HAMISH MACDONALD, ABC SYDNEY: Now on more than a few occasions, we’ve been hearing from you, on the text line, on the phone line, about some rather dubious sounding new road rules, fake stories popping up on social media, for example. And then you go to Google and you search for the new road rules, and the AI function generates stories that correspond with that they're also fake. It turns out a lot of the time, some examples of this include having to keep your headlights on at all times when driving, even during the day. One of these stories suggests that over 60s wouldn't be allowed to drive after 10pm, there's even some about taking a sip of water in the car. This might also generate a fine, says some of these reports. If you've been victim, fallen victim to this, if you've spotted one of these stories, maybe you've helped clarify one of these stories for someone in your life, 1300 222 702, is the number. These are obviously fake stories, but a lot of people are falling foul of this. The government is doing plenty in the online space about social media for young people, we know that. But what about the Federal Government acting when it comes to these fake stories about road rules, we can all imagine what the consequences might be if you get it wrong. Catherine King is the Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, she's here this morning. A very good morning to you, Minister.

CATHERINE KING: Good morning Hamish, it's lovely to be with you.

MACDONALD: Now, I ran into your Parliament House in Canberra last week and you mentioned this, and I told you, well, look, we've actually been covering it here on 702. How did it come to your attention that so many Australians are seeing these fake stories?

KING: Well, I know I was sitting on the couch over a weekend watching the telly, and I'm checking my emails, and suddenly I got a flurry of emails in my inbox, largely from my own constituents who were saying, and were really outraged that the Federal Government was doing a curfew for over 60s, which was a surprise to me. I'm 60 next year, that would be a bit of a problem for me going about my daily business. And it was really visceral anger at the government that we were doing this. I'm thinking, like, where on earth is this coming from? And so that's really how it started. And other MPs were also getting similar things in the inbox, and people absolutely had bought in that this, this was what was happening. And it was a, you know, 'you're doing this to us, and this is terrible.' So basically, we tried to sort of track like, where are the websites coming from? What is this? And I took pretty quickly to social media, the good benefits of social media, to basically debunk that this wasn't happening. Australian Government doesn't put curfews on licenses. We don't actually set those sort of rules anyway. So really, it was quite a surprise to me. But also the thing that I felt really awful about is just how many older people really fell for it, and then when we took them through, 'well, look, this isn't reputable,' just how upset they were that they had then actually fallen for it as well, because a lot of them had thought themselves really savvy about what they're seeing online. And I think that's the one of the problems with these, these sort of generated campaigns, is that they are believable, particularly if a friend of yours passes it on to you and tells you, you're more likely to believe someone that you know, so they're pretty tricky.

MACDONALD: And is it only the over 60s curfew that you were hearing about? Obviously, we've heard about other examples, like you're not allowed to take a sip of water in the car, or you might have to have your headlights on 24 hours a day, by the way, if you're listening, that's fake. Are you seeing other examples,

KING: This was the biggest one in terms of the emails. They pop up from time to time. But this was the biggest one that we had, a large volume of people who really, really did believe it and then emailed really angry, not saying, 'is this true,' but just basically telling us off for doing it. So this was the biggest one. But various things pop up, you're right, the sort of headlights on, you know, distractions, like various rules that are not true. But this was the biggest one we'd seen.

MACDONALD: When we started looking into this further, we noticed that when you googled new rule, road rules, and whether they're true or false, the AI generated search function on Google was producing the fake results because it was scraping those fake articles. I know you've been in touch with Google and various platforms. What conversations have you had? What have you been able to do as a federal government?

KING: Well, as I said, the first thing I did was I took to social media myself and recorded, you know, 'this is not true, this is what's happening.' I responded to every email I received directly, and then got everyone, every other MP and Senator, to do the same, and tried to make sure it wasn't being generated further. We then pointed out to some of the platforms that, look there's this, you know, this appears to be not correct information. Some of them, I understand, took it down, my office did that, but it's really hard. I think that is the nature of these things. Some of them could be generated by AI, some of them could be foreign actors, we don't know, could be bot farms. Really, the whole point of them is that they're trying to create confusion and division, and they are really hard to trace where it is. Some of the people were saying, you know, these are websites I've gone to before, but obviously the domain name had lapsed, and someone had taken them over and then was using them for a different, more nefarious purpose. So they had been trusted domain names in the past, for some people. So, really difficult to find out who is behind it and trying to counter them quickly. But that's the challenge we have in a world where you can see these things generated and spread so quickly.

MACDONALD: Catherine King is here, the Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport. I did want to ask you about that. Do you have any insight or clues as to who's generating this stuff, why they're generating this stuff?

KING: Look, we don't, but we do know that there is a lot of destabilisation happening. We don't know what the reasons are, a lot of speculation, both in the media and by academics, about what that is about. But certainly, we don't know, but the result is it does sew fear, anger and division, and that is what it's exactly designed to do. It's designed to get a reaction. It's designed to either get people to then click further and go further into finding out information that then could be gathering information about you, or it's designed to really get people and at its very worst, destabilise and reduce trust in government.

