Interview with Greg Jennett, ABC Afternoon Briefing

GREG JENNETT, HOST: Michelle Rowland, so good to have you back with us once again on Afternoon Briefing. Why don't we, at the outset, get some idea of the scale of the problem you’re trying to address here? How many kids under the age of 16 have social media accounts in this country?

MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Well, that’s an excellent question and it’s one that the eSafety Commissioner has asked the platforms. She’s been able to do that because we recently amended the Basic Online Safety Expectations to enable the number of young people on different platforms to be ascertained. So, it’s difficult to have a precise number. The eSafety Commissioner has asked for that.

I think it’s fair to say that parents around Australia are concerned about the health and safety of their children. They understand the impacts that social media has on them in various ways. So, we will get a number as a result of those inquiries, but the key thing here is the Government intends to act in response to the need to protect the health and safety of young people.

JENNETT: That’s regardless of the number affected obviously, which brings us to the age settings that you might adopt. Justice French, the former High Court Chief Justice, has those 13 and under being totally banned; 14 and 15 being subject to parental consent. Are you drawn towards that, or the Prime Minister’s personal preference which is a full ban below 16?

ROWLAND: Well, I think it’s important to note there’s been widespread conversation around the community about this, and there’s no clear guidance anywhere in the world about what is an appropriate age. There’s different points of view and we know that from the work that we’ve been doing through the Age Assurance Trial - listening to young people, listening to experts.

I know the South Australian Premier has proposed 14; Premier Chris Minns has proposed 16, but I think this is open to debate. It will be informed by some of the outcomes of the Age Assurance Trial. The key thing here is that the Commonwealth and the States need to continue working together. We need to continue working with experts in this area.

Irrespective of that, the Prime Minister has made it clear the Government's intention to introduce legislation this year to impose restrictions, and that sends a very clear signal about the normative value that we attach to making sure that age-appropriate content, including on social media, is being accessed.

JENNETT: All right. So that’s a real acceleration of the process - that you could have legislation ready to go into the Parliament this year. Would it specify the ages we’re talking about here?

ROWLAND: We’ll take advice on that, and the unique thing about the architecture that we have at the moment through the Online Safety Act is that it enables those standards to be put into the legislation about Government intent, but it also enables a variety of instruments, determinations, and other measures to be taken outside of that, and part of that is because technology changes so rapidly. So we’ll take advice as this develops, but the intention of the Government is to introduce legislation this year.

JENNETT: Subject to the will of the Parliament, as is always the case. Can you say that a ban, in some form with ages attached to it, will be the law of the land before the next election?

ROWLAND: Well, we’re looking at introducing those restrictions to the Parliament this year. I think this is one that should be supported right across the Parliament, and the reason for that is because parents right now have a burning concern about the impacts of social media.

We know that the health and safety of young people is of course one of the paramount obligations of Government. The Prime Minister has made that clear. So, the why here is because we are seeking to protect young people, and indeed, I think the will of the Parliament should be to understand that intent.

JENNETT: Sure. I think there have been indications already from the Opposition that they are broadly on with the principle. You mentioned age assurance, and without getting too technical about it, I wanted to break that down. Are you drawn more towards age verification or age estimation?

ROWLAND: Well, this trial is around age assurance, so it is- to summarise- basically an age range where a platform would be able to understand approximately the age of a user. Now some of these use different technologies, which is why we are doing a technical trial of those technologies, and indeed, there are a number of vendors who have these out in the market at the moment. What we are seeking to do is test their efficacy. This is important to see the acceptance by the platforms, the acceptance by the public, to actually use them and how effective they really are.

For example, we know through the process we've been through already that depending on the ages and ethnicity of some individuals, for example, that age can actually vary and it can vary substantially. We're examining between ages 13 to 16, and I think this will be very useful in informing how we take this forward in terms of an appropriate age.

JENNETT: So why not take it to a more absolute standard, which is one of complete verification, using something like a birth certificate or extending teenagers into the Government's Digital ID system? Is that an option?
 
ROWLAND: Look, we're very mindful of the privacy and security concerns around this, and, bearing in mind, that whilst we are aiming here to protect young people, we also understand that there are users of the internet who are adults as well. We're seeking to strike that balance between safety and those other very legitimate concerns around freedom of access and freedom of expression, for example.
 
