ABC Radio Sydney with Hamish Macdonald - 10 December 2025

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

Wednesday, 10 December 2025

Transcript

ABC Radio Sydney with Hamish McDonald

Subject: Communications Minister Anika Wells travel expenses; Social media ban; Triple Zero.

E&OE ....

Hamish Macdonald: Melissa McIntosh, good morning to you.

Melissa McIntosh: I'll always make time for you, Hamish. Good morning. And to all your new young listeners that are jumping on this morning.

Hamish Macdonald: Look, it's always different when folks are in opposition to when they're in government. I guess it's sometimes easy to access those politicians. But do you actually want this? Do you want this ban to work?

Melissa McIntosh: Of course I want to protect Australian children. And it was a Coalition policy to begin with. My scepticism and, you know, what I've been doing is just showcasing the gaps in the rollout of the ban and I think that's the job of an opposition. And I just wanted to touch on something and something I've been thinking about quite recently. You talked about mental health. I really want the government, because I don't think they've done it yet, to invest more money into youth mental health. They're very busy talking about kids getting off and finding other things in their life. That's all well and good, but there will be kids that struggle during this time making that investment. So now would be a really good, a good time to boost up those mental health services across the country.

Hamish Macdonald: What is a measure of success in your mind for this? Like, we know this is not going to be a perfect rollout that, you know, the government's been very clear to manage expectations around this. What's your benchmark for success?

Melissa McIntosh: But, Hamish, that's the thing you're asking me. But the government can't answer the question around what success is. And saying things like this isn't going to be perfect. Be patient. We'll do a review in two years. They're already sort of backtracking on it is success. That means that less kids are online and they're partaking in more life activities off social media. Is there less bullying? Are kids in a better mental health? So how do you measure these things? And they're the important things. Just having a conversation is not success.

Hamish Macdonald: I think it's a reasonable question to ask you, though, because you're saying you're going to look for the gaps in this. You think that's about holding the government to account on the policy. What in your mind will mean this is a success?

Melissa McIntosh: Well, there's less suicide rates along amongst young people caused by bullying, harm or inappropriate content, less exposure to that. But for me, this is not a set and forget policy. So much more needs to be done. I heard one of your young people that Vox popped in Parramatta Square was saying around AI, and I think that's the new emerging risk for young people.

But that's my worry here, that kids might migrate across to those more severe, inappropriate platforms. And we know already kids are going across to platforms, social media platforms, off the major platforms, to ones that even though you’re off social media now, ones you and I would never have heard of, so they're actually not off social media. So there's a lot more to be done. Maybe success is ensuring that kids aren't exposed to any of this.

Hamish Macdonald: You, along with all of your colleagues, I think, are acknowledging the seriousness of what's going on for young people. We've had heard really mixed reaction, I've got to say, from Sydney listeners this week to the whole issue of Annika Wells and the travel expenses. A lot of people seem to be observing to us certainly calling in, saying this is a bit of a witch hunt. There's double standards here for men, for women, for young mothers, etc, that are in Parliament. We say we want a more dynamic Parliament. Is it a bit of a distraction to be pursuing Annika Wells about travel expenses within the rules, as far as we understand it, when there is such a big and important piece of policy front and centre like today?

Melissa McIntosh: No, not at all. I think it's very important to be accountable. And I first sort of targeted this when she left her post and went to the us. And then the first part of this was the exposing of the extravagant flights, $100,000 and then the big event that cost $70,000, and then hearing the $1,000 meal that she said that she fell asleep at. And then I think when it gets to a stage of having a comm car running for seven hours while you go to the tennis at the cost of over $1,000. You're right. Just because there's a big policy announcement doesn't mean that the MPs should avoid scrutiny. And there are important processes, I think, and it's valid to say that families should be together. I've got three children and I have used family reunion three times in my seven years of being in palm.

Hamish Macdonald: It might be different, though, if you were actually the Communications Minister. Maybe if you were the Sports Minister as well, and you were away on the weekends all the time, would you make a different judgment?

Melissa McIntosh: Well, in addition to the guidelines, what you're saying, there's a ministerial code of conduct that the Prime Minister himself has put in place when there's expectations about not overspending, you know, Australian taxpayers money, and he needs to make an assessment and have an investigation into whether she broke that. In addition to the guidelines, there is, there's an expectation on politicians when you've got, you know, these big sort of money spending politicians, it might be her job there to do that for sport, but she's also got her job to do in communications, which is really important. She should spend more time behind her desk doing that. Around the triple zero out is around getting this social media policy right, in addition to many more things. It's a big complex portfolio, Communications.

Hamish Macdonald: Melissa McIntosh, thanks for your time this morning.

Melissa McIntosh: Thanks, Hamish.

[ENDS]