Transcript - 2SM Mornings - 23 September 2025

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

23 September 2025

Transcript

2SM Mornings with Chris Smith

Topic: Penrith Panthers; Optus outage; net zero.

EO&E …

Chris Smith

Let's bring in one of our castle of common sense regulars from Sydney's west. It's the honourable Liberal MP and communications spokesperson Melissa McIntosh. Melissa, welcome back to 2SM.

Melissa McIntosh

Thanks, Chris, for having me on.

Chris Smith

Now, let's talk a very important issue. First, rugby league. Can your Panthers make it five premierships in a row?

Melissa McIntosh

Let's go, Panthers. What an extraordinary turnaround. I think from where we were at the start of this season to now, the whole of High Street's going to be lined with the whole of Penrith shortly. It's just a big community event. It's not just about the players. Everyone feels it when they're winning and I'm so glad to see that they're doing so well now.

Chris Smith

And crazy well, crazily, after every grand final they've won from when they first beat South Sydney. They lose some star superstar players - they end up, you know, filling the gap with stars that become incredible after only about six or seven months and then they're back in the winning. And look, that team, the way they played against the Bulldogs on the weekend just shows that they can win this.

Melissa McIntosh

They can. There must be something in the water out here.

Chris Smith

Got to be.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, and they've got a great coach and you know, they've been playing so strong and you're right, we’ve all just seen that game against the Bulldogs. That shows where we can go. But we don't want to get too cocky just yet.

Chris Smith

Alright. One game at a time, they say in football to parlance.

Melissa McIntosh

Yes, good idea, good idea.

Chris Smith

The Optus triple zero crisis. Four dead, we read today. And despite five warnings from customers to those international call centres in either The Philippines and India that it was down, that wasn't elevated and so therefore nothing was done to fix the crisis. So four died. So many things were allowed to collapse and be ignored, weren't they?

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, you don't. You're always wary of being too outraged in politics, but this is really a time to be outraged for every single Australian. So, Optus got it very wrong and you've got to feel for those families. It's awful. That's real life stuff. This is just not a corporate mess up. It's impacted lives. But it's not just that. The whole process along the way, Optus let by law they have to do this. They let the regulator ACMA know on Thursday and the Department of Communications, but it seems to be that they didn't do anything with the communications they got from Optus. They sat on it. So, they're saying the minister didn't know them for another day on Friday. And now the Minister's appointed ACMA, the regulator, who is part of this stuffed up process, to lead the investigation.

Chris Smith

So, you're suggesting that ACMA is the last body that should be investigating?

Melissa McIntosh

Oh, absolutely. ACMA put together recommendations, they led the last investigation. The recommendations haven't been fulfilled. This is after the last Optus triple zero outage. The government hasn't put enough pressure on to make changes and now this has happened again, and we've lost lives and then you're appointing that very body again to lead the investigation when they're part of a failed process. How can you investigate yourself? I think there's a lack of transparency and accountability in all of this. Yes, Optus is in the wrong. It is terrible, it is horrible what people have gone through. People should have trust in our national emergency call system and people are losing that trust. But there are other failed parts of the process. So, I hope the government steps up a bit more. They seem to have gone quiet over the last couple of days and Optus, the CEO of Optus, certainly seems to be in hiding now.

Chris Smith

Yeah. If there's one service you can't allow to fall over, it's triple zero.

Melissa McIntosh

Absolutely, and it's the whole - I think the investigation needs to go into the whole triple zero network, not just Optus, to reassure Australians that no matter which service you use, you can have confidence that in your greatest need.

Chris Smith

Because Melissa, how difficult would it be that when it comes to triple zero, if one carrier is down, the call would be automatically transferred to any other receivable carrier that's standing at the time.

Melissa McIntosh

You're exactly right. And that is one of the recommendations following the previous outage was that if a network goes down triple zero calls are carried by other networks. That obviously did not happen.

Chris Smith

Wow. So that was recommended and hasn't been installed.

Melissa McIntosh

It's obvious that it hasn't because it failed. If it's been installed and it's unclear right now.