We want to make sure that through this trial we get a good understanding of what works and what might be an appropriate age. It's very important, again, to be reminded that even the eSafety Commissioner recommended going through this process of not mandating a technology, but examining the pros and cons of different ones.

JENNETT: So if we leap forward and imagine that a ban is in place, compliance is very important. Justice French has recognised that. How would an authority or a Government agency, perhaps its eSafety, become aware of a breach and pursue it? We're not going to have a ‘dob in a teenager service’, are we?

ROWLAND: It’s important here to recognise this is incumbent on the platforms to be doing more. Online safety is a collective responsibility between Governments, civil society and industry itself. The platforms right now, they actually do by and large have age restrictions, but they're not implemented and they're not enforced.

What I think is important here is twofold: to make sure we get not only the incentives and working with the platforms to build this into their systems, but also that we have the right penalty regime, the right enforcement regime. These are issues that our Online Safety Act is reviewing at the moment.

JENNETT: Okay. So give us a ballpark on penalties. We're talking about multi-billion-dollar tech companies here. What could they be liable for in your view?

ROWLAND: Well, that's being reviewed at the moment through the Online Safety Act. We expect to have those recommendations next month, but what I can say is that the penalties under the Online Safety Act at the moment of around 500 penalty units - which actually translates to a very small amount, would be seen to be really out of step with what we have in place right now in relation to consumer protection law, for example. I think it's important that those penalties are brought up to date.

JENNETT: And you expect, do you, that they will be substantially enhanced as part of the Online Safety Act review?

ROWLAND: I won't pre-empt the outcome, but I will say that this is very clearly one of the reference terms that the reviewer has been looking at, and one that we're very alive to when it comes to compliance and enforcement.

JENNETT: Alright, and how comprehensive moving away from the big brand name social media platforms, what about streamed gaming services that also have online chat and image sharing

ROWLAND: Now these are extremely important as well. We're also doing through the Age Assurance Trial looking at not only device-level but platform-level as well. So, how this is built into operating systems and how this may be built into other elements of the tech stack, because we know that gaming isn't simply passive these days, it's not. It's multi-use. It's a messaging system - it's really a whole ecosystem. These elements have long been recognised as part of the stack in the eSafety Commissioner's remit. We'll continue to take guidance on that, but I think it's equally important to recognise that games have for a long time been classified under different systems, so there are classification ratings for those. What we're talking about here are social media platforms, and the fact that currently there are supposed to be Terms of Service and Terms of Use - they're not enforced and we know that harms are resulting.

JENNETT: Yeah. It's a rapidly developing body of work, that much we do recognise. Michelle Rowland, can I take you to just a couple of other things on your plate at the moment? Online gambling advertising, can you give us an update on when you expect to deliver that?

ROWLAND: Well, we continue to have good consultations with a wide variety of stakeholders throughout industry, but also harm-reduction advocates, and again, I will reiterate that our principle here is that we want to break the nexus between sport and wagering. We want to ensure we protect children, and we want to address that saturation of ads, and in particular, that targeting to young males in that highly vulnerable cohort of around 18 to 35.

JENNETT: Decrease the saturation, but not completely banned?

ROWLAND: Well, we continue to consult on this because we know that that is what's important. It's important here, too, that we not only have optical change, but there is cultural change. What's been really clear and really instructive from the consultations that we've had thus far is that there is a wide recognition that we need to break that nexus, that people want family time returned when it comes to sport and family viewing. We're very focused on that as being outcomes.
 
We'll continue to consult on that and get the right result, because the last thing we want, for example, when these reforms were done under the previous Government, it actually resulted in an increase in broadcast advertising and we don't want that.
 
JENNETT: I don't doubt for a minute that that is occupying plenty of your attention. Just finally it's also emerged around here today that Caucus has approved your Misinformation and Disinformation Bill, presumably for tabling in the Parliament very, very shortly. How different is that as a result of the deluge of submissions received last year?

ROWLAND: Well, we'll have more to say on that very soon. I will say that through the consultation process that we've had, it's been very instructive. We've been able to take the time to refine this Bill, but we'll have more to say on that very soon.

JENNETT: All right. Somehow I expect I won't get too much more out of you, although I'd love to stay and try, Michelle Rowland. We'll wrap it up there. Thanking you once again.

ROWLAND: Pleasure.