Sharri on Sky News Australia - 9 December 2025

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

9 December 2025

Transcript

Sharri on Sky News Australia

Topics: Social Media ban; Triple Zero inquiry; Anika Wells travel expenses.

E&EO …

Sharri Markson: Now tomorrow, the Government's under 16 social media ban starts. It's a policy that is widely applauded by parents and joining me now to discuss is Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh. Melissa, thanks so much for your time. Look, I think many people actually forget.

Melissa McIntosh: Thank you so much.

Sharri Markson: I think many people forget that this was actually a policy first announced by Peter Dutton and David Coleman and then it was later adopted by Albanese. This was a Coalition policy, was it not?

Melissa McIntosh: Yeah, it certainly was, thanks, Sharri. It was a Peter Dutton policy around protecting Australian children and it is something that the Coalition did commit to and took to the election and then Labor did adopt. I think things changed once they got into Labor's hands though and I've been pretty vocal these last few months in questioning the rollout of the social media ban. We all want to protect Australian children. I'm getting accused by the Communications Minister of dog whistling on this, but I think it's my job to prosecute against the Government if I see their failing on one of their signature policies. We know the Minister went overseas during the Optus crisis to PR this particular policy, but I'm concerned on an issue that may not be quite in the public yet and that's around digital ID and platforms compelling Australians to produce this and Anika Wells is saying that's not the case but I've spoken to the platforms. The age verification technology is a new technology, there's quite a high percentage of failure in the trials. So, they've said to me they don't want $50 million fines if the age verification technology is not working, they can't verify an age, they will ask for a driver's license or a birth certificate. That information is going to a third party company that will then get stored in a data center offshore. The Minister herself and the platforms can't say what's going to happen to that data or when it will be destroyed. This is very personal information that belongs to Australian’s and so that's one of the, just one of the issues I've been really pushing hard on, not to the pleasure of the Minister.

Sharri Markson: Yeah, that is a very concerning issue, particularly with the increase in foreign state sponsored cyber attacks as well. I've also spoken though to parents of teenagers who say that their teens saw this was coming, have already worked out how to change their age so that they can still use apps like Snapchat, which is how I'm told teenagers communicate, that's how they message. So, you know, does more need to be done to ensure compliance here?

Melissa McIntosh: Well, this is part of the problem, and the Government's rollout, was the drip feeding of platforms and some platforms are in and some are out. YouTube's in, but now we've still got social media platforms that aren't included, and the stories of kids already migrating across to platforms that you and I probably didn't even know existed a couple of weeks ago. So, they're not getting off social media, they're just moving on to a different form and the great concern there is them moving across to really unsafe environments online, and that's what we want to protect them from. I feel like I'm sort of the Shadow Minister for big warnings, but that's sort of the reality; and something else I've uncovered just recently is, you know, all these psychologists are coming out and warning parents to watch out for their kids and their mental health, but the government's done nothing to invest in youth mental health services, extra investment to make sure that they have capacity to deal with any of these issues. So, it's all well and good to, and I didn't mean a pun there saying well and good to go and do a PR stint in New York, but, you know, be here, do your job at home. Whether it's making sure that this is successful for Australian kids or keeping people safe during a Triple Zero crisis, that should be your number one priority.

Sharri Markson: Yeah, exactly. Look, I had a mum on the show last night, Amy Friedland, and she was saying that really one of the best solutions is actually for parents to move to dumb phones, not smartphones. That gets around a lot of the issues and it still addresses the security, you know, parents want to be able to contact their kids at any time. Look, just before we go, obviously the Anika Wells scandal has been the major story of the week, but yesterday my colleague Andrew Clennell questioned you about your own expenses and he revealed that taxpayers had paid for you and your son to fly to the Gold coast in 2023 and he reported, Clennell reported that your son competed in the Australian National Judo Championships. So, Melissa, why should taxpayers pay for your son's flight to his own judo championships?

Melissa McIntosh: Yeah, I know Andrew's very interested in this one and this is about an invite I received to go the Gold coast from Karen, who was the member for McPherson and I was setting up to do all sorts of events and Byron had recently been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, which is a pretty serious illness, and he was recently diagnosed and I wanted him with me. At that same time, he was invited to compete in the championships and we didn't actually know if he would do that or not, because he was quite unwell. He ended up doing that, he came with me, I didn't take a staff member, so I actually saved the taxpayers money on this. Byron took all my photos and then he did his event and I paid for his flight home because I thought that was reasonable.

Sharri Markson: The taxpayers paid for his flight there. But did you, did you time your visit?

Melissa McIntosh: He helped me out as family.

Sharri Markson: Did you time your visit, though, to one of your son's judo championships?

Melissa McIntosh: No. No. No.

Sharri Markson: It's just the coincidence that it was on at that time?

Melissa McIntosh: Yeah, around the, around the dates that I was invited, and I was invited first and I was being very careful to make sure that I was clear on this because I'm a true believer in having reunions of family around work, not around big events or, you know, going to certain things and this was coincidental and I wanted to make sure it was clear.

Sharri Markson: It was a coincidence that the judo championships was on at the same time as that visit to the Gold Coast.

Melissa McIntosh: Yeah, that was the date I was made, yeah, and it's all been cleared by IPEA. It's gone through the whole process. I've had clearance and that will be released post.

[ENDS]