Radio interview with Minister McAllister, ABC Radio Brisbane – 19 August 2026

Media event date: 19 August 2026 Date published: 19 August 2026 Media type: General public STEVE AUSTIN: Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme is Senator Jenny McAllister. Senator, the Government had an achievement. How do you feel this morning?

JENNY MCALLISTER: Look, this is an important outcome for Australians and for Australians with disability in particular. The reforms that we are progressing will make the NDIS safer. It will make it more sustainable and I think importantly, they will secure the social licence for this life changing scheme.

STEVE AUSTIN: It was done significantly through trading with the Opposition. There are 63 amendments to the original bill. What are those major changes?

What do we need to know in detail? Because a number of my listeners this morning, deaf, blind, NDIS participants, people with autism, people whose children are on the spectrum are very concerned they're being traded away. Can you clarify for me please?

JENNY MCALLISTER: We worked across the Parliament to improve the bill over recent weeks, and that's included listening to the voices of the many people who gave evidence to the Senate inquiry, and of course, our own conversations with representatives of the disability community. During the break when Parliament wasn’t sitting I was able to have roundtables with providers and disability advocates around the country, including in Brisbane Ali France was good enough to bring a group of people together in her electorate but in Adelaide, in Geelong, in the Illawarra, I've had a really good chance to talk with people about how best to progress these reforms and that also informed our thinking in terms of the amendments.

The amendments are in two key areas. The first is to make sure that sure that the bill as drafted, as legislated, reflects our policy intent, and we were grateful for advice we received from experts and stakeholders on that. The second, importantly, is to introduce even more powers and penalties in relation to fraud, and there are two areas I'd point out for your listeners, Steve.

The first is that we'll be banning kickbacks and this is essential in dealing with some of the syndicates, the criminal syndicates who are preying on people with disability. The second is to introduce aggravated offences for fraud that occurs in the NDIS and providers who engage in these offences, can expect to face up to 10 years imprisonment. STEVE AUSTIN: OK, that's fine, but if I can come back to the substance of my question, listeners are very concerned that they're now going to be excluded from the scheme.

I'm talking about people who have disabilities like deaf and blind, or people who are on the autism spectrum. There are 63 amendments. What have been the big changes?

I just need to get you to clarify that because people are very worried, Senator. JENNY MCALLISTER: These are big changes to the scheme. STEVE AUSTIN: Yes, but what are they?

JENNY MCALLISTER: The scheme does a number of things, particularly in terms of clarifying eligibility for the scheme. And the legislation sets out a process where, for the first time, we'll make it clear what substantially reduced functional capacity means and how it will be assessed. We'll do that in consultation with the disability community.

We've already established a technical advisory group but in terms of access to the scheme, clearing up who's eligible is one of the key things we've sought to progress through the leg. And the reason for that is that, for a long time who was eligible really hasn't been clear. The scheme now provides for many more people than was originally intended and without intervention we'd expect it to have something in the order of 900,000 people on it by the end of the decade.

STEVE AUSTIN: So who is now eligible? Because the aim was to reduce the number of people who are eligible, and you're telling me it's increased. JENNY MCALLISTER: What I'm saying to you is that without intervention...

STEVE AUSTIN: JENNY MCALLISTER:. ..it would have increased to more than 900,000 people. STEVE AUSTIN: So who is now eligible? JENNY MCALLISTER: We set a benchmark in the legislation that the scheme is for people with permanent and significant disability and we are now seeking advice from experts on a technical advisory group who will work with us.

We'll also be expecting that technical advisory group to consult closely with the disability community. This is something we need to do together. I will say too it is a recommendation that came to us from the independent review of the NDIS back in 2023.

Their advice was that we needed to make eligibility for the scheme much clearer than it had been to date. STEVE AUSTIN: Alright, my guest is the Minister, Australia's Minister for National Disability Insurance Scheme the NDIS Labor Senator Jenny McAllister. This is 612 ABC Brisbane, Steve Austin's my name.

The Thriving Kids Program. Where are the negotiations at with the Queensland State Government? Because we're the only State, I think apart from the Northern Territory, that's not signed up to that.

Where are negotiations at, Minister, can you say? JENNY MCALLISTER: Well, in fact, every jurisdiction except for Queensland has now prepared their implementation plan. And so from October, around the country, we will expect to see services rolled out.

