find qualified staff in very low populated places. LEON COMPTON: Finding qualified staff, and he went on to say, Jenny McAllister, then the difficulty is finding the auditors from the NDIS who will come and actually do the checking, the testing, and the training to make sure those people are appropriately qualified under the NDIS changes.

What's your response to that? JENNY MCALLISTER: Great that Jamie is providing a service into that community on Flinders Island. It's one of the most remote places in the country.

A couple of things across the care economy, not just in the NDIS. We do need to see increasing numbers of staff. It's a growing area of the Australian economy.

One of the reasons the government is investing so heavily in Free TAFE is to make sure that there are pathways for people to obtain the qualifications that they require. We do also in remote service delivery offer quite substantial loadings, so that providers who are traveling to provide those services are compensated for the travel that they need to undertake to service those remote communities, and in the transition to registration, which I think is what Jamie's talking about it's important to remember this at the moment, very few providers are registered, and we're deeply concerned about the quality issues that that is presenting in the sector, and the safety issues that that may present to people with disability.

We want good providers to be recognized and to be accountable for the services that they're providing to disabled people. Of course, we'll take a sensible approach to implementation. We'll work with providers, particularly in remote locations, to understand what they need, but it is critical that we move to registration.

This scheme was premised on having quality services available to people with disability, and we have to be able to secure that. LEON COMPTON: 1300 222 936 is the number. If you'd like to give us a call this morning, my guest minister for the NDIS, Jenny McAllister, on mornings right around Tasmania.

Leon, thanks for having Jamie on earlier today. They do a great job on Flinders. I support them as a speech therapist, but my travel rates were cut in half by the NDIS last July, making the travel there more difficult.

The new changes would be devastating to remote and very remote areas. To that listener, and she hasn't, or the he or she hasn't included their name on their text, Minister. But so this is a speech therapist working with Jamie's provider company on Flinders Island, their travel rates were cut.

That makes it harder to provide services on Flinders, and the new changes potentially make it harder still. What would you say in that situation? JENNY MCALLISTER: I'd be interested to understand why your caller believes that be the case, our changes are really designed to make the NDIS operate with integrity, to make sure that participants get quality services, and to make sure that runaway costs are kept under control.

I'm not sure that that would impact on the allied health services that your caller is providing, but I'd be interested to learn more about it. LEON COMPTON: Lots of people texting in this morning. 1300 222 936 Ross in Margate says, Minister, read the NDIS. Are these changes going to address the root cause of the massive expense being the gouging by registered and unregistered quote suppliers?

The cost schedules are simply way overpriced, and cutting services won't fix that problem, says Ross in Margate this morning. Minister. JENNY MCALLISTER: it's a really different perspective from your previous caller, isn't it?

A couple of things here, there's no single reason why the NDIS costs more than we originally expected, but our changes do a couple of things. They make it clear who's eligible, and we do see we do expect that fewer people will be eligible to be on the NDIS once the reforms are implemented. We do also reset supports in a couple of areas to deal with runaway cost growth, and we continually adjust our pricing.

We know that across the care economy we see different pricing for similar kinds of services, and we don't want to see distortions across the care economy. We need to price the NDIS at a level that encourages providers into the market, but we also want to make sure that it doesn't distort other parts of the economy, like the veteran services or aged care services.

Each year, when we do the pricing review, we think about that very carefully. LEON COMPTON: 936 ABC Hobart, ABC North Tas. You can give us a call as well.

Jen McAllister is our guest minister for the NDIS. Lynn's in Lindisfarne. Lynn, good morning to you.

Good morning. Thank you for taking the call. LEON COMPTON: You wanted to comment, Lynn.

Look, what worries me, and I've certainly seen it, is the responsibility of parents seem to be overridden by NDIS. NDIS is not the… everything comes out of NDIS. Parents still have a responsibility to pay for things that their children require, and I give the example of one person that I'm aware of… LEON COMPTON: So, I'll just say to you, Lynn, let's be careful of identifying anybody.

No names, no names, but wanted a computer, wanted a particular chair, wanted a particular gaming stick. When my children were growing up, I bought them computers, that was my responsibility. It wasn't about them being disabled and needing that.

