Transcript - Doorstop, Parliament House - 2 September 2025

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

2 September 2025

Doorstop

Parliament House, Canberra, ACT

Topic: AI; deepfake apps; social media age minimum.

EO&E …

Melissa McIntosh

 A government's job and an opposition’s  job - main job - is to protect Australians, and this is about protecting our youngest Australians. And although we don't know the detail yet, when it comes to ensuring that children aren't exposed to such abhorrent apps online and through AI, in principle would be supportive and would like to work.

Journalist

We know there's a private members bill that covers off some of these bases that is currently in the Parliament. Have you looked through that and do you think that that does enough to mitigate these risks for acts like this?

Melissa McIntosh

Which private members bill?

Journalist

Believe it is from Kate. Kate Chaney? Yeah.

Melissa McIntosh

I've spoken to Kate about these issues in the past. I'm not particularly aware of that, the details of that bill.

Journalist

And with the government's announcement today as well, they're essentially saying that they're going to talk to big tech companies about what the best way to move forward is, do you think those talks are necessary or would there, should there have been sort of more action announced today as well?

Melissa McIntosh

I think there's a couple of issues going on right now. We have the emergence of AI and although there are many opportunities around AI, there are also great risks and it's really disturbing to hear that children in Australia have friends that are AI bots, and they need to be protected. Your best mate shouldn't be an AI bot. And also protecting kids from deep baits online particularly when it comes to really harmful, horrible content. And again around protecting Australians from stalking apps, there is no need to have undetected stalking apps. So that's one issue that is dealing with AI that's really important. The other is on the age verification technology. There are question marks around protecting kids online, under sixteens, and whether this age verification technology is going to work. And there's a question to the government. The minister said today that Australians will never need to provide digital ID to prove their age, that their own reports said that if other verification technology does not work, people may need to provide verification in the form of digital ID such as healthcare card. So, the government needs to be clear with the Australian people. Is it their report that's telling the truth or is it the Minister?

Journalist

On today's announcement, Minister Wells said the government's going to restrict access to stalking tools and apps that create deepfake nudes. But she didn't say what restricting access would actually look like, what the penalties would be for breaching that or any timeline. Do you have confidence that this will get done and that it will get done quickly?

Melissa McIntosh

Well, the government right now just released its age verification report under the cover of darkness. No one knew it was coming. There's question marks in there around which technology will be used, the powers of the unelected official in the eSafety Commissioner to determine whether a company is doing the right thing by kids that are under 16. So, we are concerned about deep fakes in the ways that you've just mentioned now, but there's many questions about how the government's going to execute what they're promising the Australian people. But we'll work very proactively with them. We want to protect Australian kids.

Journalist

Obviously a lot of that's about yesterday with the social media there. And in terms of today's announcement with the deep fakes, do you think that it does sound like they will go far enough and that we are likely to see action purely on today's announcements?

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah. AI is moving at astronomical speed, and in the meantime kids are being caught up in, in some nasty things and we want to work with them. There's many questions. We know as much as you right now. It was a surprise to us, this announcement. It's obviously on the government's radar, but if we can, if we can help them out, we'll work productively with them. But it needs to work. It can all, you know, right now it's all care, no responsibility from this Minister. She's making a commitment. The Albanese Labor Government's making a commitment to the Australian people to protect kids, in particular from deep fakes. Horrible things are going on. We've heard harrowing stories from teachers in schools and families where children have taken their own lives because of deep fakes and their images being put onto nudes. That's horrible stuff. So of course, we need to step up and protect our kids, but the question is to the government, when are you going to do this? How are you going to do this? There's lots of questions around transparency, when it comes to this government right now and being straight with the Australian people. So, we'd like to know more. Thank you very much.