JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: All right, it is time to talk federal politics now. And we're joined by the Federal Communications Minister, Anika Wells, who's at Parliament House. Minister, welcome back to the show.

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: Morning, James.

GLENDAY: Now, you've got an announcement about AI chatbots, which I want to get to in a moment, but can we start in the Middle East? The US President claims that Iran wants to do a deal to end the war. Do you believe him?

WELLS: Look, we certainly hope that's what will happen, because I think all Australians are very enlivened to how this is impacting on our domestic shores, what's happening overseas. I did mobile offices on Friday, lots of people wanted to come and talk to me about how alarmed they are about what this might mean and how they want the war to end quickly. So, on behalf of those constituents, that's certainly what we hope.

GLENDAY: Is the Albanese Government sending that message to the White House and to the President behind the scenes?

WELLS: Look, obviously you would expect that Ministers Wong and Marles are working night and day on our elements of a global conflict. And I want to reassure your viewers who are watching here that we are doing everything we can to shield both the Australian economy and Australian households from domestic impacts of a conflict overseas.

GLENDAY: Yeah, you can see that the oil price has dropped substantially since the US President's comments. Let's go to your portfolio, because international affairs is certainly well outside of that. The eSafety Commissioner has been investigating AI chatbots. So, what has she found?

WELLS: We found that, just in the past month, two out of three young Australians are using AI chatbots, and the difficulty with that is that AI chatbots have no moral compass. They're not there to look after the health and wellbeing of your child, and we know that there are instances where they have led them towards things like suicide ideation or content that I probably don't want to be too explicit about for little ears watching. But whilst the chatbot is fake, that harm is very real. So, we have put tech companies on notice. From this month, they must make sure that the content in those AI chatbots is age appropriate. And if they don't do that, they're going to face a fine of up to $49.5 million.

GLENDAY: Okay, so how long do they have to get their house in order here? Because this sounds relatively serious. And is there other action you can take apart from just a fine?

WELLS: That is in effect. So, from March, from this month, they must be doing that. They've had some notice that this is coming. And I think we'd all say that big tech has for years and years had the opportunity to do the right thing on their own. They haven't, and that's why they're facing things like the social media ban that came into effect in December. I met with Roblox to put them on notice last month about them needing to clean up their act. And here are AI chatbots who need to make sure their content is age-appropriate or we're going to come down on them like a tonne of bricks.

GLENDAY: The social media ban has sort of dropped out of the headlines a bit, given everything that's going on in the world. How do you think it's tracking at the moment? Are these big tech companies generally doing the right thing?

WELLS: It's certainly top of my list, James. We are currently in investigation phase, the eSafety Commissioner and I, carefully seeing what's coming in, the data. I am visiting lots of classrooms, talking to lots of parents about their experiences. And we need to make sure that we marry the cultural change of a big reform, that's always going to take time, with making sure that big tech is doing the right thing and cleaning up their platforms, making sure that people who are under 16 are kicked off and stay off.

GLENDAY: On a slightly different issue, I saw you put out a statement yesterday saying that you're looking at changing the ratings categories for TV programs and movies, including changing MA 15+ to MA 16+. So what's going on here? Why are you looking at these changes?

WELLS: I thought you were going to be worried about Breakfast news. I think you're going to be okay, James.

GLENDAY: Fingers crossed.

WELLS: I think the thing about classification, I mean, it is something that we've looked at in a number of different spheres now. We've looked at it to try and address gambling harm. We've looked at it with respect to kids and the kind of content that they see in gaming platforms. The classification scheme in Australia always needs work, always needs fine-tuning to marry what are the modern experiences of people.

GLENDAY: Just before I let you go, yesterday we had everyone sending in photos of their dogs. Today, people are sending in their cats. Are you a dog or a cat person? Does the Wells household have a stand on this?

WELLS: Oh James, we have an 11-year-old Kelpie rescue called Don who is currently very sick. 

GLENDAY: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.

WELLS: Yes, but he's lovely and, can I reassure your viewers, we always have Breakfast news on in my office, and your dogs and cats always cheer our mornings.

GLENDAY: There we go. I'm sorry to bring up that topic at this time.

WELLS: How could you possibly know?

GLENDAY: Yeah, well, fingers crossed for Don. We're sorry to hear that. Minister, thank you for joining the program.

WELLS: Have a good morning.