Transcript - Press conference - 20 September 2025

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

20 September 2025

EO&E …

Transcript

Press conference in Penrith, NSW at 12:35pm AEST.

Topic: Optus triple-zero incident; Social media minimum age; Prime Minister UN speech.

Melissa McIntosh 

Heartbreaking to be standing here today, Saturday. This incident – this happened I believe as much as the information we can get, from midnight Thursday morning to about Thursday lunchtime. And this is new information. Initially, Optus said that the upgrade of its systems meant there was an outage to its Triple O network for around two hours, and it was the South Australian Premier that let us all know today that it seems to be that that outage was for 10 hours. In times of crisis, in times of need, Australians expect to be able to pick this up or their landline and call Triple O. It is heartbreaking that three Australians have lost their lives because of this catastrophic failure of Optus in its - to its systems. I'm standing here as a politician and as a parent and as a community member - I think about the summer to come and the bushfires ahead and what Australians may be faced with if they don't have the reliability of being able to call in their time of need. But instead of getting answers over these past couple of days, all we've had is updates by the media. It was extraordinary to hear this news last night by the CEO. It was a very brief statement. My office has had a phone call with Optus. We are still in the dark about what has happened, as are all Australians right now, and I believe the CEO of Optus will be holding a press conference this afternoon. But why are we finding out about this via a press conference? Why were the emergency services contacted by Optus? Why are we all waiting now on a Saturday afternoon to find out why this happened? Such a serious incident happened a number of days ago. I also have questions around when Minister Wells found out from Optus, when did Optus alert her about this catastrophic failure of their systems? There's questions around when emergency services did find out. How many people were impacted over the of course the timeline of that failure. The Coalition will stand with the government on whatever needs to happen, but we are calling for a full and thorough investigation into this outage, into this catastrophic failure because it is not the first from Optus. We've been here before. They’ve had a $12 million fine. This time, three lives have been lost, including our youngest citizen, a baby. Politicians, governments, and Australian companies should be putting Australians first and this time on this occasion they've really let every single Australian down and no more so than the families of these three people who have sadly lost their lives.

Journalist

Just wondering, Melissa, if you think that greater fines are needed to be imposed for breaches or regulations like this if the federal government needs to act to impose greater financial penalties on?

Melissa McIntosh

I think obviously the fine that Optus faced not that long ago hasn't resulted in preventing this horrible incident from happening. They also had a review by the government, and I've seen that in a statement that they've implemented a number of those recommendations, but it's not about the fines or the reviews. This is people's lives. Three people have sadly passed away. We need a thorough investigation. I'm not only talking about Optus, but Australians need to have reassurance that every single telecommunications provider in this country will be operational in their greatest time of need. You know, I've got a phone in my hand now, and Australians, wherever they are should be able to have that reliability in calling Triple O when they need it and right now as we face somewhere, as I said, and we've got bush fires ahead, there's no doubt about that, people should also feel comfortable that if they need to call Triple Zero at any point of the day, 24/7, they should be able to do that.

Journalist

And just to check on that, you’re confirming that the Coalition would support Anika Wells calling a parliamentary inquiry?

Melissa McIntosh

She should be using every single lever of government, every mechanism available to investigate what has happened, because three lives have been lost. Whatever review happened in the past was not strong enough because we’re standing here today on a Saturday when this incident happened on a Thursday, and we are all pretty much still in the dark, including the Premier of South Australia. And I'd like to hear from the Minister. I know she's put out a very brief statement and I hope she can enlighten all of Australia a little bit more.

Journalist

I’ve just got a question on another matter. The Prime Minister is off to New York this week. He’s really hoping to push those upcoming social media bans and be a world leader. Do you think there's enough detail in those for him to be able to do that and for other countries to want to follow suit with it?

Melissa McIntosh

I've been talking about the social media ban for weeks and weeks now. Our Australian kids should be our top priority. And on one hand, we want to protect them online and do everything we can. There's a lot of material that they are exposed to and there's bullying online. We don't question that, but what I'm questioning now is that whether this ban is actually going to be successful. There are many questions around the technology that will be used. I'm sort of surprised that the Prime Minister is going out there cheerleading for something that hasn't been proven yet. We've got until the tenth of December. One of the families that is attending with him I met with and it's so sad. I made a promise to those families as part of the ‘Let Them Be Kids’ campaign that I'll do everything I can to ensure that kids are. But they told me that they walked out of a Prime Ministerial meeting and with the Minister as well, and they weren't feeling very confident that the government was ready for this ban. There's no education campaign in place. Kids in schools across our country, parents and the teachers, many of them are just not aware this is coming. So, I think it's a little bit from the Prime Minister pre-empted that this is going to be a success, but overall we do want to keep our kids.

Journalist

It's Nicole Hegarty from the ABC. You've spoken about increasing penalties potentially being one outcome, but on the side of regulations, there are a suite of additional regulations coming in from November, following the last Optus incident. Do you see there is potential to build on those given fees, regulations, as well as penalties?

Melissa McIntosh

It's really hard to say, because we're standing here on a Saturday with this catastrophic incident happened apparently on a Thursday, and we all don't know like the biggest failure in protecting Australians happened by Optus. The biggest failure in processes has happened by Optus, yet we don't know the details, so we'll have to wait until more information comes out. But as I said, the Coalition will stand by the government in whatever needs to occur, but it is, I think, time for a full and thorough Commonwealth-led independent investigation.