Transcript - Sky News with Kieran Gilbert

Melissa McIntosh MP
Shadow Minister for Communications
Shadow Minister for Western Sydney
Federal Member for Lindsay

Transcript – Sky News with Kieran Gilbert

4 April 2025

E&OE

Kieran Gilbert:

Thanks for your time. I know you were there at The Daily Telegraph event with the Opposition Leader. He's saying that the gas policy would reduce prices by 15% in terms of gas. Have you got any further thoughts on that, and will the modelling be released to help back that up?

Melissa McIntosh:

Thanks, Kieran. I think Peter said today to the press pack, just be a little bit more patient. We'll have our details out that you're asking for very shortly. But it is clear that we'll bring the prices of gas down. And here in Western Sydney, you just have to go to a heavy industry manufacturer and they say we could have all the solar panels in the world powering our offices, but we need 24,7 baseload power to have Australia Made in this country. They need gas, they're desperate for gas and right now prices are through the roof. People are closing their doors in both manufacturing and small business and households are struggling like never before.

As you said we're in Western Sydney because we're making some great announcements. Today we went to Parramatta, we talked about our reduction in the fuel excise by half, which will take a lot of pressure off all the tradies, all the families that are using these roads across Western Sydney and we’ll also make huge investments into our road network across Western Sydney, those potholed roads that the Albanese Labor Government has forgotten about, completely forgotten about when Western Sydney Airport opens in a year's time. Major freight roads we’ll be investing in those upgrades right here in Penrith. Labor ripped $100 million out of finishing the construction of a major, major upgrade. We're going to put that money back. So Albanese and his team have been trying to hoodwink the people at Western Sydney for the last three years and we're getting on with getting the job done.

Kieran Gilbert:

Mr Dutton was asked about the issue of working from home. I know that it was public service related, the message from him and Jane Hume, but have people in your seat in Lindsay at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Have some taken it as an attack on the broader approach to work from home? Have people raised that with you?

Melissa McIntosh:

Yeah, I think Peter made it clear today. I think it was a bit of scaremongering from Labor on this one. It's around setting the levels back to what they were pre-Covid and there's been about a 60% increase or so on work from home, particularly in Canberra, and we're only talking about Canberra public servants here. So, any discussion around enforcing this across the private sector or any of the other state government public service? Of course not. He's talking specifically about Canberra. And people know this. You only need to go to a building and have a little coffee shop underneath that building that used to service so many workers throughout the week that are just struggling to survive. These are our small businesses that have no customers virtually on a Friday even. We heard that story today. So, it's a very sound, common sense policy around setting the levels back to what they were, not making everyone not work from home.

Kieran Gilbert:

Melissa McIntosh, thank you.

ENDS