Chris Smith

It is unclear.

Melissa McIntosh

The Minister has not made it clear which recommendations are fully implemented, which are half implemented, which have not been implemented at all. So that's what I'm saying. We need to have full transparency. We can't make this happen again.

Chris Smith

No, and in The Sydney Morning Herald today, Stephen Bartholomeusz writes, with big tech taking over the world, we should expect big outages more regularly. Is this probable to you?

Melissa McIntosh

This is part of what I'm talking about, our sovereignty. We need to bring back our most critical infrastructure into our country, and that includes telecommunications when people have been making complaints to Optus, their calls aren't going to an Australian call centre, they're going offshore. So, we need to bring, in the very least bring, call centres related to triple zero complaints or concerns back into our country. We need to have our satellites Australian-owned, we need to have our data stored in this country. So, this is part of a bigger picture around big international tech taking control over Australian sovereignty.

Chris Smith

No more being led by overseas agencies, governments or private entities. We've got to keep it here and protected here.

Melissa McIntosh

Hear, hear, as best we can. And we need to step up and have a loud voice to make that happen.

Chris Smith

And then apart from all the stuff ups that we've spoken about just then, even the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, herself stuffed up when she was trying to lay fault. She got the telecommunications company wrong. Have a listen to this.

Anika Wells: Now, we're going to be considerate about our response, but there will be, there will be consequences for Telstra and the broader telecommunications sector.

What?

Melissa McIntosh

I don't think Telstra would have been particularly happy with that reference. And you know, she needs to be really laser focused on this. Yeah, not time to be trying to have tricky language to smooth over, you know, just to be the rhetoric that she's espousing now. I think it's focus on the issue. People have died. Something needs to happen, and she needs to lead. She's the Minister responsible to start leading.

Chris Smith

One quick one on energy after we had, you know, this upgrade on our emissions targets for 2035 last week and all sorts of promises about more transmission lines going down, more money being spent on more renewables, et cetera, et cetera. Do you support net zero?

Melissa McIntosh

I absolutely reject that target. It's interesting you asked me that. I'm actually asking my community through a survey what they feel about all this.

Chris Smith

Are you?

Melissa McIntosh

I've only got a few hundred responses back, but right now, you know, 86% of people are saying no, they don't support the target.

Chris Smith

Wow.

Melissa McIntosh

High percentage that do not support net zero. So, you know, when you want a proper answer, you need to listen to your community and ask them what they want. So that's what I'm doing now. So anyone out there from Western Sydney, get in touch. I want to hear from you and I'll take your views to my party room, to my Shadow Cabinet and to the Liberal Party.

Chris Smith

Okay. For those in Western Sydney, particularly in your seat of Lindsay, how do they get in contact with you?

Melissa McIntosh

I've got a survey running off my Facebook page. They can get in touch with my office, reach out to me and I'd love to hear from them. We really do need to be asking the Australian people. There's so much political rhetoric and discussion around this that we need to calm ourselves and say, okay, Australia, where do you want our country to go? What do you want us to do as leaders? Do you want to have our data centres powered here in Australia? To do that, we need to have a pragmatic energy policy, not be off with the fairies around, you know, 2035 net zero targets.

Chris Smith

No wonder you were re-elected in Lindsay, because instead of asking the factions, you ask the people. You are incredible. That survey, I'd be very interested once you collated a certain number that you think was reliable, maybe we could talk again, Melissa, because this is interesting. So far a couple of hundred, but 80% of those in that area are saying that they don't support this chase for net zero.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah. We've got 80% saying no to a net zero by 2050 and we've got up to nearly 90% saying they don't support the 2035 emissions reduction target.

Chris Smith

Wow, there's a stack of common sense in that survey. Melissa McIntosh, great to have you on the program again. We'll talk soon.

Melissa McIntosh

Common sense rules. Thank you.

Chris Smith

Good on you. Yeah. In the castle of common sense, in particular, Liberal MP and communications spokesperson Melissa McIntosh.