You know, in New South Wales for example, there'll be supported playgroups for children aged five and under. You know, these are really important programs that will be on the ground and starting to operate in October. The Queensland Government also agreed to implement programs of this kind when they signed on to the deal.

I think Queensland communities will be expecting the Queensland Government to get on board with this. There are going to be new services in places where kids and families play and learn. I reckon Queensland communities are going to want to see their government roll these out, just as they'll be rolled out in other parts of the country.

STEVE AUSTIN: All right. What's in it for the Queensland Government because the NDIS was looking after people on the autism spectrum. Now, two of the three categories, I think, forgive me for my shortness of memory, but two of the three categories of the NDIS scheme will be transferred, inverted commas, to the state Thriving Kids program although it was the Federal Government that thrust that back on the States.

So can you clarify around sort of, it comes to this question of substantially reduced capacity when it comes to autism. Is that right? About whether you're on the state program or whether the NDIS looks after you?

JENNY MCALLISTER: I think the main point is that it's not to do with your diagnosis. Irrespective of your underlying diagnosis, the test for being part of the NDIS is whether or not your disability is significant and permanent. And we'll establish a threshold for that and I've talked a little bit about the way that we'll do that, working with experts and people in the disability community.

But the main point is this Steve, the NDIS was never intended to provide support for all people with disability. STEVE AUSTIN: I understand that, yeah. JENNY MCALLISTER: So if you have lower support needs, there should be supports in the community for you other than the NDIS.

That's what foundational supports is all about. States and Territories agreed with the Commonwealth that we'd together invest $10 billion to stand those up across the country. They also agreed, by the way, that the Commonwealth would put an additional $25 billion into the hospital services of States and Territories and I think Queensland gets something in the order of $5 billion as part of that agreement.

We do expect the Queensland Government to honour that deal and we actually think that it's in the interests of Queensland citizens and all those communities up and down your big State. They're going to expect to see the Queensland Government honour that deal as well. STEVE AUSTIN: We haven't signed yet and they have till October.

Do I understand it correctly? JENNY MCALLISTER: That is correct. We're expecting States and Territories to start standing up these services in October and then they'll have until January 2028 to get them in place.

We're not going to make any changes to the access arrangements for the scheme until 2028 and that's why we set it up this way. So we've got time between October and then to roll these services out. STEVE AUSTIN: How much is it going to cost the state of Queensland?

JENNY MCALLISTER: Look, we expect Queensland to make a co-contribution, but the bulk of the $10 billion, my apologies, of the $4 billion allocated to Thriving Kids is actually going to the States and Territories to roll out these services. This was something States and Territories asked for. They indicated during the discussions between our jurisdictions that they wanted to run these services themselves.

And just so your listeners know, the kinds of things we're thinking about are playgroups, they are maternal child health checks. In other States, we're going to see telephone hotlines, we're going to see supports for children who have developmental or learning difficulties. These are really important supports that are going to be available to families carefully curated that respond to the sorts of early learning difficulties that sometimes just happen for kids.

We want kids to have easy access to these. We don't want them to have to go through a complex access process to access the NDIS. We think we can do a lot better by working with States and Territories to deliver these supports on the ground in the environments where families are already visiting.

Maternal child health centres, playgroups, early childhood, schools. These are the places where we want these supports to be able to be accessed by families. STEVE AUSTIN: Final question.

There was a lot of debate over automated decision making. Where did that land? I know you're trying to tackle fraud, but the algorithm that makes many of these decisions, where did that land, Minister?

JENNY MCALLISTER: Look, we are well aware of the mistakes made by previous governments in relation to automated decision making. We don't intend to repeat those. For the first time, this bill puts in place really clear safeguards for the use of automation in the scheme.

STEVE AUSTIN: So automation will still be used? JENNY MCALLISTER: There are a very limited number of areas within the scheme, including the payment system, where automation is explicitly authorised by the bill. But the key is this, Steve.

If a Minister wishes to extend automation to other parts of the scheme, they'll need to bring that forward in an instrument to the Parliament for scrutiny by the Parliament. It sets up a key scrutiny mechanism, parliamentary oversight, if a Minister wishes to extend automation any further than what's explicitly authorised in the legislation. STEVE AUSTIN: I know you're busy.

Thanks for your time, Senator. JENNY MCALLISTER: It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me on.

Senator the Hon Jenny McAllister Disability and carers 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