Transcript - Sky News First Edition - 19 November 2025

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

19 November 2025

Transcript 

Sky News First Edition with Peter Stefanovic  

Topics: Net zero; Liberal Party; Triple Zero; Triple Zero Custodian; ACMA; Samsung; TPG Telecom.

E&EO … 

Peter Stefanovic

Joining us live is Melissa McIntosh. It's good to see you, Melissa. So, whenever we have discussions in your wheelhouse, it's always the future of the party, though, that dominates things, and there's no change on that today. So, let's start off there before we get to Samsung.

Melissa McIntosh

I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Pete.

Stefanovic

Are you aware of an open discussion, predominantly in New South Wales, about the moderates splitting from the Liberal Party?

McIntosh

No, my - and I'm not - I'm absolutely upfront with you on this, my discussions with party members have been really positive after I stood up for my community. I've had emails from across the country, including from Liberal Party members, supporting my position. So, I'm not going to question the truth in this article, but it is not what I'm experiencing. I think we’ve landed as a federal party in a strong place. We've got a platform now, we've got direction, and now it's up to us to take the Australian people with us.

Stefanovic

So, I see that Hollie Hughes has left the party this morning. And you've also got this letter that Andrew Bragg has written to his constituents about the party's disintegration and what that could mean going forward. Do you think that was necessary?

McIntosh

We're the gift that keeps on giving the media right now, aren't we? I think that we should start focusing on what we need to do to be a strong Opposition. As I said, I've not had any of this backlash from party members. I know that there were differing views going into that party room, but every single person in that party room said once we made that decision, we'll come together regardless, because we do need to prosecute our arguments against Labor and their failures for the Australian people. So, I guess that's up to my colleagues what they'd like to say in regards to party matters and in regards to Hollie, she was a great senator and I've known her for a long time and it's disappointing she's leaving, but that's her decision. And I'm looking forward to her being actively involved in the public debate.

Stefanovic

Yeah, I mean, you're always up front, Melissa. It's refreshing to hear, and you have been consistent all along on your views on net zero, but now you've got Andrew McLachlan still questioning the net zero call. So how do you Sell it with members of the party not believing it.

McIntosh

You have to have conviction. I walked into that party room that day with the conviction of my community. So if you're talking to your people and you're speaking to people on the ground and they're telling you you're going in the right direction and you can feel their suffering and you can see it, you can visually see how bad it is for Australians and you can let all the other stuff go away and put some blinkers on, because the Australian people want that from us, for a party of government, for us to have that focus and to take them on our pathway. So, I would really love for us to be able to do that now.

Stefanovic

Well, on that pathway, I mean, federally, you're against net zero. Now the states are all in. The Liberals have a new leader in Victoria. There's rumours of a potential spill in New South Wales that have been put to bed for now. Sussan Ley's fighting to hold onto her job. How would you describe where the Liberal Party is at right now?

McIntosh

On the New South Wales state side of things, they've obviously got a policy difference to us, but that's not unusual. I think we can work together. You know, I'm not going to deny it, when there's lots of turmoil and different things happening, people do lose some confidence. But I hope we get through this phase quite quickly and then we can unite. When I went out to a local function last night with my community and they're asking for us to - they're like, they’re almost desperate for us to unite because they need us to. So, I hope we'll get through this. We do that. And when we're a strong Opposition, we're really, really good. And that's what we need to start being. We have this issue. The next issue is immigration. We have housing, we have cost of living. We have a lot to get through between now and the next election.

Stefanovic

Alright, let's just get to this TPG Telecom that says a Sydney customer died after outdated software blocked a Samsung phone from making a Triple Zero call. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? What questions do you have about all that this morning?

McIntosh

I'm really devastated. It's hard, you don't want to be the person that says, I told you so on such a devastating, terrible issue where people's lives have been lost. But it's pretty much two months to the day when we had those Optus outages. And at the time, on behalf of the Coalition, I pressured the government, I had amendments to legislation going through a house. I was calling for a public register, calling for an independent investigation, because the regulator, ACMA, is caught up in this whole devastating outage situation. And yet here we are and there's been another death. And the Minister for Communications hasn't even fronted the media or the public on this - just put out a statement yesterday. So, we have this Custodian, we rushed this legislation through – a Custodian has been put in place in her Department, but we found out that that Custodian has been there since March. What have they been doing since March? What are they doing now that we've had another death? What's ACMA, the regulator, doing and what's the Minister doing? It is a complex situation, but I stand by what I called for previously, and that's a thorough, independent investigation into the whole Triple Zero ecosystem, the network, the telcos, the infrastructure and the handsets so this does not keep happening. It is not good enough. Australians are losing confidence in our most essential telecommunications service.

Stefanovic

Alright, Melissa McIntosh, appreciate your time, as always.

McIntosh

Thanks, Pete.