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As the social media ban looms, the Communications Minister has read Platforms the Riot Act.

In her press club address, the Minister Annika Wells has warned that while it may take some time to remove under-16s from platforms, the government won't let platforms off the hook, with alternative social media platforms Lemon 8 and Yope also put on notice.

But the Communications Minister is facing some scrutiny that was a little uncomfortable. Over $100,000 of flights to the UN General Assembly to spruke the policy.
Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvellis. And I'm David Spears and I'll confess this is the first time this week I've even heard of Lemon 8 and Yope, but

maybe says more about me there. I've got a feeling that they didn't make these things for you David Spears.
Possibly not. Possibly not.

Just stabbing in the dark.

Look, it's a week away and it made perfect sense that the minister would stand up and spruke it. A couple of reasons.
Well, she has to. It's obviously lots of details to be

settled and answered. But also, this is where the Prime Minister wants her to be.

So the backstory is that the Prime Minister has been very keen for the minister to be out all the time, every day, because he sees this as a key reform and also a very popular reform for his government.

And he wants it shoved down our throats. Seriously, they have made an assessment that this is very popular with parents and that he wants it talked about every day.

And so he said to his ministers, get out there, make sure you're talking about it. Now, she's the minister responsible.
She's read the Riot Act. She's talked about all of its implications.

It was a pretty, I thought a pretty decent speech, David. You were there.
What did you make of it? Yeah, I thought it was. I thought it was a solid speech on the social media age limit, one week out.

We can get to the questions on gambling, though, because I think that's a little less solid. But I do think on social media, yeah, it was a very solid performance from Annika Wells.

Just to touch on, you know, your point there about getting out there and selling this. You're right.
The government knows it's on a political winner with this.

Kids may be not so much a fan of what the government's doing here. BTN had some really interesting survey results that they were reporting on this week.

Kids don't like this, unsurprisingly, but parents do. And the government knows that.
They also know this is having international traction.

The one thing social media giants feared all along was little old Australia would start this and then others, bigger, more lucrative countries would follow. And that is exactly what we're seeing.

Maybe not the United States has a very different view, but whether it's Malaysia, New Zealand, the Europeans, this is spreading. So, you know, and Annika Wells spoke to that.

And just on getting out there and selling it, don't forget after the election, as part of the reshuffle, Anthony Albanese put Annika Wells into this job. Michelle Rowland became the Attorney General.

And I think, you know, I think this was in large part because she is a good retail politician. And I mean that in a

positive way in terms of selling this message.

You know, she's a young mum herself and can talk to the parental experience here and concerns. And I just think we saw that today.

She went through, you know, how this is going to work, the warning, as you say, to the social media giants, the big fines are there if there's systemic failure.

She told us there will be monthly reporting on how they're going and the number of kids' accounts that are being removed, which is good and that'll be transparent.

She said this is not a cure. This is part of a treatment plan.

So acknowledging there are, you know, this is not going to be the silver bullet that fixes all the problems online when it comes to the harm kids are facing.

There are all sorts of other issues with Nudify apps and AI bots and so on. And they're all, you know, separate pieces of work.

But on this, I mean, mean, let's face it, PK, this is, you know, and she quoted an author who said this, the biggest step we've seen really in the world to deal with protecting kids from online harm.

It's a big deal what the government's doing here, and we're about to see how effective it is. Yeah, we will.

And what she was also trying to send the message on is that, well, you know, you won't see an immediate effect.

So also managing expectations because what they're preempting is they'll start it and they obviously think it's a good story to tell but they're also preempting the many stories of failure you know you can see it a month in this many kids still on this you know mum revealing that her kids still on and this bad things happened to her don't you reckon so VPN take-ups are through the roof as kids find a way around this absolutely they're trying to get ahead of those stories

They know all of that.

But this is about being able to say, look, 80%, 90%, whatever the figure is of kids are no longer in that space. They will chalk that up as a win.

They're They're acknowledging this is going to take time, right? It's not like in the first days and weeks, suddenly problem solved, but it is, it's a big step, it's a complicated step.

There's been a lot of pushback, you know, from a lot of different quarters, but primarily from those, those tech giants. So this is not an easy thing necessarily to do.

Politically, though, it's easy because, yeah, they know this is pretty popular amongst parents. Yeah, and I mean, you know, there's more mixed, I think, feelings amongst young people.

Obviously, there's all those kind of, this is where we spend our time.

But I mean, I don't know about your kids, but I think mine acknowledge, for instance, that, yeah, it's not always a nice place to be.

So I think kids are also aware of the menacing nature of social media. Depends which kids you speak to, right?

I get it.

There are kids who

might be isolated, either geographically, socially, you know, for a disability, whatever it is, who will make a really powerful case that this is a way they can be part of society.

They can connect with each other.

They can share their lived experience. I get that.
So, you know,

it is, you've got to acknowledge that.

But for so many kids, and there were some in the room there today, including Emma Mason, I've probably spoken about her before, the mother, you know, who lost a 15-year-old after social media bullying.

