2SM with Chris Smith - 13 January 2026

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

13 January 2026

Transcript

2SM with Chris Smith

Topics: Early recall of Parliament; Social Media Ban; Tasmanian MPs lewd comments.

E&EO …

Chris Smith

Already changing her flights is the Federal Member for Lindsay and Opposition Communications spokesperson Melissa McIntosh, who is on the line. Happy New Year and great to have you back, Melissa.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you. Happy New Year to you and all your listeners, and you’ll be pleased to know I drive myself.

Chris Smith

You drive from Penrith to Canberra; you don’t take flights?

Melissa McIntosh

No, I’ve always done it, and it’s a good drive, particularly...

Chris Smith

Why?

Melissa McIntosh

Well, it’s just something I’ve always done, and I think I don’t need to Canberra from Penrith. It’s a three hour drive down the Hume Highway and a good time to reflect, I guess, what’s going on in the world.

Chris Smith

If only we had more politicians who didn’t mind a good drive, that would be quite good for the bottom line. All right, we're all coming back. You've changed your driving instructions and you're heading down there no doubt on Monday or Sunday. Is this politicking to link a gun buyback scheme, which I think is unnecessary, with hate speech laws? Aren't they two very different things?

Melissa McIntosh

They are two very different things and they're both very complex. One of the concerns, I think, in addition to that, because on our side of politics, there's different views as well, is that we've only just been given that legislation; I haven't seen it, as the Coalition was given it late yesterday. There's around 500 pages. And we need to do this for Monday.

Chris Smith

And you've got to read those 500 pages, or does someone do a summary sheet for you? 500 pages!

Melissa McIntosh

Well, I think it's important we all get across it as much as we can, even if it's not in your portfolio area, because it is law that's going to impact our whole country going forward, and it's in response to our country's worst terrorist attack. It's a big issue for Australians. I'm getting a lot of correspondence in my office and people want us to do the right thing, but it is rushed. So, one of my concerns personally is that if there's parts of legislation that we don't like, then we don't want the government saying don't care about this legislation. So, we need to have the opportunity to investigate it and then offer amendments to it, and for the government to seriously want to work with the Coalition on this legislation.

Chris Smith

But it needs to be separated, doesn’t it? That's the first thing that needs to be done.

Melissa McIntosh

Well, we haven't even really seen the details. So, they're two different things, aren't they? It would make sense if they were in separate bills; that would have been the best way. But this is what the government is giving us.

Chris Smith

In a press conference earlier today, Anthony Albanese was asked questions about why farmers should suffer, those on periphery of, say, metropolitan areas who are possessors of guns, have licenses, need them for their properties, etc. Why should they be punished because of what two Islamic extremists did at Bondi Beach? It was a legitimate question. He said that they wouldn't be punished. I don't know how that can occur, given what he's already said about the buyback.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, he needs to expand on that and let Australians know what not being punished actually means. And once again, it's in the detail, isn't it? You know, farmers being caught up in this; these are two different issues when you're talking about violent extremism, and ideology, verses farmers doing their job on the land. So once again, the Prime Minister needs to let Australians know, and the Coalition, we need to be able to dissect that. It's a very important issue for many people in the Coalition, particularly the Nationals. But we want legislation that will strengthen our laws to protect Australians.

Chris Smith

So, I guess because he's brought you back two weeks earlier, the attempt is to try and pass this stuff within a week or a week and a half. That sounds awfully rushed.

Melissa McIntosh

It will be to get this done. This isn't to go back and just have a discussion. It will be to pass legislation and to make it law as quickly as possible. But you've got to remember; it took a long time to get the Prime Minister here. It’s not only the Opposition calling on a Royal Commission and for things to be done. The whole country, I think, was getting fed up with the Prime Minister dragging his feet on all of these issues. And he's been dragging his feet for two years now. This is not something that's just happened. The escalation of hate across our country, particularly towards Jewish Australians - antisemitism - it was terrible, absolutely terrible what people have been going through the last couple of years.

Chris Smith

And it was allowed to fester.

