STEPHANIE FERRIER, CO-HOST: Let’s take you to breaking news out of the United States where Donald Trump has gone ahead with his threat to impose a 100 per cent tariff on some drug imports

EMMA REBELLATO, CO-HOST: The newly announced tariff will apply to patented drugs manufactured outside the US Pharmaceuticals are a major Australian export to the US Communications Minister Anika Wells is in Brisbane and joins us now. Minister, thanks for joining us.

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND MINISTER FOR SPORT ANIKA WELLS: Morning, Emma.

REBELLATO: I just want to start with that breaking story. Do you have any idea of how Australian companies might be caught up in this?

WELLS: Well, like you say, it’s just breaking and it’s really disappointing, but the Australian PBS is not for sale. We will not be compromising on our PBS. It is something that Australians value very highly and we’re really proud, it’s world-leading. And the quality of the Australian pharmaceuticals is world-class and it’s not something that we’re prepared to compromise on.

REBELLATO: Minister, another thing I want to get you on, a couple more things before I talk to you about those gambling reforms, which are quite significant. Penny Wong has been involved in talks involving 40 foreign ministers overnight to talk about opening the Strait of Hormuz. No resolutions as yet, but do you know what the next steps are?

WELLS: Well, those meetings were really productive, and they focused on what civil and diplomatic options could be explored between those countries, obviously emphasising that we should continue to collaborate and coordinate where we can to try and get the Strait of Hormuz open as soon as possible.

REBELLATO: And reports in News Corp papers today are saying that Australia has deployed a small contingent of SAS troops to the Middle East. They’re on standby there in case the conflict escalates. Can you confirm that, that’s happened?

WELLS: I want to reassure Australians, we are not involved in offensive action overseas in Iran. We are, in some cases, helping in defence, our Gulf partners, and Australians are well aware of that. That’s been on foot for a couple of weeks now. Obviously, the specifics of when and where assets are deployed in the region, as you would imagine, are operational and I can’t comment on.

REBELLATO: OK, Minister, let’s turn to the gambling changes now, which were announced by the Prime Minister yesterday. Some of the criticism is that they’re watered down, they’re underwhelming, disappointing, tinkering around the edges, they’re timid. How do you respond to that?

WELLS: That’s just one side of the debate. The other side of the debate came out and said yesterday that they are draconian, they are excessive. I saw that they were rushed. I think it shows Australians this is an area where people have really firmly and deeply held views, and it has been really intractably difficult to navigate a pathway through to land reform, because at the end of the day, the Prime Minister and I understand that Australians want reform. They want the saturation and the targeting of gambling advertising reduced and they want Australian children in particular to be shielded from that. So that’s at the heart of the measures, and like you say they are really significant. The most significant measures against online gambling harms ever handed down, which we announced yesterday.

REBELLATO: Australians are losing an average $32 billion a year, the highest per capita in the world. Will these reforms make a dent to that?

WELLS: Absolutely. These reforms will provide a complete block on gambling advertising during live sport broadcast, a block online except where there’s a triple lock functionality, which means you have to be logged in, you have to be over 18, have not opted out of seeing gambling advertising. The majority of Australians now actually watch their live sport on streaming platforms, be that ABC iView, SBS On Demand, others. And that means that on that platform, you’ll be able to opt out of ever seeing gambling advertising. And it doesn’t matter what time of day or how often it might be allowed elsewhere, you will not see it.

REBELLATO: You said that the aim is to shield kids. But if kids are still seeing three ads an hour, is this going to be enough to help them? Because we know kids are talking about it in the schoolyard. They’re talking about it at sporting matches. They don’t talk about who they think is going to win. Often they talk about the betting odds.

WELLS: Well, capped at three per hour is outside of live sport broadcast and it’s outside of where you’ve opted out online. And we’re also banning, because we are aware of what kids are watching, any gambling advertising on football jerseys, any gambling advertising in football stadiums. And that’s because that’s what you sort of blatantly see when you experience sport with your family. So it’s designed to try and tackle where kids are absorbing this unintentionally. And it’s balancing where many Australians on the other side of this debate from the advocates that are criticising and speaking with you, saying that it is legal in Australia to like a punt and we need to balance all of the different interests in this to actually deliver reform. And for everybody who’s had an opinion and they’re well entitled to it and they’re well entitled to advocacy of that opinion, at the end of the day it’s up to governments to deliver meaningful reform and that’s what we have managed to do.

REBELLATO: Is it meaningful when you’ve got a lot of experts saying a partial ban doesn’t do anything, it can actually make things worse?

WELLS: Well, that’s why we’ve introduced the cap at three. So some of that evidence talks about where advertising can be rife if it’s restricted in particular places. And that’s why where it’s completely restricted during live sport broadcast, during school drop-off and during school pick-up, during online, if you have opted out of ever seeing it, it is still restricted, in those other cases, it is still capped at three elsewhere.

REBELLATO: It has been more than 1000 days since the government received this report, You Win Some, You Lose More, led by the late Labor MP Peta Murphy So why did it take so long to get to this point to announce these reforms?

WELLS: Look, I think some of these things take time because they are intractably difficult and complex. And one of the things that we announced as a government yesterday, is a full ban on online Keno. I only received the report into online Keno and the incredible damage that’s happening to Australians as a result of online Keno a couple of months ago. So I was able to include a full ban on online Keno which is a reform that goes further than what the You Win Some, You Lose More recommendations asked governments to do. It goes further than that. I was able to hand down a full ban on that yesterday because of the timing.

REBELLATO: Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is one of those who was very critical yesterday. She said the Prime Minister – accused the Prime Minister of not having the guts to stand up to the gambling lobby. Is that the case?

WELLS: Well, the gambling lobby yesterday called these moves draconian and excessive. And I just think if you are in government, you’re actually meant to deliver reform for Australians. We believe that Australians wanted in particular – and the terms of reference of the You Win Some, You Lose More report, wanted in particular the reduction of exposure of children to gambling advertising. So the reforms that we have landed, and you would have seen Free TV, who is the peak for broadcast television, come out and say this will have a really significant impact to their bottom line. So this has been difficult and nonetheless we have made meaningful reform.

REBELLATO: Is this the start of reforms or is this it? Like these are the final measures?

WELLS: So yesterday we announced the most significant reforms to online gambling harm in federation, but they built on the last round of most significant reforms to online gambling harm, which were delivered by the Albanese Government in the first term. So it’s obviously always something we’re looking at, but the government response to the You Win Some, You Lose More report has been finalised. We would have tabled it in the House yesterday, but the intricacies of the House mean you can’t do it until the next sitting day so that’s when we’ll do it.

REBELLATO: Okay, Communications Minister Anika Wells thank you very much for joining us today. We appreciate it.

WELLS: Happy Easter.

REBELLATO: Thank you, too.