Sky News AM Agenda with Trudy McIntosh - 29 June 2026

Melissa McIntosh MP
Shadow Minister for Families and Social Services
Shadow Minister for the NDIS
Shadow Minister for Women
Federal Member for Lindsay

29 June 2026

Transcript

Sky News AM Agenda

Topics: Liberal brand, polling, One Nation, cost of living

E&OE

Trudy McIntosh 

I'm joined now by the Shadow NDIS Minister, Melissa McIntosh, the Liberal MP for Lindsay. How demoralising is it to wake up and see yet another poll showing the Liberals going backwards?

Melissa McIntosh 

It's not a great poll, of course. You'd have to have your head in the sand to say, oh, everything looks so wonderful out there for us, but I've taken a bit of inspiration from Sky News this morning with your rebrand to News 24. I think it's time, I'm putting myself out on a limb a little bit, I think it's time for the Liberal Party to rebrand itself. Some people think that we're stuck in the past and our policies need to resonate with the Australia of today and the future, so I think it'd be really good time for us to revisit our values, what we stand for, and the way we project ourselves to Australians.

Trudy McIntosh 

What's so wrong with the offering you're putting forward? What's toxic about the Liberal brand at the moment?

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, I think it's obvious we're not tracking in the polls, so it doesn't mean that you change your foundations, but you certainly -  might be time for us to re-look at how we express ourselves externally, and that takes a lot of work inside the party to go back to our roots, and then to look at our messaging and our communications to the Australian public, because you can't keep getting poll after poll, saying that it's diabolical out there, and just ignore it, because in my patch, when I'm in my community, there's no correlation between how badly we're doing in the polls and how people are on the on the ground with me. Certainly, they're really struggling under this Government with cost of living, more people experiencing homelessness than ever before, and we have to do something about that, the fact that there's kids sleeping rough on the streets. This isn't the Australia that any of us should be accepting right now.

Trudy McIntosh 

When Angus Taylor took over from Sussan Ley, he promised that things would get better, that you would be able to be able to rebuild in the polls. Why has he not been able to do that? Is he not able to cut through?

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, this is what I'm saying to you. We can't put the blame on Angus. I think the Liberal Party itself needs to go through a rebrand. We've got some decent policies coming out. Angus is working super hard to get the party on track to be releasing our policies earlier, and we're all committed to do that. So, if we're all doing that, we've got a leader that's focused and we're united, then we've got to look at what else is going on. I think that a lot of that is the Liberal Party brand right now.

Trudy McIntosh 

Does that mean changing name? You mentioned the Sky News rebrand. Is it a problem with the word 'Liberal' these days?

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, this is the thing, we need to get some experts in. I just was inspired by Sky News. How's that? But when things aren't going right within brands, you do - it is a time to take a bit of stock and look at where we can go in the future and whether we can increase our polling in the way that Australians perceive us, if we don't look like we're stuck in the past, and we are a modern party with modern values that resonate with not only older people but women as well. We've had issues with the female vote in the past and I've got the Families portfolio, and I've got Women as my portfolio area and Social Services, all things that we'll be working on some strong policies, so we do hit the mark with women.

Trudy McIntosh 

I wanted to ask you about Andrew Hastie's comments on Friday. In an email to supporters, he said that he's declaring war on One Nation, that he wants to continue to forcefully take up the fight to Pauline Hanson's party. Do you want to support him in that challenge? Are you declaring war on One Nation?

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, we all have our own way of dealing with the rise of One Nation, and certainly in my community, I've worked for a long time with One Nation supporters. We were strong in our rallies on the No campaign, 70% no. I was first up with dropping Net Zero, one of the very first, that I surveyed my community, and that went well in my electorate. I certainly don't agree with the monocultural sort of statement that Pauline made. In fact, I said none of us want to turn into a North Korea, and I don't think that represents the Australia that we know and love, an Australia that has been built on the back of multiculturalism, so those things I certainly don't agree with, but I'm not using those terms right now.

Trudy McIntosh 

I wanted to ask you about David Littleproud, the former Nationals leader, was on the program last hour. He says he's confident no Nationals MP will lose their seat to One Nation at the next election, warning that it's more like suburban Liberals like yourself who are more under threat. Was that a helpful contribution?

Melissa McIntosh 

Thanks, David. I've always fought for my seat. It was a seat that I took off Labor in 2019 and held against the tide in '22 and '25. It's usually a seat of government, so whichever party wants to come after the seat, well, we'll put up a fight, but I think it's reasonable by the polls, and David's fine to say that, but maybe you can get out to my seat and help me hold it then!

Trudy McIntosh 

You can put that to him yourself. I want to ask you about Labor and the budget fallout this morning. We've seen yet again auction clearance rates plunge to record lows, second weekend in a row, we've seen that. When you speak to voters on the ground, are they concerned that their house prices are going backwards, or are you hearing from first home buyers, aspirational ones, that they're able to get into the market?

Melissa McIntosh 

No, things are really bad out there, and small businesses, for one, are really, really cranky, because they've built their business from nothing, my patch out in Western Sydney, from nothing, and now they feel like the Government's beating them around the head, and young people want to get a home in Western Sydney, families want to be able to set up their roots there, and they can't. So, I think well and good that the Government's talking up their policies, but I'm not seeing it come through on the ground in places like Western Sydney, where people are doing it tough like never before and can't get ahead, and they are aspirational. But none of the Government's policies are set up to give them that chance in life. 

Trudy McIntosh 

Liberal MP, Melissa McIntosh, appreciate your time. Thank you.