Transcript - 4BC Drive - 4 November 2025

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

4 November 2025 

Transcript 

4BC Drive with Gary Hargrave

Topics: Optus inquiry; Triple Zero; Triple Zero Custodian; Triple Zero register; net zero; net zero survey; nuclear; energy affordability; Penrith Panthers.

E&EO … 

Gary Hargrave

The Shadow Minister for Communications is Melissa McIntosh and joins me now from our Canberra studio. Melissa, thank you for your time. Optus really failed, I would have thought to be basic expectations here.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you. There have been failures from the very beginning, six, seven weeks ago now by Optus, but also the government. You sort of spoke about that briefly. People died during the Triple Zero outage, and I know all your listeners would expect to be able to make that call in their most desperate moments.

And we had an inquiry, we've been pushing really hard. I won't go bore your listeners about the ins and outs of even getting to an inquiry stage. And the Optus CEO appeared yesterday and as you said, we're finding out that hours and hours went by before he found out and then another six hours or so before he even began alerting the authorities and the regulator, ACMA. And the Minister says she didn't find out until the next day, which is extraordinary.

Hargrave

I would have thought so. They had one important job to do. The Triple Zero thing, Melissa McIntosh, is something that you don't ever want to use, but when you use it, you want to know it's reliable. I'm shocked. I'm stunned that there is a basic failure to have a failsafe. If Optus falls over, surely it should redirect through one of the other telcos.

McIntosh

Yeah, and you'd think it's a basic right. But it is a huge failure, and it is meant to - it's called camping-on. So, with Optus, you should then be able to go through Telstra. But it was such a catastrophic failure. And we heard yesterday in the parliamentary inquiry there were 10 failures that occurred and that resulted in people not being able to make those calls - hundreds of people. And I met with the CEO of Optus, he didn't want to meet with me for quite some time and there was a bit of media pressure to get him to, and I asked him the question around, well, how can this even happen in such a big telco company? And he basically said it was human error. So human error has resulted in deaths, essentially, which is just not good enough. Every single person would think that Optus should be, you know, held to account, but also the government, this is a highly regulated sector.

The government had recommendations from an outage by Optus in 2023 that they'd been sitting on, did nothing with. So, I've been calling for a public register of outages so every Australian can see what's going on behind closed doors, essentially, because we never know when these things happen. And for the fines to be increased on these big telco companies, because whatever they're being fined now is not making a difference.

Hargrave

I mean, it's getting to a ridiculous stage where you almost have to have a couple of telcos subscription to a couple of telcos on your phone. So, Optus falls over, Telstra fixes you up. If that falls over, Vodafone might fix you up. I mean, that is an insane proposition. I'm just putting. But I thought the system would automatically flick you over to whatever was working. If you dial Triple Zero, it's for a reason. And triple zero should override all of the network competition stuff.

McIntosh

Yeah, and that's right. And I want an independent investigation into why what you're saying, exactly what you're saying is not happening. And it's not just this occurrence. Sadly, people died during this outage and that's why it's getting more attention and attention that it should be getting. But this happens, I think, more often than people realise. And I've been getting emails through my office of people telling me that it has happened to them. And not just Optus, Telstra has had outages that's impacted Triple Zero and even the NBN has had faults that's impacted Triple Zero. So, let's get to the bottom of it. Australians deserve to be able to make those calls and they spend a lot of money on. These are big profit companies, so I think at the very least they should be able to make those Triple Zero calls.

Hargrave

Okay, so you're the Shadow Communications Minister, you've got to ghost all of these things. The Minister, my understanding is she was away overseas, but again they got telephones there. I - I'm actually not blaming her for not knowing about this, cause no one told her. However, there needed to be mechanisms in place for her to find these things out. And so there's a policy failure here. And if, if she hasn't picked up on the 2023 outage, re-legislated or re-regulated to improve the service, then she does have something to answer for.

McIntosh

She does. And we had to rush through legislation after this outage, through Parliament to create law, that there's a Custodian with powers over - it gets very technical over the regulator. But we also found out that this Custodian has been in place in her Department since March. So, what was that Custodian doing during the Optus outage? And why didn't they step up and do something about it? And how didn't she know? I still don't understand how the Minister for Communications did not know about such an outage until the Friday. And then she went overseas, held a press conference or two, went overseas and left the crisis as it unfolded. And then just the lack of prioritisation. And there is nothing more important for a government to do than put the Australian citizens first.

Hargrave

But if you're going to be the Communications Minister, you've got to actually have clear, working, constantly available lines of communication.

McIntosh

Yeah.

Hargrave

This is the problem.

McIntosh

It's a big failure. And ACMA, the regulator, you know, and she's got responsibility there too, was part of the fail process and she appointed ACMA to do the investigation into this whole issue. So, she's effectively got ACMA investigating itself. You know, we know how that's going to work out.

Hargrave

Yeah, well, either way, questions got to be asked. I don't know whether the boss of Optus goes away, but I hope before he goes away, if he steps away, if he does do that, I hope he sacks away. I hope he actually finds the human error and deals with it, because somebody needs to be accountable for this.

McIntosh

I think Australians expect accountability in an issue so big and they also expect confidence in our Triple Zero network. We're about to - we already are hitting disaster season and people are going to be needing to call Triple Zero. And we hope, you know, Optus is saying that they've got better processes in place now, but we hope that's the case.

Hargrave

Okay, so do we go for double SIMs? I mean, Tom sent a note in saying his staff in Africa have two phones with double SIMs. That's eight years ago. Surely double sims SIM cards may be the answer.

McIntosh

Well, again, it's pushing it back onto Australians having to deal with the issue of a telecommunication …

Hargrave

But if the system's so unreliable, Melissa McIntosh. Maybe we do have to gear up.

McIntosh

Let’s fix it. Let's overhaul the system is what I'm saying. It is so regulated. Let's look at these regulations are obviously not working how they should be. So that's why I want a deep investigation and to ensure it's fit for purpose in the future because now we have things like satellites in our skies that more and more people are going to be relying on for telecommunications. And these satellites are foreign owned. So, where's the protection of our sovereignty there? I think the issue is going to only get bigger, not get better.

Hargrave

Okay, from Triple Zero to net zero party meeting today, has a decision been made talking about national sovereignty? Surely you got to flick it to get ourselves some cheaper electricity.

McIntosh

Well, I'm not in your patch, but my patch in Western Sydney, I'm the Member for Lindsay and I surveyed my community and asked them that question. And 65% of people do not support net zero by 2050. They're struggling. 87% are really suffering because of high power prices. They do support dropping the ban on nuclear.

They're trying to do the right thing. They're putting batteries on the roof but can't afford, sorry, solar panels on the roof and can't afford the batteries. So, they don't like where we're going as a country. So, that's what I'm saying. I'm backing my community, and I agree with you.

Hargrave

Yeah, good idea. Well, it's great to hear that from a senior Shadow. And look, commiserations on the Penrith Panthers season.

McIntosh

Oh, no.

Hargrave

But people here at 4BC in Brisbane who are Penrith Panthers fans, including my cousin who's a constituent of yours, reckon that you'll win it back next year. So good luck.

McIntosh

Yeah, we will. We will. I think we were ripped off.

Hargrave

No, no, no. You were kicked off. We outplayed you. As simple as that. Anyway, good to talk to you, Melissa.

McIntosh

Thank you.