Transcript - Sky News NewsDay - 14 October 2025

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

14 October 2025

Transcript

Sky News NewsDay with Kieran Gilbert

Topics: Social media age minimum; Triple Zero network; Hamas; Gaza; immigration.   

E&EO …

Kieran Gilbert

Welcome back to the program. Let's go live to the Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa McIntosh. Your counterpart, your opposite number, the Minister's been meeting with the social media companies telling them they can expect this widespread ad campaign to roll out over coming months. Does the Coalition support the ad campaign to show families and Australians more broadly how this social media ban will work?

Melissa McIntosh

Thanks, Kieran, for having me on. I met with the families that had lost their children to social media harm a number of weeks ago, probably a month ago now. And they'd said to me at the time they were concerned after they'd met with the Prime Minister and the Minister that there wasn't enough awareness, there wasn't an ad campaign in place and that schools weren't ready, families weren't ready, and kids weren't ready. So we do support that people need to know about this but the clock's ticking. We're a matter of weeks away now, so it's a little too late. But I think, you know, our calls for them to let people know and those parents’ calls. But we still have platforms that don't know if they're in or out yet which is pretty strange. You'd think it'd be sorted by now, something so important.

Gilbert

You've written to the Minister, Anika Wells, and urging her to accept an amendment from the Coalition. Basically, you want tougher penalties. Is that right? That's in relation to the Triple Zero custodian and network.

McIntosh

Yeah, and again, looking after your citizens is the most important job of a government. And I've been pressing so hard over these weeks on this because it is about people's lives. And we had less than 24 hours’ notice that the legislation was coming through even though the government had sat on recommendations for a year and a half and did nothing. We said these are the recommendations that we want, and the government voted them down. But I think they're really important. So, I've written to the Minister and said we want to work with you. We think that telcos that do wrong by Australians, particularly when it comes to life and death over Triple Zero should be fined more. $10 million is obviously not enough because this still happens. So, double the fines. And I'm also calling for a public register of Triple Zero outages. So Australians have that transparency and they have that confidence because we know it's not just Optus. There are all the telcos have issues with outages, and we also know that other telcos, including the NBN, had a Triple Zero outage. So Australians have a right to know what's going on behind the scenes and to have confidence in our most essential telecommunications service. They, at the very least, they deserve to be able to pick up the phone and make that very important phone call in that time of need.

Gilbert

Finally, I want to ask you something. Pauline Hanson has issued a statement saying that the peace deal that's been signed in the Middle east should now see the Albanese Government send those Gazans who've been granted protection visas to send them home now there's a peace deal. What do you say to that?

McIntosh

Well, Senator Hanson has her right as an individual to have her say. We - the Coalition has not made that statement as well. People come to Australia on, you know, very significant grounds. Let's see what happens in Gaza. This is the first stage and we welcome it. You know, seeing the hostages come home like, it's just, it makes everyone emotional to see them hug their families. And we want the peace deal to stick and for Hamas to play its part of the bargain. So, it's probably a bit pre-emptive because this is just, you know, a first step in a big process. And all credit to President Trump.

Gilbert

Shadow Communications Minister Melissa McIntosh, thank you as always.