She spoke so powerfully at the United Nations in New York when the PM was there a few months ago. I mean, those parents, you've got to listen to as well.

And a lot of kids, I think you're right, get it, that this is... not a happy place and a safe place for many of them to be.

Yeah, they absolutely get it because they're the ones that are dealing with the various levels of,

you know, predatory behavior and bullying. And like they're the ones that are telling us the stories.
Like, you know, old people don't even know how to use some of this stuff.

So we've heard it from somewhere, haven't we? Look, the other thing that happened at the press club is

Annika Wells having to deal with what is a difficult issue for her.

$100,000 of flights for her and two staffers to attend the UN General Assembly meeting in New York, where they went and talked about Australia's world-leading social media ban.

Now, backstory, the government's pretty proud of this. They want to be talking about it at a national, international level and really, you know, getting the kudos from it.

If you look at sort of why this matters to the government, I mean, in the kind of podcast space, for instance, you know,

there's a lot of talking up of Australia from lots of commentators about us doing this. So I think Albanese is very aware of this and wants us to be on the bandwagon of being the leaders.

And eventually, just like our gun laws are quoted everywhere, and they are, David, around the world, people will talk about our gun laws.

He wants this to be the thing that people are like, that Albanese government and their famous social media laws for children. So, that's the reason.
But this was pretty expensive.

What's her defence for this? Yeah, look,

expensive, you're right. Annika Wells and two staff members flew over at the last minute to New York.

They'd been umming and ahing about whether to go, people might remember, because of the Optus 000 outage, and that held them up having to deal with the crisis that was happening that week.

So it was a last-minute decision to go. I assume that's why the ticket prices were so high.
I mean, I think it was, what, 34 grand for the minister's flight to New York and back.

Look, it's a long time since I booked a business flight the United States. I'm not sure if I ever have actually, PK.

I flew over their economy, so maybe that's why I've got a chip on my shoulder about this. But even for a business class flight, that does seem a little exy.

What do you

think one of the

38 grand? It is. That's just the flights, let alone the accommodation.
It is. And so then, you know, it's a reasonable question to ask, is this...

It must have been the same day or night before booking, I guess. Yeah, is it value for money? That's the question.

It probably doesn't pass the pub test. Now, I understand why the government wanted to send people to Spruket, right? Like, governments do do that.
The PM was there.

He was, and Emma Mason, who I mentioned, gave that knockout speech. She was the main speaker, and Ursula von der Leim

was there.

Annika Wells did speak at the event,

basically MC'd the whole event. No doubt had some other meetings around it too.
She was there, I think, for two or three days. So

I don't know. People will make their own judgment on that, but that's a rather expensive.

It is expensive.

There's no doubt about it. How do you think she dealt with the questions? On that, that's always awkward, right? So, no, they weren't.
She kind of tried to shut it down, didn't she? She was like,

at least we've been transparent. Well, they, you know,

Senate Estimates questions required them to. That's why we love.
the parliamentary process because you can find out this sort of information.

Yeah, and look, you know, these things, whoever's in government can be embarrassing, but I don't know.

I just always wonder the person who clicks the button to purchase that ticket at 34 or 38 grand um do they think through how this is going to play and senate estimates and then the questions that are going to you know and and the timing of this right on the day she's there at the national press club not not great timing no terrible timing uh but yeah i mean she's she's lucky in so much as the majority was still focused on the social media ban and that would be you know some positive

news but this was a distraction that they would not have liked very much. Now, the other thing she was questioned on, which I don't think is a good story for the government, I don't think I know.

Who do I sound like?

Is gambling reform, which they've sat on and done nothing on. Now she's the minister responsible.
Clearly, Albanese has not exactly told her to fire up on it. How has she answered it?

Yeah, I mean, she did get quite a few questions, including from me, about this. I just thought it was interesting to contrast what they're doing on social media, which is huge.
It's difficult.

it's taking on vested interests, very powerful tech giants in this space, and global pushback from some quarters, the Trump administration included, and yet they've stuck to this, they're sticking to their timeframe, we're a week away from this happening.

And yet on gambling ad reform, we're two years now since the Murphy review, that parliamentary review that had a bipartisan consensus around the need to tackle gambling ads and still nothing.

What's going on? Why does it take so long?

And when she was asked in some of the questions there today, the minister didn't really want to say where they're up to or where she's wanting to take this issue.

And when I asked her about that, she kind of said, well, look at what I did with aged care reform, kept that under wraps, negotiated a deal with the coalition and we produced a bipartisan consensus about constructive reform.

In other words, watch this space.

The opposition have been quick to point out that they haven't been approached by the government for any consultation on the gambling ad issues.

So I don't know what she's indicating there, but presumably talks with the gambling companies, with the TV networks, the sporting,

the major sporting codes as well, who are all pretty reluctant to see reform here. Maybe she is working behind the scenes on all of that and is about to land something soon.

