Transcript - ABC Afternoon Briefing - 26 November 2025

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

26 November 2025

Transcript

ABC Afternoon Briefing with Patricia Karvelas

Topics: Triple Zero; Optus outage; Social media ban; digital ID; leadership.

E&EO …

Patricia Karvelas

First, the Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa McIntosh, joins me. It's been a few divisions been running around.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah.

Patricia Karvelas

You've made it.

Melissa McIntosh

Chaos in the last week of Parliament.

Patricia Karvelas

I'm not surprised. Let's talk about the Optus outage ...

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah.

Patricia Karvelas

Which is squarely in your portfolio. The ABC understands the cause of it is vandalism.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah.

Patricia Karvelas

An aerial fibre break is what we're reporting. We are increasingly, of course, dependent on physical fibre connections ...

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah.

Patricia Karvelas

Because of volume. So, what's the solution? How could you fix something like this?

Melissa McIntosh

I think that – and that's what I've been calling for it, we need a thorough investigation into the whole Triple Zero ecosystem, which would include infrastructure, the networks and the telcos, because we keep getting outages and there's always a different reason and it's almost like an excuse, oh, but it wasn't this outage now it's because of this reason. I would like us to have the Triple Zero network listed as essential service under critical infrastructure to allow more protections because we're at risk, we're exposed when our infrastructure can be a target of just even a - you know, a young vandal. It's quite scary to think what could happen if we were targeted on a larger scale.

Patricia Karvelas

There's no reports that there has been anyone who's been affected at this stage. So, people - there's no consequence that we know about.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank goodness, but I think it shouldn't be a measure that there's deaths or people can't reach Triple Zero as a success, it just shouldn't be happening. We're about to hit disaster season, and people should be able to call Triple Zero, our most essential service when they need it.

Patricia Karvelas

I want to move to the social media ban that's looming for December the 10th. The law’s actually now face a High Court challenge with the Digital Freedom Project lodging a constitutional case on this. What do you make of that case? Are you worried about it?

Melissa McIntosh

I'm not surprised, to be honest. There's young people that are online for all sorts of reasons and some of them have their own little businesses and they're quite upset and I expect there will probably be other cases as well. My concern is around the high risk of failure of this. We still have drip feeding of platforms that are coming in, Twitch was the latest one just a week or so ago, and people are coming to me concerned about digital ID. So, Meta said that if their age verification technology, which is a third-party provider doesn't work, then they will ask people to either use their birth certificate or their licence.

Patricia Karvelas

So, you've reserved the right to withdraw support for the social media ban. Why would you do that?

Melissa McIntosh

No, it's not withdrawing support. We supported the ban. I want it to work the way it's intended to protect Australian kids. I fear that the rush nature, the government set December 10 as the date, the drip feeding of platforms, now the revelation that digital ID might be required is causing doubt and uncertainty. So, I can't walk away from the fact that the Coalition also signed up for this legislation, but it needs to work. It needs to work, and asking ...

Patricia Karvelas

Did you really see a scenario though, where you would say we don't think it's working well, we don't support a social media ban.

Melissa McIntosh

Well, I asked the platforms, have they spoken to the Minister about what constitutes success or failure and haven't got an answer from the Minister. So, it's hard to measure what, the Minister's coming out now and her colleagues saying, well it's not going to be perfect and expect things not to work. Well, what is success then? How many children will be offline? How many kids’ lives will be saved? So, it's really - it's a difficult one to evaluate, but we want the intent of it to work and that's protecting Australian children. Do you know what, PK? Something I'm even more concerned about now is the emergence of new technology and AI bots and all the terrible things that we're hearing is going on. It's almost like we're sort of blocking it here, but it’s something even worse is coming down the track and I don't know that we're prepared for that.

Patricia Karvelas

Yeah, look, the social media ban obviously has been hugely contentious and the way it will be implemented matters. But equally, we don't really - you know, we ban alcohol for kids right, as we should, because we know its health consequences are terrible. But lots of 15 year olds drink and there's no way that we kind of can stop that. Isn't it similar?

