Sky News On The Hour with Trudy McIntosh - 4 December 2025

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

Thursday, 4 December 2025 

Transcript 

Sky News On The Hour with Trudy McIntosh 

Subject: Social media ban; Age verification and Digital ID; Australian’s data stored off-shore by social media platforms; Cost of Minister Anika Wells’ New York trip in wake of Optus Triple Zero outage; ISIS brides. 

E&OE … 

Trudy McIntosh 

Tech giant Meta has begun locking out Australian children from social media accounts ahead of the formal ban, which will begin here next week. Joining me live now is the Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa McIntosh. Mel, great to see you today. We've seen Meta say today there is going to be a margin of error in terms of estimating the age of account users. It says some people are actually mistakenly going to get caught up in the ban, despite being over 16. Is that the price we have to accept to try and strike this greater good of getting kids off, off their phones? 

Melissa McIntosh 

Thanks, Trudy. This is what I've been warning about and of course we want kids to be protected, it's in no way about that. But I've had these conversations with the platform, and there is this margin of error and the trial that the government ran into the age verification technology showed that around it's probably over 30% of a failure rate. So, these platforms do not want to risk a $50 million fine. So they will be compelling people to use digital identification, a licence or a birth certificate, and this is a big problem. We never signed up to this. This is new information coming on. I've been warning about it, I think for months now. And one of the problems is that people's data, your very personal information, will be stored by a third-party age verification company, offshore, not even in Australia. And the Minister yesterday in her Press Club speech couldn't say how long that data was going to be stored for. She just said, well, it will be destroyed as quickly as possible; and the platforms themselves can't say how long the data will be stored for. This is not right. Australians do not want their data taken off them, they don't want digital ID to be used, and they certainly don't want it to be housed in an offshore data centre. 

Trudy McIntosh 

Do you think we need to though, take with a grain of salt some of the things that these big tech giants are saying, it's in their interest to have these ambit claims potentially out there scaring people about the broadest impact that could possibly happen. Do we think we can trust everything they say? 

Melissa McIntosh 

No, it's not about trusting everything they say. It's, you know, you can see it yourself in the report from the age verification trial, the error rate, and you know that these companies aren't going to take the risk of large fines. And we know that the eSafety Commissioner herself has the powers to compel digital ID. She's told me that. She just said to me she's not going to exercise those powers. So, I just think right now it's misleading for the government, for the Minister. She says I'm dog whistling. I'm not dog whistling. I'm raising a very valid point where there is a big gap where people are going to be compelled. Just come out and say it, just let Australians know what's coming up. I don't know why they're not being honest with Australian people on this. 

Trudy McIntosh 

Yeah. I wanted to get your reaction to what we saw from Minister Annika Wells yesterday. She, as you say, accused you of dog whistling by mention the fact that there's a potential for government ID for verification. I suppose when you zoom out in the politics, do you think that it would be better if the opposition and the government were able to present a united front at the moment? This ban is going to come into effect next week. It's not going to suddenly change. Do we need to have united messaging, or do you believe there should be legitimate concern directed at the policy? 

Melissa McIntosh 

The intent of wanting to protect children doesn't change. Of course, I want to protect Australian children. That's why the Coalition had this policy to begin with, it was a Peter Dutton policy; so, there's no backstepping from that. But I think it's the job of a strong opposition to pose questions, if there's weaknesses to uncover those weaknesses. Because it is the government's responsibility now to get that right. And every step of the way, whether it's the drip feeding of platforms, we're now hearing kids are already migrating across to different social media platforms, so they're actually not getting off social media; and the revelation around digital ID. So, okay, that's idealistic that we'd work together, but that's if the government was doing the right thing. So first and foremost, we should be ensuring a better outcome for Australians. 

Trudy McIntosh 

I know that in the last 24 hours there has been big focus on the cost to taxpayers of this high-profile trip that the Minister made to New York to spruik the social media ban at the time of the Triple Zero outage. I wonder, what do you think the consequences would be? It's bad judgement maybe, politically, but are you really calling for a resignation from the Minister, or is this just a bad call that was made? 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, I haven't jumped on this issue today because of the cost. I actually said at the time I was very critical that she left her post. She held one or two press conferences, and the Triple Zero crisis was unfolding. You don't leave your post during a crisis. The Prime Minister was in New York representing Australia, but she still went there. Now, on top of the judgment call there, to have these cost revelations. I don't even know how you can have a cost so high for a flight where it's $100k. That just actually doesn't make sense. Looking at the prices of airfares today for a trip tomorrow doesn't even meet that. And then to hear there was a lavish event sponsored by the Minister, hosted by her department, which cost around $70,000. Well, these are, you know... why? Why is that sort of money being spent? For me, she was too quick to promote the success of a social media policy in New York because the government wanted a good PR exercise. And, you know, it's right for people to question the expense of that particular trip. But for me, I just don't think she should have left her post during a crisis in the first place. 

Trudy McIntosh 

On a separate story, the opposition also prosecuting today this issue of the ISIS brides returning. On that, what is the main concern, that Tony Burke had a meeting with a group that we've now found out about in terms of detail? Or is it the concern that these women and children came back to Australia at all? 

Melissa McIntosh 

Well, I think it's a bit of both there. These aren't - the word ‘brides’ makes it sound fluffy and nice, and there's no niceness about a death cult. And Tony Burke stood up in Parliament and declared that the government had no involvement in this, and now there's a revelation that he, you know, shooed his department official out of the room to have a private conversation. So, it's around transparency. Do you remember prior to the 2022 election, the government actually went to an election promising more transparency to the Australian people. And once again, it looks like they're hiding behind tricky language, tricky actions and don't want to answer to the Australian people. 

Trudy McIntosh 

But it seems like there's a level of hypocrisy here. If the issue is the women and children coming home, the previous coalition government also repatriated eight children and grandchildren dead ISIS fighters in 2019. This is not just something that's happened under a Labor government. It happened at the time under the former Coalition government too. 

Melissa McIntosh 

But Tony Burke's saying it's not happening under his government. And Penny Wong's saying... 

Trudy McIntosh 

Well, he said that they didn't provide assistance in terms of direct flights. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah, well, and that's what is being questioned. 

Trudy McIntosh 

Direct flights were provided under the previous government, though, right? 

Melissa McIntosh 

Yeah. But it's OK for us to question the government, particularly when they're saying one thing and doing another, and that's the role of the Senate and what's going on right now to uncover the facts when it looks like a Minister is being either tricky in his language or being tricky with the reality. 

Trudy McIntosh 

The Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa McIntosh, always appreciate your time. Thank you. 

Melissa McIntosh 

Thanks Trudy. 

[Ends]