Transcript - ABC RN Breakfast - 4 November 2025

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

4 November 2025 

Transcript 

ABC RN Breakfast with Sally Sara

Topics: Net zero; net zero survey; Coalition; Liberal leadership; Optus inquiry; Triple Zero; ACMA.

E&EO … 

Sally Sara

Well, joining me now is Melissa McIntosh, the Shadow Minister for Communications. Welcome back to Breakfast.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you. Good morning.

Sara

Before we get to yesterday's hearings, The Nationals have dumped the net zero policy. What do you think the Liberal Party's position on emission reduction should be?

McIntosh

I've been clear on my own position for my community. I've surveyed people, asking them what mattered most to them. People are struggling a lot right now and 65% came back. Around 1500 responses came back and said they don't want net zero. And this is not an ideological thing that we don't believe in climate change or any of that sort of stuff. They're just really struggling. Their power prices are up. 87% of people said power prices up and they can't afford the bills. It's affecting their cost of – it’s affecting their living standards.

So that's my position. I've had a number of conversations with people in my community, even solar panel companies, businesses who say people are trying to do the right thing, but it's just not making a difference to them. So I'll be taking that position, and my colleagues are very aware of it, and I think the process that we've been going through is a good one. Dan Tehan has been very consultative with colleagues for weeks now, and there's been a number of working groups, a number of meetings, a number of sessions for people to be involved with. So I think we'll come to a position relatively soon.

Sara

You're listening to Radio National Breakfast, where it's 24 minutes to 8. I'm speaking this morning with Melissa McIntosh, who is the Shadow Minister for Communications. Yesterday, executives from Optus were fronting a Senate inquiry into the September outage. Optus has been under pressure to explain the timeline and its actions surrounding the outage. Later in this half hour, you'll be hearing from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network. Carol Bennett is the CEO of that organisation.

But of course, politically, there's a lot of focus on what the Coalition's position will be on net zero by 2050. We've already heard from the nationals who decided on the weekend that they don't want to go down the path of net zero by 2050. Now, the focus is on the Liberal Party and what kind of position it will reach, whether it will have a different position from the National Party or whether it will come up with its own position. And we're expecting the outline of a review which has been conducted by Liberal Dan Tehan, who was on the program yesterday, which has been examining the issue. The Coalition is now under pressure to come up with its policy position in this area, so we'll be talking about that further with Melissa McIntosh.

Also later in this half hour, Mel Clarke will be giving her analysis of the political situation. There is a lot of focus at the moment on the leadership of Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, as the Coalition tries to come together with some kind of unified approach when it comes to net zero. So, we'll be talking more about that shortly and Peter Martin will be bringing you the latest in business before 8 o'clock as well.

Melissa McIntosh, we've got a better line, hopefully with you now. Should the Liberal Party, in your view, adopt a slower approach to net zero, or should it follow The Nationals policy position?

McIntosh

I think we'll come up with our own approach to where we're going to land on energy policy. And as I said, I'm hoping that we listen to our communities across the country, and I've certainly been listening to mine, and I was saying, and I apologise for the bad line, I'm in Parliament House, you can blame the politicians for that.

But I've been speaking to my community and surveying them, and they actually don't want us to be heading towards net zero by 2050. They're really suffering. Their energy prices are up, they want to do the right thing. They put solar panels on their roofs, they can't afford the batteries. And so my position is for us not to follow that track.

We know that Labor is failing on their targets with net zero. We know they're failing on their targets with housing policy and their promise to build more housing. And they're failing Australians on the broken promises of bringing down power bills by $275. So, we should be prosecuting, being a strong Opposition on those issues and at the same time working out where we'll land on our energy policy.

Sara

Do you think there's enough goodwill in the Liberal Party for everyone to get behind a unified position?

