Transcript - ABC Sydney Mornings - 17 September 2025

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

17 September 2025

EO&E …

Interview

ABC Sydney Mornings with Hamish Macdonald

Topics: President Trump; ABC journalist Trump matter; US tariff dispute; News bargaining incentive; communications sovereignty; social media age minimum; digital ID.

Hamish Macdonald

 Social media companies will not need to verify the age of every user under the new rules or meet a minimum standard for how many teenagers they boot off their platforms when the ban takes effect. The Shadow Communications Minister says that Australia is at a fork in the road here where we must decide whether to continue letting international tech giants in her words, rule over our data, our skies, and the information we receive. Melissa McIntosh is also the Federal Member for Lindsay here in Western Sydney. A very good morning to you.

Melissa McIntosh

Good morning, Hamish.

Hamish Macdonald

We'll get to some of that, but I do want to ask you about what's happened with Donald Trump and the ABC this morning. You've put out a statement this week about the need for Australia to have communication sovereignty. You say that we must protect one of the most essential elements of our democracy and fundamentals of that include the media. What do you make of Donald Trump's language towards John Lyons in the past few hours?

Melissa McIntosh

There's two parts to this, as uncomfortable as that exchange may have been, I truly do believe that the Australian media is at the heart of our sovereignty, which I think will, we might talk about in the leading that you just gave, and our strong democracy does depend on fair, balanced, and independent journalism. So, John was doing his job. On the other hand, you know, the Prime Minister really does need to have that meeting with President Trump. It's been 315 days, and we're seeing various aspects of him not having that meeting play out, whether it's in the news media bargaining incentive where the big tech companies should be paying for Australian content; that hasn't been settled. And, you know, and now we've got another example of President Trump you know expressing his mind.

Hamish Macdonald

Trump though did indicate during that exchange that he's meeting with the Prime Minister soon, but he said, I'm going to tell him about you to John Lyons. Does that sound like a threat to you?

Melissa McIntosh

There's a lot of things on the list I think that they need to be talking about. First and foremost, I hope that some of the things I just mentioned to you, including you know, the big American tech companies paying for content, I don't know if that's going come up in their conversation.

Hamish Macdonald

But I - just to be clear though, do you see it as a threat? Like the California governor has said that it's a threat? Is it a threat?

Melissa McIntosh

I didn't see – I saw that as President Trump expressing himself. But on the other hand, you know, John was doing his job as an Australian journalist and I’d - I'll always stand up for, you know, for free and fair journalism in this country.

Hamish Macdonald

Melissa McIntosh is the Shadow Minister for Communications. You've now seen the detail of the government's social media ban. We know that you support it broadly, but do you support the specifics as they've now been outlined by the government?

Melissa McIntosh

I'm questioning the specifics, Hamish. On one hand, protecting our kids is nothing more important for any of us to do as politicians, whether in government or opposition. That's why this ban came into place. But I've met with families who have lost their kids to social media harm, and I know you're asking your listeners how they're getting ready, but they told me they don't have confidence after their meeting with the Prime Minister that the government is even going to be letting families know this is coming. So, we are talking about it a lot. We know it's coming, but in the work that these families who have lost their children do going around the schools to try and prevent this from happening to other families, they're finding that kids aren't prepared, parents aren't prepared. It's happening over the Christmas holidays and schools aren't prepared. So, a lot of work needs to be done on that regard. And I promised these families that I would, you know, stand up and make a bit of noise about this to get this happening. On the other hand, I have question marks around the implementation. There seems to be in what was released yesterday, that it could get to a stage where digital ID might be required. And we are as a Coalition, you know, we made it very clear when this legislation passed that we did not want it to get to a stage where adults had to provide identification.

Hamish Macdonald

Why not? Wouldn't that solve a lot of the problems of fraud on the internet of people identifying themselves, you know, differently or anonymously. Couldn't that help deal with some of the terrible things that are happening online?

Melissa McIntosh

Well, there's two different parts to this, you know, protecting children. I just don't want it to, and I'll tell you another reason why, not shortly, but I don't want it to get to a stage where adults feel so, like their privacy is so impinged that they're really, really against. This policy intent and the impact of that is that we forget about the protection of our kids because these horrible things online, we all know that kids shouldn't be exposed to.

Hamish Macdonald

But doesn't that desire for anonymity or privacy as you are describing it, doesn't that allow - it's created a space where adults can do terrible things to children with impunity on the internet.

Melissa McIntosh

That's why we need things in place. But there's that side of things. And then there's the freedom of people who did not doing anything terrible to have privacy online. And the other element goes into what else I want to talk to you about and that's where the people's data is stored. So, these big international tech companies, once they have this data, it's stored in foreign servers. How do Australians know how it's being protected and what rights do we have as Australian citizens over our own information when it's on foreign shores?

Hamish Macdonald

Yeah, I do want to get to the questions of digital sovereignty, but just not to skip over this because I think it does matter particularly to parents that are listening. Why shouldn't we be willing to sacrifice some privacy by having an ID, having to prove who we are on the internet in order to protect children? Wouldn't that be a reasonable compromise?