Melissa McIntosh

It was allowed to fester, and then the terrible attack in Bondi happened, a terrorist attack on innocent people, a 10-year-old girl killed, and it took that for the Prime Minister then to be slow again on taking any action. But we'll do the right thing. We want this law to work, as I said, to ensure that Australians are safe.

Chris Smith

Next issue, the social media ban for under-16s. A month into this ban, and the story coming back from parents, schools and kids has been pretty blunt. Very few accounts shut down, age verification easily gamed, and teenagers simply hopping across to platforms that weren't even covered by the ban. How do you read what's going on at the moment in reference to this?

Melissa McIntosh

I haven't actually spoken to anyone that said that it's worked. This is the time that you spend over the holidays talking to family members or catching up with friends. I don't know anyone that's said that it's been successful. And a lot of people have been actually discussing how their kids have gotten around it, which I'm not surprised. We've been warning that this ban could potentially fail, and the Prime Minister was asked what constitutes success when it comes to the ban. He said, success is we're having a national conversation. Well, it's a pretty expensive conversation. We've had a minister fly to New York, ramp up and do a big PR exercise before the ban even came into place. And then we rushed legislation through Parliament. Australians pay for all of this. For a ban that people seem to have already gotten around. It's meant to be about protecting children. That's why the Coalition supported it, the intent of it, but we do not support a ban that fails. And the government needs to let Australians know what success is. Are they actually measuring it?

Chris Smith

Are they measuring it? That's the main point. And the other point is, have they just decided to all go on holiday in the eSafety Commission offices and elsewhere, go and come back at the end of January and start, you know, strictly policing it? Maybe this is to come. I don't know.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, well, they've promised big fines for these tech companies up to almost $50 million if they don't comply. But what does not comply mean when you're hearing about all these kids that are still using social media? And we also know that if they happen to be kicked off these platforms, they're moving across to other social media platforms that haven't been caught up in the ban. And they're also potentially moving into more unsafe places in the digital world, which is a concern as well.

Chris Smith

I noticed that Meta said it's removed more than half a million Australian children from Facebook, Instagram and Threads, but also said it makes things worse, because there's no control over what kids see in a logged-out state.

Melissa McIntosh

And that's something I've particularly been saying all along, that you could kick kids off social media, but there are social media platforms where kids can just roam around and those protections that have been put in place by platforms to protect them when it comes to algorithms, they're just not there anymore. And I question Meta with those numbers as well. It would be good to see the details. Are they inactive accounts? Are they actually kids? We don't know. There's not enough information to know who these people are that have been kicked off. I'd like to see that. And in the scheme of things, even though it sounds like a big number, 500,000, it doesn't even scratch the surface.

Chris Smith

And I wouldn't believe anything Meta says anyway. What do you make of this so-called scandal, which seems to be getting brushed off as a bit of a joke? Three Labor women MPs from Tassie caught out deciding whether to ‘marry, shag or shoot’ male opposition MPs. We've had the mean girls, Melissa. Now, these are the dirty girls from Tassie!

Melissa McIntosh

It’s very true what you just said. I've always said that it seems to be one rule for us on our side of politics and another rule for the Labor women. They get away, as you said, with being mean girls. And this is pretty off. You don't want to carry on and make something big of an issue like this when there's so much going on in the world. But you do think, well, if a guy had done that to women, it wouldn't be on. It'd be an outrage. And these aren't just junior newbie MPs that don't know what's going on; these are senior Labor shadow ministers. We have an Opposition leader who was involved with that, who's now a federal member of parliament. She's the Assistant Minister for Women in the Albanese Government. So, it's not on. You need to be respectful in this type of job. There's an additional expectation on members of parliament, particularly in public places. And I think most Australians would think that's pretty off.

Chris Smith

Okay. I'll put that to our listeners. Marry, shag or shoot, is it a fair game to be played by MPs in Tasmania? Great to have you on the program, all the very best for your drive to Canberra and good luck for 2026.

Melissa McIntosh

I'll play some of your tunes on the way down; they're good ones.

Chris Smith

Yes, please do. Thank you very much for that. Melissa McIntosh, the Member for Lindsay.