4BC with Gary Hardgrave - 9 December 2025

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

Tuesday, 9 December 2025

Transcript

4BC Radio with Gary Hardgrave

Subject: Triple Zero Inquiry; Communications Minister Anika Wells travel expenses; Social media ban; Age verification and Digital ID; Australian’s data stored off-shore.

E&OE ....

Gary Hardgrave: Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh. She seems to always be available and accountable, she joins us now. Good to talk to you Melissa McIntosh. Anika Wells can't seem to, can't seem to be found anywhere. Do you know where she is?

Melissa McIntosh: She should be doing her, thank you for having me on first and foremost, I'm launching straight into it. She should be doing her job, but the thing is, she's not, and she's spending too much time at sporting events overseas keeping comcars waiting for hours on end, and this is a serious one. I want to say you won't believe this bit, but I think you might and your listeners might too. It's been revealed in this Senate inquiry today that this death happened in September and we didn't find out about it until today, today; and then it has been revealed that the department let the Minister's chief of staff know about this death when she was in New York. That's extraordinary. A death occurred on her watch, she was in New York, her chief of staff was told, yet she did not tell anyone about it. We find out today.

Gary Hardgrave: Wow.

Melissa McIntosh: The story just keeps going, you can't make it up.

Gary Hardgrave: No, you can't, and you don't need to make it up because it's all revealing itself; and I kind of thought, to be honest, that because she's a Labor Party member, she's a woman and it's close to Christmas, she'll probably get away with all of this. The entitlement thing is one issue that's really, really upsetting a lot of people. The word entitlement alone, Melissa McIntosh, but it's judgement, it's about personal ethics on this. You can't keep a comcar waiting. They're at rack rate. They're expensive comcars. They charge by the quarter hour from memory so $1,000 worth of waiting. It's just embarrassing. I wouldn't want my name on that bill. I wouldn't want to be that person.

Melissa McIntosh: Yeah, and we're hearing as well that she hasn't done it just once, it's on multiple occasions; and that's over $1,000 while she spent hours and hours at the tennis and this is the thing, it's a really important job, the communications job. As we just spoke about, the triple zero deaths, it's horrible stuff, and then obviously the social media ban but she's not, she can't be doing her job, if she's going off to sporting events and concerts and all sorts of things. It's very obvious that she's not and she needs to come straight with the Australian people. It's also, and I know people don't have much empathy for politicians, but it also paints us in all in a bad light because people go, well, they're privileged and we are, we get to do a great job, we do get paid well, but when this happens it makes people hate us even more. It's horrible, it's horrible to read, and the Prime Minister needs to actually show some leadership on this. She's not the only Minister that's racking up a lot of money, 200 odd family reunions for Senator Farrell and we're hearing about more and more. So, it's time that he makes a decision about whether this is appropriate for his Ministers to be behaving this way.

Gary Hardgrave: I've seen these rodeos before, I've seen this movie before. People stuff up, basically. Some one member of Parliament mucks it up for everybody. You've got to have the tools for your job, that's one thing, but thinking that there's nothing wrong with comcars waiting for me, thinking there's nothing wrong about my husband who's a, you know, a lobbyist and he's flying with me to go and see the cricket and the football, and we're going off to concerts and all these sorts of things and then not doing your job properly. There's not a lot of, not a lot of wiggle room there.

Melissa McIntosh: Not a lot of wiggle room at all; and that family reunion travel is meant to be while you're working, you know, if you haven't seen kids or something you bring them along, but it's not meant to be to go see sporting events or to go on the family holiday or to, you know, or any of that sort of stuff. So that is stretching it beyond the boundaries. It’s inconceivable and particularly when people are struggling so much.

Gary Hardgrave: Yeah, well, I mean, even if people weren't, it's not right. I mean if the country and the economy was going gangbusters, this kind of just send the bill to the taxpayers stuff would not cut any, any mustard at all. So, let's not just say because times are tough, it’s I think a moral principle here. You just don't do it.

Melissa McIntosh: You don't do it and you don't keep doing it over and over again multiple times and then sending the bill to the taxpayer. The government's going to be saving money, not spending money in that sort of way. So again, I say the Prime Minister needs to make a decision. There hasn't been, you know, there's been many a Minister before her that has gone down for probably lesser, you know, action. So, he needs to really step up but he's gone quiet as well and tomorrow is meant to be their biggest day. They did a big song and dance at the UN about how wonderful they were before we even saw the success of the social media ban but now they can't get boo out of them.