Melissa McIntosh

Well, I guess in some ways people - that's the argument that a lot of people make, well it's normal to have bans for kids. But a lot of kids – kids aren't drinking a little bit of alcohol and like kids are using social media for all sorts of reasons. Not all of it's bad, but all alcohol is bad for kids. So, I think it's probably not the right way to sort of evaluate it, but if it works, fantastic, but can we be focused on it? I just don't think the government's focused on it. I think they did the PR campaign too early overseas in New York and championed success when they can't even articulate what success is. So, for the benefit of Australian families and children let's - you know, fingers crossed, I'll just, I need to keep the pressure on the Government because they've promised Australians that this is going to work.

Patricia Karvelas

The Australian has reported you had a Christmas party.

Melissa McIntosh

I love Christmas.

Patricia Karvelas

Well, what's not to like? At the same time as Sussan Ley's drinks and have read something into that, that's the implication. Should we? Read something into the timing?

Melissa McIntosh

I invited every single Coalition colleague, both in the Senate, in the House. As I said, I love Christmas, I love my colleagues and it's a busy time of year and people have all sorts of other events on, but it was a nice time to come together and celebrate at the end of a hard year for us.

Patricia Karvelas

Was it a leadership pitch?

Melissa McIntosh

I'm very friendly with our - with my colleagues. No, I think I've been very clear on where my ambitions lie in the future. I don't need to do it behind closed doors. I've articulated to, you know, to you, to the media and the public and I love our country, I'm very passionate about our people and I want Australians to have a better life. And I think the way our country’s going right now - people are crying out for a different path and I think we need to be looking at more pragmatic policy that really does take Australians in middle Australia down a way that will benefit them by bringing down energy prices, by being a competitive country again, by having our data stored here, by powering our data here. It's reliant on the grid; it costs so much and, you know, people are genuinely suffering. So, I've got a vision for that in the future, sometime, and it wasn't a pitch for the now.

Patricia Karvelas

No, not for the now. But you do, you see yourself as a future Liberal leader?

Melissa McIntosh

I would love to be the Leader of the Liberal Party in the future. I'd be so honoured. I love our party and our values. A party of opportunity and also responsibility and equality for all Australians. I think they're really great values, and I don't think we need to steer too far off the path or have an existential crisis. We just need to take Australians along the journey and remind them why we're the party for them. We need to listen. We need to get out in our communities and listen to Australians about what they want and what they want our country to be.

Patricia Karvelas

There is, of course, a current leader that's absolutely the case.

Melissa McIntosh

Yes.

Patricia Karvelas

And you say you still support the leader?

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, absolutely, and I've supported the leader from the moment I got into Parliament. It's always been my strong mantra and that won't change, But I don't think that that should stop me from having, you know, a future ambition, and one day.

Patricia Karvelas

Well, Andrew Hastie admitted that he has a future ambition. Do you see this as gendered?

Melissa McIntosh

No, I don't think so. I think anyone that has ambition for the future have the right to put up their hand and let their colleagues know and let the country know what you know what - why they should be leader and I think - I don't think it's a wrong thing to do.

Patricia Karvelas

No, I don't. But at the moment, all of the anticipation is around a couple of blokes that might knock off the current female leader who is the first female leader. Just seems - strikes me as odd.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, well I think - I don't know, you might tell me this as well, as a woman you always feel like you need to wait for someone to ask you or notice you or you do a great nobody notices. So, for me, I can't speak on behalf of my colleagues, well I can't wait and be to be noticed, I want to declare that in the future I would like to lead our party and make that stance now and be known.

Patricia Karvelas

Ok, and how have your colleagues responded before we end?

Melissa McIntosh

I've spoken to a few colleagues about it. I know I have great colleague friends and great support, but I'm not agitating for any colleagues or any numbers right now.

Patricia Karvelas

Okay, I get it. Thank you so much for your time.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you.