Transcript - 2GB Mornings - 9 October 2025

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

9 October 2025

Transcript

2GB Mornings with Luke Grant

Topics: Triple Zero outage; Optus; safeguarding Triple Zero network; Triple Zero public register; critical infrastructure; Anika Wells; Opera House protest.

E&EO …

Luke Grant

But the story of Optus and their multiple now Triple Zero failures has taken hold in Canberra this week, as it should have. Now, I brought you the revelation from Senate Estimates yesterday that Optus contacted the incorrect government email address when first trying to report the serious issue with 000. The issues they had with Triple Zero. The wrong email. You know what gets me is we're talking about a communications company talking to the Communications Department and it goes to an email box that's inactive or whatever and sits there. These are the people operating within the communication space. And of course that's not to mention the fact that the first emails to come from Optus were incorrect anyway. But it's part of the discussion during Estimates, bureaucrats said that they did still monitor in some capacity the old address. Sounds like there's been a big stuff up here at all points. And of course Optus stands at the head of that queue.

Earlier in the, in the issue, Anika Wells and our Minister says, oh, I'm still the new minister. You know, one would imagine if you put your hand up for the job, then you're prepared to do what you can to be able to do the job as quickly as you can. Right? Melissa McIntosh is a Shadow Communications Minister and joins me on the line. Melissa, thank you for your time.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you. And I'm very happy for you to interrupt me if you need to. I'm looking forward to that news as well.

Grant

Thanks so much. The headline from this week seems to be that Optus did fail to use a correct email address, which to me is amazing when contacting government about the issue. And that's a concern in itself. And companies should know what to do when things aren't right.

McIntosh

You're right. And what a debacle from Optus and the government. So, it's all the way through the chain and they're meant to be looking after our most important telecommunications service and then expect Australians to have confidence in that. And no one seems to be able to send an email properly, nor open it at the other end.

Grant

Yeah.

McIntosh

So there's been faults from Optus, of course, but also the government. You're right, the Minister's office received that email.

Grant

Yeah.

McIntosh

ACMA, the regulator, received that email and the Department did actually receive the email because they were monitoring this email address. But the Minister is saying she didn't see the email on the Thursday and she didn't know about the outage until the Friday. I find that hard to believe.

Grant

Oh, look, I'm with you. I. I find it hard to believe. By the way, the Court of Appeal has made an order prohibiting the protest ending at the Opera House forecourt. So we'll have more on that when we can bring it to you, the reasons and the like. But the Court of Appeal has made an order prohibiting the protest ending at the Opera House forecourt. And that seems based on the concerns of police. That kind of makes sense, Melissa, doesn't it?

McIntosh

Yeah. First off, that's really good news. I thought the timing of this protest was really off. We've only just had October 7. Jewish people across Australia feeling, you know, they're feeling like people are letting them down and they're feeling unsafe.

Grant

Yeah.

McIntosh

I'm glad, whatever the reasons were by the court, I think that's - I'm glad as an Australian, that it's not going ahead.

Grant

Yeah, yeah, good on you. I'm with you.

So, back to Triple Zero. Look for lots of people that weren't affected by Triple Zero. They might be of the view, well, you know, it might have been 600 people. And we forget, don't we, that I think we can say three people on the basis of the Triple Zero service not working , three people lost their lives and there's potentially a fourth. Now, that's principally why this is so important, because Triple Zero not working can mean fatalities.

McIntosh

And that's why I've been pushing this so hard over these last three weeks, even when the Minister went to New York, is because it is life and death. It is such an important issue that we need to keep the pressure on until the government takes responsibility in the role they have. And maybe some of your listeners might think, well, why are you pushing the government on this, it's Optus, they're a private company, they're regulated by the government, and the government has oversight on the effectiveness of the Triple Zero network. So they have a really important role. And I think the Minister has just not been up to the job or she’s not really interested. I don't know. I can't explain why you'd go overseas while there was a crisis unfolding and people have died and then only pulled in the Optus CEOs to Parliament this week, three weeks after the event. It was a bit of a political PR stunt.

Grant

Yeah

McIntosh

And now rushing legislation through when you were had these recommendations from the first Optus outage a year and a half ago.

Grant

I don't understand that - the delay, I mean, there's a delay in the, I think the Jewish envoy in the report, she's landed on the Albo - the Prime Minister's desk and this as well. I mean I simply don't understand if it's you or if it's me or any of our listeners. If there's something that needs to be fixed. I mean within reason you get the thing done. But it always seems that government moves so slowly.

McIntosh

I think the Labor government has been hoodwinking Australians to be honest. They make all these promises. They're big on talk and small on delivery. And you're right. It's not just this. They've delayed many things. They promised a resolution on gambling reform. They've promised, you know, right across the board they've promised to ensure that big tech companies pay for Australian content.

And they can't get that right because they're worried about what President Trump might do. So you know the government, you know all we can do is be, I think right now. is be a really strong Opposition focus on those issues where we can prosecute like this Optus. This is people's lives. And just not let them get away with it.

Grant

Yeah. Just repeating the news. A court of appeal has made an order prohibiting the protest ending of the Opera House forecourt on Sunday. I'm speaking to the Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh. Before I let you go, and I appreciate your time very much indeed, what is the Opposition’s solution here? I think there was some talk. I was watching a bit of Question Time yesterday and the Minister tried to have a crack at your side of politics over the handling of the bill and your idea that there should be higher fines levied. What is the way through this?

McIntosh

What Australian wouldn't want a telecommunications company who's letting people down not to be fined the full amount. So we want the fines to be doubled. To put - obviously the fines right now are not stopping these things from happening. So we want to double the fines. We want Triple Zero network to be listed as critical infrastructure, just like water is sewerage energy. Because it is critical. People rely on it. They have to have it. And we want a public register. Full transparency. Every time there is an outage by one of these telcos all Australians can see it and see what is going on. We need to keep putting pressure on both the telco companies and the government until we get it right. We're about to approach a disaster season with bushfires. Every single Australian, every one of your listeners needs to have that confidence, they can call Triple Zero, get an answer when they need it.

Grant

Yeah. Absolutely. Good to talk. Melissa. Thank you so much for your time.

McIntosh

Thank you. You, too.

Grant

Okay. Melissa McIntosh, the Shadow Communications Minister.