Interview with Michael Rowland, ABC News Breakfast

MICHAEL ROWLAND, HOST: Let's get more now on our top story. Those plans to tackle the harms associated with social media. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is in Adelaide for the second day of a Social Media Summit led by both the SA and New South Wales Government. She joins us now. Minister, very good morning to you.
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MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Good morning.
 
MICHAEL: Now, under this plan, the Government is announcing today the onus to limit access to social media platforms for young people will be on the social media platforms. How do you expect that to work?
 
ROWLAND: There are two things here, Michael: the first is we understand that social media enables young people to connect. There are a number of very positive elements involved in it.

But, as this Summit has been hearing, and as the Government is well aware, there are also some very serious harms that come with that.
 
So, the onus here will be on the platforms to ensure that they are acting in the best interests of children in enforcing this age limit. We also know through our Age Assurance Trial, which is underway right now, that the platforms have the capability to undertake this kind of enforcement themselves. And we've seen that in recent weeks, with Meta releasing its own version of Instagram for young people, limiting access under certain settings. So, the platforms have the capacity to do more and they should be doing more. So that's why the Government is taking this approach.
 
We also know that this has a very strong normative value for parents. As a mother of two young girls myself, I understand that fear of missing out factor that young people face and peer pressures, and the fact that parents are being bombarded with so many different pressures and messages about access. This provides a very important piece of normative value for those parents.
 
I think the ultimate issue here is about incentivising the platforms to do better. We are onto the second generation of digital natives now. It is the case that social media is not going to be excluded from everyone's lives completely. And also, the fact is, that we can't keep every person, every child safe at every moment of every day when they are online. But we can do better and that is why we are taking this approach.

ROWLAND: You talk about incentivising the platforms to do better. Minister at the same time, there'll be absolutely no penalties in this legislation. So honestly, what incentive do they really have?
 
MICHELLE ROWLAND: Well, there are no penalties on the actual users of these platforms. But of course, as we are looking through our current review of the Online Safety Act, the issue of penalties is something that we are looking at very closely, and we know that penalties do provide that backstop for regulators to ultimately incentivise platforms to do better. But we think that platforms know and have the capacity to provide better services and act in the best interests of children. That’s what is set out in the Basic Online Safety Expectation.
 
MICHAEL: So there will be penalties for the platforms?
 
ROWLAND: There will be penalties for the platforms just as they are now in the Online Safety Act.
 
MICHAEL: What are those penalties?
 
ROWLAND: These penalties will be drafted, and, as I said, we are currently reviewing the Online Safety Act because the penalties, as they stand, Michael, your viewers may be surprised to learn the maximum penalties are less than $1 million for some offences.
 
MICHAEL: So how are you going to improve those penalties? It's clearly ‘chump change’ for the big tech companies. How will you improve those penalties?
 
ROWLAND: Well, what we are doing at the moment through the Online Safety Act is looking with our independent reviewer at the issue of penalties amongst a raft of other issues.
 
I will say two things here, Michael: firstly, Australia will always assert its sovereignty and every company that operates in Australia is required to comply with Australian law.
 
Secondly, our eSafety regulator has been doing this for a number of years now, and the fact that we do have certain platforms taking the regulator to court on a regular basis actually indicates that there is an understanding that those laws are there, they are being challenged. At the same time, the industry does understand the need to comply here, and, by and large, does comply with the rules under the Online Safety Act.
 
In this particular area, we understand, as a Government, how concerned parents and young people are about the potentially harmful impacts of social media, be it screen addiction, be it incentivising certain behaviours that are harmful. We need to do something in this area, and it's very pleasing to see that the States and Territories have come together with the Commonwealth to provide leadership in this area, and that's what Australians have been looking for.
 
MICHAEL: At the same time, we had that survey from the eSafety Commissioner yesterday that showed pretty much every kid under a certain age - 13 or 14 - primary school kids even, were on social media. Is it the concern, though, Minister, that, you know, you're talking about this legislation, increased penalties? The concern though, isn't that the horse has bolted on this?
 
ROWLAND: I think Australians want their Government, their regulators to do everything they can to keep Australians safe. It is not good enough just to say that this is an unregulated space. It is not. We have had the Online Safety Act in place. We are, as a Government, are in the process of reviewing that, and we will have the findings of that delivered in the next few weeks.
 
There's a raft of other issues that this Government has been doing, including quadrupling base funding for the eSafety Commissioner so they can continue to do their very important work. We also have educative roles that are provided through eSafety, our Age Assurance Trial that was funded in the Budget, and we made it very clear, as a Government some six-months ago, that we would be acting in this space. We we will introduce legislation this year to give effect to that. And we did fund this Age Assurance Trial in our Budget. I think that every Australian would expect their governments, at all levels, to be working together to keep Australians safe and doing nothing is not an option.
 
MICHAEL: Okay, so we can expect that relevant legislation before the end of the year?

ROWLAND: We will be introducing legislation to age gate access to social media this year in Parliament.
 
MICHAEL: So you talk about the six-month turnaround here and that is pretty quick and good work. But to another aspect of your portfolio, why has it taken 16 months for the Government to as yet make no decision on gambling ads?
 
ROWLAND: Well, Michael, we have been working diligently in this space. As your viewers will be aware, and as many Australians would think, this is an issue that has been manifesting itself for some time, and action should have been taken on this some ten years ago.
 
We know the harms that are caused by gambling losses, $25 billion a year, the vast majority of those being for land-based gambling being pokies and casinos which don't or have very little advertising.
 
I will say this, Michael, we are working very closely with the States and Territories because the vast majority of recommendations in our late colleague Peta Murphy's report goes to issues that go across Commonwealth and State jurisdictions.
 
We are also working very closely to ensure that there are no unintended consequences here, and it's actually effective. The last time this was actually looked at by the previous government, it resulted in an increase in advertising.
 
Michael, we have not been idle in this area: we have done more in this term of Parliament than in the previous ten (years) when it comes to taking action on gambling harms. That includes initiating BetStop, the self-exclusion mechanism, banning credit cards in online wagering, introducing new mandatory verification checks and new classification systems for gambling-like features in games that are accessed by children. And we know there is more to do.
 
We are working through this diligently. We have every anticipation that we will be able to respond comprehensively this year, and that's what we're working towards as a Government.
 
MICHAEL: Will that response include legislation?
 
ROWLAND: We will be responding this year. We will be taking advice on the appropriate form in which that can be done. Legislation is obviously an option because there is an Interactive Gambling Act at the Commonwealth level, which enables some of these approaches to be implemented.
 
MICHAEL: Okay. But another option is not legislating. Can you reduce gambling ads without legislation?
 
ROWLAND: I would take advice on that, Michael, but there are Codes of Practice. We are looking at the most robust way in which we can make this effective and ensure that those harms are minimised.
 
MICHAEL: Okay. We await to see the Government's response on that. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland, really appreciate your time this morning, thank you.
 
ROWLAND: My pleasure.