LEON COMPTON: But Lynn, the issue is, and I'll throw it back to the minister who's sitting with us this morning, but the issue is the chair that I'm sitting on right now in the studio might cost 180 bucks. The chair that that child might need might cost 1800 and where that difference exists. Do you think that there should be federal support for covering that additional cost?

I believe there should be some. NDIS cannot fund every single thing that my disabled child requires. If I'm on a Centrelink payment, I am paid a percentage to fund my child's requirements.

So, what happens? Oh, I go to NDIS, and what do I spend the money on? LEON COMPTON: Lynne, I'll put it back.

I hear what you're saying, and I think that point can be distilled for Jenny McAllister, the minister for the NDIS, Minister, you heard what Lynn has to say. Will there be greater responsibility placed back onto parents for funding their children's needs? JENNY MCALLISTER: People with disability do need additional supports, and it's that's the premise that the NDIS is based on.

We want people with disability to live full active lives included in our communities, and the government's not ever going to step away from that. It's never been the case that the NDIS was designed to meet ordinary costs of living. It's really specific, it's there to provide those disability supports that arise specifically because of your disability, and that's the approach we take in most of the decisions that we're making.

It is true that over the last decade more should have been done to make clear what supports are included and what and what are not. Back in 2024 we put legislation through the parliament that made that much clearer, and my sense is that that is operating much better in the community now than it was when we came to government. Under the Liberals.

It wasn't dealt with at all. LEON COMPTON: Do you need to pass this through parliament? These changes, does that still need to happen for them to become real?

JENNY MCALLISTER: Many of the changes that we're seeking to pursue do require legislation, and it's we have a bill before the parliament at the moment. It includes, amongst other things, some really significant powers for the NDIA, that's the agency that manages the scheme, to investigate, tackle, and sanction fraud in the system. I am particularly keen to see those powers passed through the parliament and switched on, because I want the agency to have the powers that it needs to deal with wrongdoing in this scheme.

LEON COMPTON: Lots of people texting in about fraud in the system. Is there a lot of that happening in Tasmania that you can see, Minister? JENNY MCALLISTER: We see it across the country, and where we see it, we tackle it.

When we came to government, there was almost zero enforcement capability in the system. We have invested many millions of dollars in standing up investigative capability, improving our data and analytics, and it, so we can see where wrongdoing is occurring. This has been a key focus for the government, we're increasingly experiencing our ability to identify, detect, and disrupt fraudulent behaviour.

Just this year, we've seen in the order of four custodial sentences handed down to people who've committed fraud against the scheme. It's really important. This is a life-changing scheme, but it has to operate with integrity, and I think the community expects that.

LEON COMPTON: Just a final one. We appreciate you spending time with us, and we hope you'll continue to do it, Jenny McAllister, our guest this morning. Just a final one.

As I look through the dozens of texts that have come in while we've started talking, there is a broad concern, a scepticism that the Tasmanian government will not be competent to deliver the services that you'll be withdrawing from. Will you make a guarantee to our listeners, Minister, that you will not be handing stuff over to the states until you are convinced that they can handle it?

JENNY MCALLISTER: The NDIS has always been a shared project between the states and the territories… LEON COMPTON: Yeah, but this involves lots of we’re stopping, the state needs to start, and our listeners are concerned about what that looks like. Can you guarantee you won't be handing stuff to the states to manage, particularly for children with autism diagnoses, that you won't hand that stuff over to the state until you're confident, they can be competent in delivering that?

JENNY MCALLISTER: The Prime Minister, Minister Butler, and myself have been really clear that we don't want to see people fall between two stools, and so we want the supports in place. The access changes we're considering, the eligibility changes, don't commence till 2028 That gives us time to stand up the services that are necessary. In the case of children, I'm really pleased to see the states and territories building up those service systems.

We expect to see the first of those services starting to roll out this year with full mature services in place by 2028. LEON COMPTON: Appreciate you talking to us this morning. Thanks, Minister.

JENNY MCALLISTER: It's a pleasure, Leon. Thanks for having me. Senator the Hon Jenny McAllister Disability and carers Is there anything wrong with this page?

Help us improve health.gov.au If you would like a response please provide an email address. Your email address is covered by our privacy policy Email address What you were doing? (mandatory) What went wrong?

(mandatory) Leave this field blank Accessibility We acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Country throughout Australia, and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to them and their cultures, and to Elders both past and present. © Commonwealth of Australia