MACDONALD: 1300 222 702 is the number, I'd love to hear from you this morning, if you've seen any of this material, if you thought it was true on the text line, Catherine King a question for you. Someone asking, should we have a social media ban on older people as well?

KING: I've seen a bit of speculation as we head to the 10th of this December about that. I think the most important thing is just to be really critical, critical thinking skills, like be wary about it. If you're not reading it on an authorized government website, the only place you will find something about the New South Wales driving laws, for example, will be on the Transport for New South Wales website. That's the place you go to. In Victoria, it's the Vic Roads website. So if it's not on that, then it's, you know, be highly sceptical. So I think we've just got to be really sceptical about these thing, even if it's a friend who sent it to you and said, 'this must be true.' Have a think, like really put your critical thinking skills on, because Australians, we're pretty sceptical generally about things, and I think we should be about the things that come through social media. Do your research. Know that you're going to reputable sources. Primary sources are good. Secondary sources can also be good. But really, primary sources, like New South Wales websites, are the most important thing. There's a lot of information on the eSafety guide, including things like Scamwatch. So there's a lot of information that you can sort of protect yourself about some of these things, but just be sceptical about what you read online, basically.

MACDONALD: And a tip for listeners as well, one of the transport experts that we spoke to says, if there's anything that you see that indicates national road rules are changing, that's worth a second look and going to the state, because it's not the Commonwealth Government that sets the road rules. It is the state and territories, by and large, which set the conditions for road rules and road usage.

KING: Correct.

MACDONALD: I'm getting lots of messages from people saying things like, Wayne saying 'stupid people always believe stupid concepts.' Pierre saying 'anyone who believes the AI overview is a fool.' I think it is worth noting as well Catherine, a lot of the research shows that the more confident you are that you can spot the false information, the less likely it is that you are able to so. There's something for people to keep in mind. Doesn't make you dumb or stupid or foolish. It's very human to actually fall foul of this stuff.

KING: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that was the thing that upset me the most. It was mostly older people who were emailing me and quite angry, and then when you pointed out that this wasn't true, and why, they were genuinely upset. And these people, well educated people, people that have been around for a while, but just for this particular reason, particularly because it had either been sent by someone that they knew and someone that they trusted, and it was talked about on groups that they had been on for a long time, and it was so widespread, that just a lot of people seem to really think this was true, and believable. And I guess also in an era where people are a bit sceptical about government, or distrust of government, it's easy to then think, 'oh, of course the government would be doing something like that to us.' This is what they do. So really, just going to those reputable sites, thinking about it, talking to other people about it, but you know, it wasn't foolish. It's just really common that it happens and it's easy. And I think that's what was so upsetting to these older people. How upset they were that they'd fallen for it, because they thought they would had protected themselves against scams. And then thought, 'well, maybe I don't know how to do that as well as I could.' And so, it was a good conversation to have with people, but I felt really awful for people having to feel that way.

MACDONALD: Yeah, Kat, on the text line, 'thanks ABC for covering the fake law stuff. Sorry about me bothering you.'  Kat, you're not alone. You weren't the only one. The Minister for Transport, Catherine King is here. A quick question for you, you were expected to introduce new rules strengthening consumer rights for aviation next year, with the aviation consumer ombudsman. Some reports this morning saying you won't introduce a European style compensation scheme where if you your planes running late the airport, the airline compensates you. Why not?

KING: Well, that's not been ever the scheme that we're introducing, we actually have had a massive consultation, about 162 submissions have gone out on the scheme that we are intending to introduce, and so that now has concluded. So we weren't ever intending to introduce a European scheme, but we are intending to introduce a scheme that gives minimum standards and provides a simple set of remedies for people when there is baggage lost, planes, delayed or they have had an experience that is very detrimental within an airport or within an airline. And those things could include, as part of the consultation, when accommodation should be provided at what standard, when meals should be provided, and what the costs of those should be. When refunds should be provided and making it easy for people to get immediate refunds. This is a really complex area, as you know, every time you buy a ticket, you're entering into a contract with an airline or a travel agent to actually purchase a good or a service, and the terms and conditions of those are really complex and varied across every single flight, every single ticket. And we're trying to really get a minimum set of standards that airlines and airports have to adhere to, and a simple remedy for people to do that. We haven't ruled out in the long term doing a compensation scheme, but we're starting pretty much from scratch here in Australia. One of the things I had to balance out is we are a smaller market. It is costly to administer compensation schemes. Those costs are generally passed on to passengers. So I didn't want a scheme that was also going to send ticket prices skyrocketing, because they've already been pretty high. They're sort of plateauing a little bit more and coming down a little bit. But post covid, the demand is really strongly there. We love to travel, so that was one of the things I had to balance. But we want to make things better and get continuous improvement for people, for the traveling public.

MACDONALD: Catherine King, really appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much.

KING: Great to be with you, thanks Hamish.