Transcript - FiveAA Mornings - 10 November 2025

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

10 November 2025  

 Transcript  

FiveAA Mornings with Graeme Goodings

E&EO ...

Topic: Social media ban.

Graeme Goodings: Well, with just one month until Australia's under 16 social media ban kicks in, there are claims key details remain unclear. Joining us now is Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa McIntosh. Melissa, good morning to you.

Melissa McIntosh: Good afternoon. Oh, we're nearly - we're still morning.

Graeme Goodings: We're still morning. Where abouts are you?

Melissa McIntosh: It's been a big day in Sydney.

Graeme Goodings: Well, yes, it's still, still morning in Sydney as well. What are your major concerns with the social media ban?

Melissa McIntosh: I think like you said in your opening, we have one month to go, and this ban was meant to be about protecting Australian children, and the lack of detail - like the platforms, whether they're in or out. The government announced another two platforms just last week that would be in and with a month to go, I think Australians deserve to know which platforms, and families that need to encourage their kids off these platforms deserve to know. So, it's the drip feeding and the lack of clarity and also recently discovered, and this was never meant to be about this, digital ID may have to be used. So, a platform could compel an Australian to use digital identification, and I know from the emails I received and the calls my office get is that people hate the idea of this. And then you have questions around, where is people's data going to be stored? We don't - these are international companies, and we don't have sufficient numbers of data centres in our country right now because of the power costs and all sorts of things. So, there's a question mark around that. And then very simply that Australians aren't really aware of what's coming. I spoke to families that sadly lost their children to social media harm, and they were concerned that the government isn't putting enough into educating our kids, our schools and families that this would be coming right on school holiday season.

Graeme Goodings: Are you against an under 16 social media ban per se?

Melissa McIntosh: It's not as simple as that. The Coalition created the legislation in the first place. We had this as a policy leading into the election and I think the intent is good, but it's been a rushed year for the government. They set their own deadline and I fear that if this falls over, and Australian adults get really cranky about the restrictions that are in place for them, like digital ID- we don't want the kids to be the ones that are losing out. Everyone's just fed up, okay, we tried that ban, now that's not going to work, and what comes next? So, it's more around asking questions of the government. What are you doing? You made this commitment to the Australian people. The Minister herself has come out publicly and said it's a myth that people need to use digital ID, but the platforms themselves in front of Senate Estimates have said, well, they may need to be required. So, I think there's a bit of misleading of the Australian public as well here.

Graeme Goodings: Well, there's a whole area that we don't know about. There's a national education program launched just weeks before the law takes effect. You know, what are parents, schools meant to do? How do they prepare for these incoming restrictions?

Melissa McIntosh: Well, it's hard to prepare when you don't know which ones are in or out as well. And I think you're right; it's only weeks to go and I've seen the ad campaign because I needed to look at it, I haven't seen the ad campaign just generally playing and I've got children in that age group, so I'm questioning that as well. Whether families are going to have enough information and they don't really know what's in or out and the platforms have to self-identify. It's just so many questions. And I feel like the government sort of pre-empted success by the Minister going overseas. It was during the Triple Zero Optus outage, and started PR exercising this in the world stage, saying, look how amazing we are and this is before all the details have been locked down. So, it's a tough one because it's a balance between saying, we do really want to protect kids. It's horrible stuff online, they're completely inappropriate and the bullying is not on, and we need to do something about it. But just banning kids? I'm warning now that I fear that this is not going to work.

Graeme Goodings: You've highlighted the issue of digital verification. Is it in, is it out? What are your major reservations regarding digital ID verification?

Melissa McIntosh: I think Australians overall don't trust the use of their data. And you see with data breaches now and cybercrime, all sorts of things and even the ability of companies to protect their customers and their customers’ information and when you are required to produce that digital ID, whether it's a licence or another means, well your data has to be stored by that platform because that's where it will sit somewhere. And right now, a lot of data for these international tech companies are not stored in this country and we haven't gone through that process. When this legislation went through Parliament, digital ID was never on the cards. It was not going to be something that was going to be enforceable. I had a meeting with the eSafety Commissioner because I also questioned the powers that she has over Australians, and I asked her about whether she can enforce digital identification. She said that she could. She didn't intend to use those powers, but the very fact that she can use them, should alarm Australians that she can use them and it is possible that platforms, it can't be their only option that they try to get age verification from people when logging on or going onto an app or trying to use social media, but it could be an option. I really don't think Australians will like that. I don't know, your listeners might have other ideas, but the amount of correspondence I'm receiving, people hate it.

Graeme Goodings: Yeah, well, listeners call in, tell us what you think - 8223 0000. So, if you were in power at the moment, what would you do to implement an under 16 ban?

Melissa McIntosh: Again, it's around the lack of detail. I think going into this, we needed to be really ready and prepared that it would work. I wasn't the Shadow Communications Minister at the time, if I was, I would have asked a lot more questions, I think, around the effectiveness of doing this and whether it was going to work. But you need to get things sorted out. We need to have a decision on - make it clear on digital ID, the platforms should have already been identified - before we even went down this route - we should have known whether they had the technology for age verification. That was not clear at all, and it still isn't for some platforms, and some testing on whether this, perhaps a trial or something should have happened, more should have happened. So it's not so much around what we can do now. It's the whole process of how we've gotten to this space and I guess looking to the future, if it is not successful, what do we start doing to ensure kids are still protected?

Graeme Goodings: We get a lot of feedback, including from tech experts who say, look, kids are smart, they'll find a way around it. Do you fear that that will be the case?

Melissa McIntosh: Of course, of course. And we're already hearing anecdotal stories about how kids are preparing to get around it and use of VPNs and things, and that’s been the case in the UK, the uptick, and I'm concerned as well, around that. So, YouTube was never meant to be included and when YouTube was included and it was a question because if a kid's young and they go on YouTube, there's all these sorts of tech things that go on that help protect them online. Now, I fear that kids can just like, can just go on YouTube and search whatever they want, and they don't have those same protections in a logged-out state, so it’s the unintended consequences as well, I think.

Graeme Goodings: Shadow Minister for Communications Melissa McIntosh.