McIntosh

Yeah, I do. I do. And I think the process that has been gone through, led by Dan Tehan, has been a good one. Everyone's had a chance to speak. It's not like we've waited for one party room, there's going to be an uproar and no one really knows each other's positions. People have had a chance to have meetings we've heard from experts we've heard come together and had those discussions. Dan's door's been open. So I think the fact that we've had so much time to have a real in depth look we've been able to represent our communities which is what I'm doing I think we'll land on a position. I just want our position to be a pragmatic position that works for everyday Australians like the people in my community.

Sara

So, whatever the position might be, does it have to be compatible with, with the Nats or can it be practically, can it be different from what the Nats position is?

McIntosh

I think and we've had such a long history of being able to work with the Nats. I sit next to David Littleproud in Question Time got a strong relationship with many of them. I've worked with Anne Webster on the telco issue with Triple Zero. So I think we will. I it’s – I think our relationship is strong enough for us to come to settle on a position as long as we're listening to our communities and I know speaking to people like Michael McCormack that's what he's been doing and his people are struggling as well with renewable projects out in the regions. So if we keep continue on a sensible path where we are stripping away any other agendas besides trying to do the best for Australians, I think we'll land there.

Sara

If we're looking at the leadership of Sussan Ley when it comes to net zero, is she damned if she does and damned if she doesn't?

McIntosh

I don't think so. I think the media, and I'm being honest with you here, I think the media are making more of that issue than what we're feeling internally. It's a difficult position. You can't say that coming to, you know, it has brought down previous leaders. It's not an easy issue for the Coalition to deal with and we have lost many seats across the country so we are in a position of we look at okay, what do we do and how does that impact the communities and the seats that we would like to get back. But it has to also appeal to the seats that, that we retain like mine in, in outer metro Sydney, in Western Sydney. So, I don't think your comment there - I think it's a difficult position for her but with the amount of consultation, I think we'll get right in the end. May seem messy on the way.

Sara

Six months after the election, the Opposition is singling out what it's against in policy terms. But what's the Coalition for?

McIntosh

We're for Australians. I know that I'm for my community and as I said, some of those things that I've been talking to you about and even going to the Triple Zero outage like I think we were really strong Opposition in the last weeks in prosecuting the case against both Optus and the government's failings in that. And if we stay focused and we do that I think we'll start making some ground. But I think Australians do want us to sort out our issues quite quickly. They're disappointed in us, probably could use stronger words than even disappointed, and want us to get our act together. So, let's start focusing on those policies that make a difference. Protecting Australians against Triples Zero outages. There's nothing more important than that.

Sara

We've only got a couple of minutes up our sleeve. You're listening to Radio National Breakfast. My guest is Shadow Minister for Communications Melissa McIntosh. Let's go to the Senate inquiry into the Optus Triple Zero outage. What did you learn from yesterday's hearings and what's the information that's still missing in your view?

McIntosh

I think we didn't hear enough from those hearings. The point of the hearings is that there were so many failures around Optus’ handling of the outage. And we heard yesterday in the hearings there were 10 failures. And when I met with the CEO of Optus, he had indicated to me it was human error and it wasn't - and it was a process issue and that's not good enough. How can a human error result in an outage where people's lives were lost? And then the failings of even the government. So ACMA, I still believe that ACMA and I feel this after even their appearance yesterday, should not be the investigator into the outage. They're part of the failed process. There's still question marks around when they knew and when they alerted the Minister and all sorts of things like that. And it's not going to be a transparent outcome I fear. We pushed really hard through Parliament to have a public register of outages so every single Australian can see what's going on. And the government's decided to push the onus back onto the telcos and you think, well, which telcos are going to be really marking their own homework and publicising their problems. So, it is complex. But at the end of the day Australians need to have that assurance that they can get through when they make a Triple Zero call, and I don't know that we're at that position yet. There's still many questions about what went happened - what happened, and we need answers and we need to know that it's not going to happen again.

Sara

Melissa McIntosh, thank you for joining me this morning and thanks for your patience as we tried to get a better line. Thank you.

McIntosh

Thank you. Thank you.