Transcript - Sky News - The Kenny Report - 22 September 2025

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

22 September 2025

EO&E …

Transcript

Sky News – The Chris Kenny Report

Topic: Optus outage.

Chris Kenny

Now, let's bring in the Shadow Communications Minister, Melissa McIntosh. She joins me live from Sydney. Thanks for joining us, Melissa. This is a terrible dilemma. Optus have failed in this regard previously. First of all, what sanctions should apply to the company from the government at this stage.

Melissa McIntosh

Thank you. You're right, it's terrible. I think those initial feelings of devastation are now feelings of frustration to hear that there have been so many failures in the process. Firstly, Optus, of course, and we're so devastated about these families. But there are questions, and you ask what should happen now; I have questions around the process of when Optus first alerted, which is required by law - first alerted the regulator and the Communications Department on Thursday. But the Minister's saying she didn't hear anything until Friday afternoon. So, the government has announced an investigation but leading that investigation is the regulator. So, the regulator who's been caught up in this process where there has been failures, should not be the body that is conducting the investigation. So right now we still have more unanswered questions. People are rightly feeling like they're losing trust in our most essential telephone service and they're also losing trust in the process.

Chris Kenny

You're dead right. The investigation has to be done by someone completely independently, not somebody involved in this process. Look, we all know that technology can have a glitch. It's about how you deal with it. Now, obviously, when the Triple Zero calls were not working for Optus, somebody needed to act and act quickly to let the CEO know and to let governments and other authorities know. That took way too long. Was part of the problem here the fact that it was overseas call centres who were notified first? Obviously, Optus has call centres overseas to save money. Have those money saving efforts jeopardised community safety?

Melissa McIntosh

I think one of the top outcomes of this must be that all call centres related to Triple Zero need to be in our country. There's no - you can talk about sovereignty; it's the talk of the town right now but there's no more important sovereignty than getting this right when people's lives are on the line. And there has been a major, major failure. And I think it's not in the recommendations of the previous review that was conducted, but I think it should be the top recommendation and it has to be implemented as a matter of urgency.

Chris Kenny

I could not agree more. I mean, there's so many failings along the way here, but we're expecting a operator in a foreign country to upscale an alert about Triple O numbers in Australia. They may not even really understand the importance of Triple O in this country. We've got to get that stuff happening within our own shores, within our own borders. Thanks so much for joining us, Melissa. I appreciate it.