JAMES GLENDAY: Now, as we’ve mentioned already, Parliament is back in Canberra this week. So, let’s head back to the nation’s capital and the Communications and Sport Minister, Anika Wells, joins us from Parliament House. Minister, good morning.

COMMUNICATIONS AND SPORTS MINISTER ANIKA WELLS: Morning, James. Morning, Bridget. How are you?

GLENDAY: We are very well, thank you. Now, I wanted to start by asking you about something we found deep within the ABC archive. It’s on the classic children’s program Mr Squiggle. Let’s run the tape.

[Excerpt]

MR SQUIGGLE: What should I make, Rebecca?

REBECCA HETHERINGTON: Well, I don’t know, but maybe Anika Wells does, because she sent it in from Eight Mile Plains in Queensland.

MR SQUIGGLE: Queensland?

HETHERINGTON: Queensland.

MR SQUIGGLE: Well, fancy that.

HETHERINGTON: So, you’ll have to do something …

MR SQUIGGLE: [Talks over] Something …

MR SQUIGGLE: … warm and sunny. It’s a fish who’s going for a holiday to the tropics, to Queensland.

[End of excerpt]

GLENDAY: There we go, Minister. A holidaying fish. Now, was that the highlight of your childhood?

WELLS: Look, I’m really proud of the aged care reforms we’ve delivered. I’m really proud of giving birth to twins in COVID as the most marginal seat in Parliament. But, yeah, that might be my proudest moment.

[Laughter]

GLENDAY: Back then, of course, we were about the same age. You had to write in if you wanted to get on the national media. Now, you can just fire up your phone to get on social media. You’re, of course, trying to block kids from under the age of 16 from accessing social media. Is it going to be technically possible?

WELLS: Yes. We have the age assurance trial research in. It’s out in public today and it’s just the latest piece of research that tells us that this tech is available to the platforms to keep kids safe online. They are some of the world’s richest companies, they are leading the forefront at AI. They have the ability to age-assure kids and keep them safe online.

GLENDAY: We had a story on this show, in fact, a couple of months ago, where kids who were in their teens were being misidentified for people who were 30 and that even in only 85 per cent of cases could this technology guess ages within 18 months. Is there always going to be a way that kids can get around some of these checks?

WELLS: Yeah, I think having met children before and parenting three at the moment, yeah, absolutely. And we’re not chasing perfection here, James, Let’s make that clear. We’re chasing a meaningful difference. We’re chasing significant impact and a cultural change in this country about what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable. And this age assurance trial tells us that there is a myriad of different ways that social media platforms can assure themselves of someone’s age to make sure that kids are safe online.

GLENDAY: So social media companies have been pretty clear they don’t really like this, they don’t like it here, but they especially don’t like the idea that this could be adopted elsewhere in the world. The Prime Minister is going to take this idea to the UN. Have you been speaking to other countries internationally about adopting similar reforms?

WELLS: There is a lot of interest from other countries about what we are doing because we are leading the world on these reforms and I think Australians, we have a real sense of decency and fairness. These social media platforms get our data, they use our data for their own commercial interests and for profit. It’s only fair to ask them to use that data to keep Australian kids safe online as well.

GLENDAY: There’s no doubt going to be a lot more debate about this story through the day. It’s a very, very big report that has been released.

I just want to take you to these protests we saw yesterday, these rallies against mass migration, allegedly. There were, of course, right-wing extremists speaking at some of these events. What was your reaction to seeing what we saw yesterday?

WELLS: What a horrible week to choose to do something that is never acceptable. But Victorian police, particularly under pressure at the moment, people were violent and aggressive towards the cops. I think that’s particularly appalling. But at a time when social cohesion is really important, we want everybody to know there is no place for hatred in this country and to see known racists out there trying to incite it, it’s appalling.

GLENDAY: We had Independent Senator David Pocock on about 20 minutes or so ago, and he said the Government should do a better job at explaining why immigration is so important and why it’s been higher in the wake of the pandemic. What are your thoughts about that?

WELLS: I actually saw Senator Pocock on my way in, and as always, I take his feedback on board. But I think, sovereign citizens are often born out of conspiracy theories that tend to take flight. And as the Minister for Communications, my focus is on online safety and what we can do to make sure that people aren’t using any weapon or tool at their disposal to spread hatred. I think a key difference is that back in the day if you had a conspiracy theory, you had to find somebody else who shared that belief. Now, you can pick up your phone and find someone within seconds. That’s something that’s upon all of us to navigate and I think online safety is an absolute priority of the Albanese Government and we’ll continue to look for ways that we can help.

GLENDAY: Yes, a lot of this spread through social media. Lastly, I just want to put your- you to put your other ministerial hat on. You’re, of course, the Sports Minister and over the past week the first queer person to come out in the AFL made public statements. He says that the league needs to do more to stamp out homophobia. Given the events of the past couple of weeks, the Isaac Rankin saga, do you believe that the AFL is doing enough to make people who are queer feel welcome?

WELLS: It actually makes me think of that Four Corners report that Louise Milligan did on your network last parliamentary term about these topics and that gave rise to all of us, and particularly me as the Sport Minister, looking to make sure that we are doing everything we can to make the Australian sporting ecosystem safe and as safe as possible and to ensure that there is a culture where people feel like they can be their own selves, speak up where necessary. So, whilst progress isn’t linear, Mitch himself has contributed to progress and it’s courageous and we thank him for it.

GLENDAY: All right. The Sports Minister, the Communications Minister and aspiring artist Anika Wells …

WELLS: [Talks over] Thank you.

GLENDAY: Thank you very much for joining us this morning. And congratulations again on that triumph of childhood. I’m glad we could find it.

WELLS: Appreciate it, James.