She did indicate that there will be something, right? They're not completely walking away from this, but exactly what it's going to

be is still very unclear. And yeah, they were a little unsatisfying, the answers that I think we got on that.

If anyone was hoping for an indication as to what they're planning to do here, what did you think, Piko?

Well, I get the sense that she hasn't exactly been empowered here to go and get some kind of big reform.

You know, backstory again,

she was really good friends with Peter Murphy, who was the author of that report.

Now, just because you're friends with someone doesn't, you know, I'm friends with lots of people and don't agree with everything they say. But, you know, I do think there's an extra emotional probably

element to this report and you know this this fierce woman in the Labor Party who is really respected across the aisle who delivered this these really I think groundbreaking recommendations the government does have to deliver something here and they can't keep dragging their feet and there's lots of reasons for that but one of them is this is actually one thing that I think the Labor backbench might get very feisty on.

And you think that they're all very weak and bored. I don't know.
I think this is the one to watch. I agree and some of them have already said to me watch the Labor Party conference.

It's due next year. I think it's mid-next year or maybe it's July, August.

That's where there will be motions around this. There will be additional pressure.

Sure governments might be able to ignore what comes out of that but it's a it'll be a show of force from the membership of the Labor Party that they want something to happen on this.

Now you mentioned Annika Welltz, friend of Peter Murphy. Ultimately though, this is one of those things that's going to be the Prime Minister's call, right? We all know that.

And we know that he's a rugby league tragic.

We know that he has expressed concern about the impact this would have on the footy, the sporting codes, on the TV networks, particularly those in regional areas that are struggling.

We can't deny that. They clearly are.
But it's going to be the PM ultimately who will decide. what, if anything, they're going to do on this.

But that pressure from the rank and file, I think, will be really interesting to watch leading up to the conference next year. Yeah, I think that's right, David.

Look, I want to change the topic if I can to talk about a couple of economic pieces of news.

The first one being national accounts, which is how the economy is going essentially, have been released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

They show Australia's economy has limped along, rising a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in the September quarter. However,

overall, over the year, a better story and also

better private investment numbers, which I think are something the government's spruking. I spoke to Jim Chalmers.

It'll be on the ABC News channel after four o'clock, and he's talking up obviously that element.

But in the next couple of weeks, my EFO to be released, some of those key decisions to be made. It all happened at the same time today as the RBA governor facing the Senate estimates.

She's talking about inflation as well. David,

what do you make of the ABS figures? Obviously, a lot of spin from the government. Yeah, I mean, understandably, the Treasurer will point to that annual figure.
I'm sure he said it to you.

I think he's put out a statement saying it's the fastest annual growth in two years. So that's some good news.
The quarterly number, though, was below expectations at 0.4.

And I think he's probably right to point out to some of the figures within the national accounts that are more encouraging. That private investment figure up 2.9% in the quarter.

It's the strongest figure we've seen there for something like four and a half years. So that means business are getting out and investing, which is what we need to see.

Look, the take from economists is this probably doesn't shift the dial on the interest rate decision that's coming from the Reserve Bank in December.

No one seems to be talking about any sort of rate cut. And then what does it mean for the government? Well, it's got to make this call.

I know we've talked about this in recent weeks on the household energy rebate and whether to extend that beyond the end of this year or whether to turn off that tap.

Look, I don't know if today's figures will shift their thinking on that at all.

I think, you know, probably still likely to end the rebate, but they've got to make a political call on that in the next week or two, I guess. Yeah, they certainly do have to make a political call.

And a good word to use, political call, because,

you know, obviously there's like...

big economic decisions to be made about whether you keep spending this money but man it's political you know like it really is

yeah i think look uh chris richardson said last week that this is the the crispiest pork there there is when it comes to

something that's going straight to households but not really dealing with inflation,

but acknowledges that the political reality is something the government will consider. Do you

take that money away or stop that money flowing at the end of this year when inflation is still pretty high? It's above the target zone and people are still clearly feeling the pinch. And it represses

the look of inflation, right?

So then, just like the Treasurer explained the inflation number that we got, the 3.8%, by saying the state rebates are coming off,

well, that's going to be exacerbated, right? So it's very counterintuitive, isn't it?

Yeah, it is.

It would push that headline rate even higher, you would think. There might be other factors that counter that, but in and of itself, that would have an impact on the headline rate of inflation.

Look, the Reserve Bank keeps saying it looks through these sorts of one-off measures, so it may not affect their decision on interest rates.

I think the interest rate picture, though, is probably of more importance to more households out there. That has

a substantial impact, whether they're going to go up again or maybe come down at some point next year again.

That's what a lot of households will be hanging on and the government sweating on, no doubt, too. David, been great to hang out with you today.
Thanks for joining me. Thanks, Pico.

And that's it for politics now for today. We'll be back in your feed tomorrow for the party room.
You can send a question to thepartyroom at abc.net.au and we'll try and answer it. Bye, David.

See you, Pico.