Transcript - FiveAA - 8 October 2025

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

8 October 2025

Transcript

FiveAA with David Penberthy and Will Goodings

Topics: Triple Zero outage; Triple Zero inquiry.

E&EO …

Will Goodings

Melissa McIntosh is the Shadow Minister for Communications and joins us on Five Double A breakfast. Shadow Minister, good morning to you.

Melissa McIntosh

Good morning.

David Penberthy

So, Shadow Minister, what role is there for government? What type of oversight should government provide when it comes to Triple O? Because I don't think any of us would want to see Optus necessarily let off the hook.

Melissa McIntosh

You're right. And you know, from your area, the events of a few weeks ago, tragically, four people passed away, so it can't happen again. And the government does have a role. So it isn't just on the telecommunications providers like Optus. It's a very regulated industry and the government can put all sorts of things in place to oversee it.

And one of the recommendations when Optus had that outage in 2023 was to have a custodian, which is like a law enforcer within government, to make sure things are going right. But the government sat on this recommendation for a year and a half and now this has happened with Optus and people have died and we're here this week trying to rush legislation through, so it's got the powers it needs to try and fix this issue. So, I'm pretty cranky.

David Penberthy

So scandal number what you're saying, is it fair to surmise that scandal number one should have necessitated a much more dramatic response from the Commonwealth? And rather what's happened is that it's taken scandal number two involving Triple O for them to do what they said they were going to do in the first place.

Melissa McIntosh

Yeah, you're pretty much spot on there. There were 18 recommendations after the first one saying, this is how you can fix it. And we only found out through Question Time yesterday, probing the Minister which recommendations they've actioned. And we also discovered yesterday that there's been this overseer in her Department since March. Well, if they've been there since March, why weren't they doing their job?

So now we've got this legislation to go through and I don't think it's strong enough. I'll keep putting the pressure on the Minister. She went overseas during the crisis. I don't think that's appropriate. She left her post, she came back and three weeks later she dragged the CEOs to Parliament for a bit of a political stunt.

So we want to - but the politics is the politics. We need to get this right for Australians. When somebody's in need, every single one of your listeners, when they have their greatest time of need, should be able to pick up the phone and call Triple Zero and actually get through.

David Penberthy

Wasn't her most recent policy triumph being in charge of my aged care, where there's a quarter of a million Australians waiting to get onto a package?

Melissa McIntosh

That's correct.

David Penberthy

Yeah.

Melissa McIntosh

When we were in Parliament the other week, 108,000 Australians just waiting still. And it took a pressure again for the government to release those packages. So this is - there's nothing more important for a government and even the Opposition than looking after your citizens and protecting them and making sure they're safe. And right now, this Minister seems to be failing at every one of her jobs she's had in regards to that.

David Penberthy

Yeah, absolutely. Shadow Minister for Communications, Melissa McIntosh, thank you for joining us this morning.