Melissa McIntosh

It shouldn't get to that. So, there's other measures in place that technology should be at a stage where, you know, there's reasonable measures that are taken to identify whether a child or whether a person that's online is a child under 16. And that these measures are detailed in the regulations. So, you know, assumptions around if a kid, if somebody hasn't had a Facebook account for more than 10 years, they're probably younger. Just the way that they're searching so you can make assumptions around it. And then there's also, facial recognition technologies. So, there are measures. It's just, if it gets to that last stage, is that option that the eSafety Commissioner does have the powers to mandate digital ID.

Hamish Macdonald

So, should these powers be tougher. In your view, given that you do want to secure Australia's digital sovereignty, not be having tech giants globally dictating terms to us, because this doesn't really force anyone to do anything immediately. There's no minimum number of young people they have to boot off. It's not really enforceable in the way that I think many anticipated it would be.

Melissa McIntosh

I think there's been recognition that it's not going to just be this as the end game, the ban, and this is the other risk, the unintended consequences that parents and, you know, schools or, you know, people that are looking after our kids just go, ‘okay, it's sorted now’. You know, kids, it's illegal to go online, so we don't have to do anything. So, there's an acknowledgement that there's kids will get around this as well. It's not going to stop every under 16-year-old accessing social media, unfortunately. But it's a step and I actually truly hope that it does work out for the sake of our children.

Hamish Macdonald

1300 222 702 is the number. Jim is here. You are a parent. Are you, do you think parents and families are prepared for this?

Jim (caller)

No, Hamish I don't think parents are aware at all about this. In the main, like, I know we talk about it in the media if you're not keeping up with news, then you wouldn't even know this was coming. I'm also really fascinated by the fact that the ABC and other media keep calling this a ban when it's anything but a ban. Can I just say that we have restrictions on television, for example, adults only, MA plus. Children are not banned from social media under this, and we should stop telling the public that they're not at all. Children are just restricted from accessing certain content, but they can still sign up and use social media. It's not a ban.

Hamish Macdonald

To be fair, that's the way the government has been describing it.

Jim (caller)

Yeah, but media's obligation is to interpret things, and it's certainly not a ban. A ban would mean children can no longer access YouTube, Instagram, other forms of social media. Not true, not a ban. We should stop saying it.

Hamish Macdonald

Jim, thank you very much for your call this morning. Melissa McIntosh is the Shadow Minister for Communications. You mentioned your desire for communications sovereignty. A big part of this is data, and you want more data centres here in Australia so that people know their data is kept here. Why does that matter? How do we do that?

Melissa McIntosh

I think it's got to a stage where we look at the future of our country and we are giving so much of our information away. Whether it is our data, whether it is our - even our telecommunications satellites, they're all foreign owned. For risk management, for the protection of our nation, both from a national security perspective, but also from a personal perspective, I think this is the time to have this debate and much of our data right now is stored offshore. It means that it's subject to foreign laws that allow foreign authorities to access it, even though we may legally own it, and I think Australians do have the right to know where their personal data's going and what's happening with that.

Hamish Macdonald

In the statement you've put out this week in relation to this, you've pointed to global tech companies now investing in small modular nuclear reactors. You've drawn the energy mix into this conversation as well. Obviously, net zero seems to be a vexed issue for your party. What's your position? Are you committed to net zero by 2050? Do you, are you still interested in nuclear reactors for Australia?

Melissa McIntosh

I think we need a pragmatic energy strategy, as you said in your opening. I'm a Member of Parliament in Western Sydney and people here - the biggest issue still is cost of living, and the top of the list of that is electricity prices and people want to do the right thing. There's high uptake of solar panels on roofs in Western Sydney, but people can't afford the batteries. So, they're still paying a high amount of electricity and the broken promise of $275, that's well and truly gone. So, I think we do need a pragmatic energy strategy and when we are looking at data.

Hamish Macdonald

Can we just be clear? Because this does seem to be cropping up for some of your colleagues. Do you support a commitment to net zero by 2050?

Melissa McIntosh

I'm very happy to go through the process of where we should land. So, I actually think we need to be looking at small modular nuclear reactors to power data centres say that. So, I'll be putting my input, my community's feedback into the mix. And I don't - I'm not - that's a question around - it's not a policy setting net zero. I'm not anti-net zero, but I also don't, I see how much people are struggling right now in Western Sydney in my community. And if it's all renewables, and that's part of the reason why they're struggling, of course I'm going to be pushing for other options as well to bring down energy costs and to relieve the pressure on our grid.

Hamish Macdonald

And you think nuclear reactors would do that?

Melissa McIntosh

I think we need to be - not just because of the outcome of the election where we had a campaign on nuclear. I don't think we should be completely dismissing it, especially when we're seeing other countries making investments in things like small modular nuclear power data centres and they are the future of technology right across the world, and I don't want our nation to be left behind.

Hamish Macdonald

Melissa McIntosh, thank you very much for your time.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you so much, Hamish.