2SM Breakfast with Chris Smith - 2 December 2025

Melissa McIntosh MP 
Shadow Minister for Communications 
Shadow Minister for Women 
Federal Member for Lindsay 

Tuesday, 2 December 2025 

Transcript 

 

2SM Breakfast with Chris Smith 

 

Subject: Immigration rates; Penny Wong's questioning under Senate Estimates over Brittany Higgins’ rape investigation; $1.6 million spent on new Greens party room. 

E&OE …   

 

Chris Smith 

Melissa McIntosh is the federal member for Lindsay, and opposition spokesperson on communication and women. She joins us right now. Melissa, welcome to the Super Radio Network once again.  

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, good morning. It's so good to be back in Penrith out of Canberra for the year.  

Chris Smith 

I bet you are relieved that the sitting days are over! What’s a normal day entail for you? When do you get up in the morning on a busy day, and when do you end up putting your head on the pillow at night? 

Melissa McIntosh 

It’s early, six o’clock into Parliament House, and probably not out until 9pm at the earliest. And when I’m there, I try to fill my day and make the most of it, Question Time, speeches representing your community and just putting as much pressure on the government as you can. 

Chris Smith 

Hard yakka - 

Melissa McIntosh 

If you're doing it well.  

Chris Smith 

Hard yakka, right?  

Melissa McIntosh 

I don't know... I don’t how much sympathy your listeners would have, though!  

Chris Smith 

So, you’re back in the land of the real people and counting down to the end of the year. There’s too much common sense coming out of your office. You actually ask your community what they think and you survey them. The latest survey you’ve got is on the issue of immigration. What are the people of Lindsay telling you about immigration? 

Melissa McIntosh 

As you know, I surveyed them on net zero, and I was able to arm myself into the party room and represent my community, and we dropped net zero by 2050. I’ve asked them now about immigration and I did that last night, I put out the survey and we’re almost at a thousand responses... 

Chris Smith 

Wow. 

Melissa McIntosh 

...Which is pretty extraordinary, and eighty-six per cent say that it’s really important to them, ninety-one per cent of people so far saying it’s placing significant pressure on our services and our infrastructure, like our roads, our schools, our hospital; and ninety per cent want us to decrease the level of immigration. 

Chris Smith 

Ninety per cent want you to decrease. See, this is why the mainstream media should not of rubbished the mass immigration rallies. And yes, there were some unfortunate characters who turned up who we won’t mention, but you can’t rubbish that kind of sentiment when so many people turn up, so many people love their country, so many people come from ethnic backgrounds themselves, but they’re not saying stop immigration, none of them are saying that. It’s not stop immigration; it’s about stopping the record number of immigrants that are coming over because we can’t keep up and sustain those numbers. 

Melissa McIntosh 

That’s right, and you shouldn’t be called racist for saying it’s harming people, this level of immigration, because it’s not about race. I’ve said I’ve got a wonderful multicultural community – it's not about that. Residents, it doesn’t matter where they’ve come from, I’ve got a migrant background, my dad came out to Australia after the war, and that’s what’s built our great country. But like what joseph from Glenmore Park wrote to me, and he said it’s putting pressure on all Australian families – in health, road systems, cost of living and housing. Everyone is feeling the pressure, and they know one of the major reasons that is causing it is immigration. We should be able to have this debate. 

Chris Smith 

Instead of jumping saying, oh, you're racist because you're raising the issue of immigration, that is such a blindsided, immature way to debate the situation. All right.  

Melissa McIntosh 

You're right.  

Chris Smith 

Penny Wong was grilled at Senate Estimates yesterday – the Foreign Minister - and asked if the Prime Minister and she personally would accept the findings of two superior courts in WA, that there was no cover-up into the investigation of the rape of Brittany Higgins. But, it seems as if politics wins over court room verdicts, because have a listen to the non-answer Penny Wong coughed up to the committee. Have a listen. 

[Audio plays] 

Anne Ruston 

So, given the findings of the two superior Australian courts, will you now acknowledge that accusations by you and your government of a cover-up, were in fact unfounded? 

Penny Wong 

Well. I’ve already given that answer. I’ve said the independence of the judiciary is an essential element of the Westminster system, so to is the accountability to the Parliament and the role of the opposition. Um. And I would note, as I said previously, you make not be asking questions about the issue, meaning a young woman’s sexual assault, but that is at the heart of this matter. 

Anne Ruston 

I take the issue of that sexual assault very very seriously, Minister, very seriously. But that is not what I’m asking about. And I draw to your attention your comments, on several occasions, where you made the accusation of a cover-up, and someone just asking on the basis of the finding of these two courts, are you prepared to admit that those accusations made by you on many occasions were unfounded? 

Penny Wong 

I refer you to my previous answers, Senator. 

[End audio]  

Chris Smith 

So, Penny Wong’s imputation there is that the courts are independent, they can make their own decision, but so too can she, can the Prime Minister, can people within the Parliament; in other words, we don’t agree with the decision that has been handed down. But she didn’t put it in those words because she obviously thinks that Linda Reynolds will sue her backside off. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Chris, it’s really a case here of, you know, sidestepping and dancing around a question, and the trickery of language that Labor has become so expert at.  

Chris Smith 

Yeah. That’s a very careful answer. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, no, sorry there was a pause, I didn’t know if you’d dropped off the line there. 

Chris Smith 

No, I didn’t drop off the line, but I get the feeling that they do not believe in the decision, they want to stand by their political comments that there was a cover-up, yet the courts have made the decision on two separate occasions that there was no cover-up. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well yeah, and that’s right. And I’m very sincere in saying she’s going to dance around her comments to try and avoid any further scrutiny or any further legal challenges here. Not answering the question in Senate Estimates, taking things on notice, dancing around, as I said, the words she’s using. There are women waiting for the wrong to be right. 

Chris Smith 

Yeah. 

Melissa McIntosh 

And Linda Reynolds and her chief of staff - and her chief of staff in particular - it’s devastating what they went through. And once again it’s like one rule for the left women, another rule for conservative women, and we don’t deserve to be treated fairly. 

Chris Smith 

Well, if they had any dignity, they would say because of what’s been decided by the courts and the incremental way that they’ve gone through the evidence; we take back our allegations previously that there was a cover-up. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Of course! There needs to be apologising. What’s the Prime Minister, his press conference where he once again skirted around the issue. But could you imagine if it was the other side? And if the Prime Minister was a Coalition prime minister dealing with this? It would be relentless. 

Chris Smith 

Yep. It’d be relentless, and he’d be called on to resign. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yes, exactly right. And that’s what I’m saying; it’s one rule for them, another rule for everyone else. I really hope for the sake of Linda and her chief of staff that we do finally get to the bottom of this and that we hear some apologies from the Labor party. 

Chris Smith 

One last issue. There are eleven Greens MPs federally, ten of them in the Senate; they’ve only got one of them in the lower house now. But they have demanded and received a fourth party room, a meeting room in Parliament House at a cost of $1.6 million dollars. This would have to be the most luxurious phone box in Canberra, Melissa! 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well haven’t you heard the Greens, the Member for Ryan, the Greens representative thinks she’s the deputy prime minister now after the deal they did with Labor on the environment, so maybe this is her renovating the mini lodge, I don’t know, its unfathomable. The Greens are just so righteous on so many issues, but it’s ok for them to spend $1.6 million dollars in upgrading a party room when there’s eleven of them. I don’t know about that. 

Chris Smith 

It’s just farcical. Hey, fantastic to have you on the program again, thank you for doing it at a different time than we normally do, and all the best for Christmas by the way. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Thank you, you too. 

[Ends]