JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, will address the United Nations later this morning as Australia seeks to make its mark on the world stage. After a quick selfie with the US President Donald Trump and confirmation that a date next month in Washington has been set, the PM has spent the morning in a climate summit amid intense negotiations for Adelaide to host the upcoming COP31 climate talks.

EMMA REBELLATO, HOST: Australia’s also been spruiking its teen social media ban to world leaders, winning over fans including President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Our Communications Minister, Anika Wells, is in New York and joined me just a few minutes ago.

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MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: It was a really powerful event that we had here today joined by the President of the European Commission, the Prime Minister of Greece, Malta, Prime Ministers of Tonga, Fiji, all united in being determined to do more to protect kids online, and thanking Australia, the Prime Minister Albanese, for his leadership in being the first in the world to do it.

REBELLATO: Will other countries join Australia in doing this?

WELLS: Yes, a number of those prime ministers said they had the intention to do it and they were watching Australia to see how we go about it, how we land this on 10 December and asking us for advice. I’ve been doing lots of meetings with interested countries and parties about how we are getting this done. We felt that it was too important not to have a crack at it. Australia was the first in the world to establish an eSafety Commission. That’s now 10 years old, and we will be the first in the world to deliver social media minimum age restrictions to keep our kids safe online.

REBELLATO: Speaking of the eSafety Commission, the commissioner has written now to 16 companies so far, advising them that the ban might apply to them, including platforms like WhatsApp, Roblox, Reddit and Discord. Do you think they should be included in the ban?

WELLS: Well, it’s not a case of whether these platforms consider themselves to be social media. It is the case that whether the eSafety Commissioner considers the tools and the behaviours that are exhibited on those platforms, that kids use on those platforms, are considered social media and are harmful. I mean, the purpose here is to reduce the harms to kids online, no matter which platform that it is. But it is a social media minimum age restriction that we enshrined in the law at the end of last year.

REBELLATO: Things like WhatsApp, for instance, a lot of families use it, a lot of us use it in everyday life when we message other people. How could that possibly be caught up in the social media ban?

WELLS: Look, we have said that messaging services and gaming platforms are excluded from the social media minimum age restrictions. That will be the case. But it’s for these platforms to demonstrate to the eSafety Commissioner that they aren’t exhibiting the behaviours or the harms that she would consider to be caught up in the social media minimum age laws- like you just said, caught up. So, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask platforms who are conducting business in Australia, reaping huge commercial benefit from users in Australia, to demonstrate that they are doing what they can to protect kids online.

REBELLATO: Minister, I want to turn your attention to Optus and the Triple Zero failure from last week. The telco has launched an independent review. Are you confident in that?

WELLS: Well, we don’t need to be confident in that, because we have set in place a review from the ACMA. And you would have seen the Chair of the ACMA, Nerida O’Loughlin and I stood together Monday morning after we had briefed each other over the events of the weekend, and I had given her an indication of what I’m looking for out of her investigation. She had given me an indication of what she’ll be looking for out of the investigation. That is the independent regulator in Australia, and it is appropriate that they now conduct their investigation into what has gone wrong here.

REBELLATO: The Optus Chief Executive, Stephen Rue, yesterday revealed that human error meant processes weren’t followed during the outage. What’s your reaction to that?

WELLS: As I said over the weekend, it is incredibly disappointing that we are here so soon after Optus’ last failure in this space. There was an independent review by Richard Bean into Triple Zero outages. There was 18 recommendations made to make sure that this would not happen again. On the face of it, from what we know so far, there has been ineffective implementation of Optus of those recommendations. So now it is for Nerida O’Loughlin, the Chair of the ACMA, in her investigation to get to the bottom of how we ensure that that doesn’t happen again.

REBELLATO: Optus’ parent company, Singtel Group, issued a statement yesterday for the first time. Are you disappointed that it took them that long?

WELLS: I have asked to speak with Singtel when they are in the country next week. I’ll be shortly returning to Australia. I spoke to Nerida O’Loughlin, the Chair of the ACMA, walking into the UN this morning. This remains a constant watch for me. And whilst we have to let the investigation play out and we have to be considered in a government response to the results of those investigation, meeting with Singtel, I think, is an important step for us, and also for us to give Australian taxpayers confidence in our Triple Zero system, particularly ahead of the summer disaster season. 

REBELLATO: Will you be speaking with the Singaporean Government as well about this, given its links to Singtel?

WELLS: I haven’t asked to do that. I actually saw some of my Singaporean counterparts at our online safety event this morning, although I would say Optus did not come up. We were talking about how they wish to engage with us about how we are implementing our online safety laws, and particularly our social media minimum age restrictions. Let’s start with me meeting with Singtel in Australia next week.

REBELLATO: Are you worried about a lack of investment in Australia, in call centres in Australia, infrastructure in Australia, and possibly lack of competition as well with telcos?

WELLS: That’s a good question, Emma, and it’s one in particular that Nerida O’Loughlin singled out as a question for her investigation when we spoke to the media on Monday morning. So, whilst it’s a good question, I need for the answer to come back before we make any conclusions.

REBELLATO: Optus yesterday was ordered to pay a $100 million fine over its sales conduct with vulnerable customers. We know that Optus was fined $12 million for similar failures to the outage that we saw last week. You’ve said that they will face serious consequences. What could they be?

WELLS: I don’t think Optus would be surprised to hear me say to you this morning that I think they can, subject to the facts, expect more significant fines, but that is for the ACMA to determine. They’re in charge of penalties in respect to telecommunications failures. But I think, and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind me saying, when I was speaking to the Chair of ACMA this morning my time, we were talking about not just how the investigation is going, but how both ACMA and government can try and shift the settings so this isn’t just a reactive setting where we respond to failures. Are there more things we could be doing to shift the settings to a more preventative setting that would help give Australian taxpayers more confidence?

REBELLATO: Anika Wells thanks for your time this morning.

WELLS: Thanks, Emma.