Gary Hardgrave: So, I mean, this is the thing, isn't it? Tomorrow is meant to be this Hallmark day, this world first. I've seen American television overnight where they're replaying pictures of the Prime Minister talking on weekend television about how marvellous this is and saying Australia's sort of the lab rat of the known universe on social media ban, all starting tomorrow and the Minister responsible for it is in witness protection.

Melissa McIntosh: That's so true. That is very true, and I think perhaps part of it is she's dropped the ball on the rollout as well. I've questioned whether this is going to be successful for months now and it's not because I'm hoping that it isn't successful. I want us to be protecting Australian kids but when you have platforms saying that they will compel people to use digital id, even though the Minister's saying they're not, they say, yes, we will and people's very personal data will be stored offshore in data centres and we don't know for how long or what they'll do with this personal information, like a driver's license or a birth certificate, and there's reports that kids are just moving across to platforms that we didn't even know about a few weeks ago. So why isn't she doing everything she can to make it successful? If they've declared that it's the most amazing thing in the world.

Gary Hardgrave: One would have, would wonder. So, let's just, if we can go back to the other important thing because people have died, okay? People have died as a result of this triple zero muff up. The issues with older Samsung phones and maybe people who haven't updated the software on them. This seems to be the evidence coming out in the Senate inquiry today. Is it acceptable that people actually have to go and buy new phones? I think updating is sensible because updating the software gives you protection against viruses and so forth, so they keep telling us, but is it acceptable people have to actually always have a new phone to make sure that it'll work in the Australian communications sector? Cause it doesn't make sense to me.

Melissa McIntosh: No, no, it's not acceptable. This is all because of the government's failed 3G, you know, rollout of ending 3G in the country. So, they messed that up. This is what this is about and there's potentially around 5,000, I've been told, people out there in our country walking around with their phones, it's on the 4G network, but if they need to call Triple Zero, their phone will try to connect with the 3G, the old 3G network, and they just won't be able to connect; and it's been advised through that Senate inquiry today that there could be 90,000 handsets out there that need the software uploaded, the new software to make it able to connect. This is thousands of people who could potentially not be able to call Triple zero. I reckon that's a public emergency and I, a few weeks ago now, I stood up and I think people might have thought I was scaremongering at the time. I was saying, this is a public safety message. The minister should be doing everything she can to make sure every single Australian that is impacted knows about this and knows what to do. Nothing. We've heard nothing from the government on this. So, we're still, you know, we could be days away from people's phones being shut off and people don't even know about it. They're getting text messages, they probably think they're scammed and the government's sitting on their hands.

Gary Hardgrave

I tell you what, Melissa McIntosh, I think I know some of the people who fall into this category. These are the people who believe they turn the phone on when they want to use it, and so they're completely unaware of the needs to update. They're people who just turn the phone on when they occasionally want to use it. They're not in constant 24/7 contact like crazy people like you and me, have the phone on 24/7, on charge and updating and all this sort of stuff. They only use it when they want to use it, and so they're not even aware that this is the problem they've got.

Melissa McIntosh: Yeah, and you think about the people like my parents who are in their 80s now. If I've got to tell them that they need to download software, like, that's not, that's not an easy ask for many older Australians to do that and they're the ones that do get scammed so they're a bit wary of, you know, responding to text messages. It's just, I don't know why, I shouldn't be astonished anymore by this Minister but this is another thing and I really hope they go, I don't know, because it's days away now, so the Government should be doing more to alert Australians but I can say to you, even though you're not in my area, if you have listeners that are concerned, my office is fielding a lot of inquiries right now, and we can help point people in the right direction.

Gary Hardgrave: All right.

Melissa McIntosh: Give my office a call.

Gary Hardgrave: That's very good of you, Melissa McIntosh. Just stay as grounded as you are and you're right about parents in their 80s and the uncertainty. I think you at least are aware of the problem. At least you're talking out on it. If only Annika Wells would come out of witness protection long enough to be seen. No one has cited her. We're gonna have Anika watch. We're gonna launch that this afternoon here in Brisbane, see if anybody finds her. We wanna hear from them. Okay, thank you for your time, Melissa McIntosh. She's the Shadow Communications Minister. But in all seriousness, if you've spotted Anika Wells anywhere, can you ring me?

[ENDS]