EMMA REBELLATO, HOST: Well, new legislation that aims to give social media users greater control over what they see online will be introduced to Parliament today. Communications Minister Anika Wells joins us now from Parliament House. Minister, Good morning.

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: Morning, Emma. Hope you’re well.

REBELLATO: I am, thank you, and you too. This legislation is going to mandate that tech companies take steps to protect Australians from harmful content online. What if they don’t do that?

WELLS: Then they will face compliance action from the eSafety Commissioner, and we’re talking about fines that are $109 million. And they accumulate, so if you breach both the social media minimum age and then the Digital Duty of Care, that’s over $200 million worth of fines.

REBELLATO: There have been some submissions from experts and advocates. They’re worried that information and posts on things like public health information and warnings about drugs or pill testing or contraception could be caught up in this. We know that Meta sometimes takes down this content anyway, even if it is public health information. Are you worried that these things could get caught up in that? 

WELLS: What I am worried about is the serious harm that Australian children are suffering on online services. Because at the moment, we have tech companies live testing their products on Australians without ever having to go through a basic safety standard. We don’t expect Australian parents to crash test car seats – we expect those to be sold safely off the shelves. But at the moment, there is no one safety testing these products before Australian children are putting them in their pockets and using them for hours every day. This is about basic safety standards that every single other industry in Australia is already subject to.

REBELLATO: What sort of real impact and real difference do you think it's going to make to young people, young adults in particular as well? 

WELLS: It's about making sure that the onus and the burden of responsibility is on the shoulders of tech companies who are using us as their products, selling our attention for revenue, that the responsibility of the risk and the harm is on them. At the moment, that is being borne by Australian parents, by Australian teachers who are seeing the changes in our children. It's not fair that these things be live tested on our children by companies who make money out of it, without them ever going through safety testing and assuring Australian parents that the products are safe.

REBELLATO: When it comes to online, there's been a lot of discussion this week about the potential live streaming of an execution in the United States. I want to get your thoughts on that, but particularly the discussions that you've had with the eSafety Commissioner – it says it's powerless to stop it when it's happening. What discussions have you had with them and also social media companies of this possibly happening and whether they should stop it?

WELLS: The first thing I'd like your viewers to know is that they may have seen President Trump has now said this may not go ahead on 3 December, so a lot of water under the bridge to go. But we are making preparations, like you say. The eSafety Commissioner has written to our tech companies to say that we expect them to take steps not to show this on their platforms. And I met with Meta, the Vice President and Global Head of Safety of Meta, yesterday and made that point directly. We will work together with companies like Meta to do everything we can to make sure that Australians don't have to see this.

REBELLATO: On another issue, our top story that we're following this morning, and this is the Navy recording device. Now, we understand this device was found in a female-only cabin on HMAS Leeuwin. How much of a security risk, but also a safety risk, is this for women on board?

WELLS: This is horrible, and I really feel for all of the people who are on that ship who are learning this and the people that may have been victims of this act. I can't say too much about the investigation because it's on foot, but I would say you deserve to be safe in your workplace. And the rise of tech-facilitated abuse, particularly upon women, like you're saying, is horrific. And the Minister for Women, Social Services and I work together constantly, and to be fair, the Digital Duty of Care that I'll be introducing to Parliament later today specifically addresses some of the harms out of tech-facilitated gender abuse, and that's a really good and important thing.

REBELLATO: It's not the only thing that will be before Parliament today. As we know, the government is pressing ahead with the private health insurance bill. Now, yesterday, the Greens, the Coalition and Senator Jacqui Lambie teamed up to essentially throw this bill out. Why reintroduce it if it could potentially be the same today?

WELLS: It's really important we reintroduce it because we need to raise the level of support and resourcing for aged care. I was the aged care minister before being the communications minister, and we had to work urgently because there are just not enough beds being built for the number of older Australians who will need that kind of support, not today and in years to come. So this is about recalibrating precious taxpayer dollars to make sure it's going where it's most needed.

REBELLATO: Well, health department analysis, though, estimates that nearly 80,000 older Australians are going to drop out of private health in the next few years as a result of this. Won't that put a lot more pressure on the public health system?

WELLS: I think there's lots of different modelling that you could pick from here, but the essence of this test is that all Australians will have access to the same private health insurance support based on their income rather than their age. And that's a fair way to try and allocate precious resources when we know that the pressures on aged care are urgent.

REBELLATO: Minister, on another issue, and that's discretionary trusts, which is being talked about quite a lot this week as well. Now, the Greens think the carve-out means trust holders will be able to get tax breaks to send their kids to a private school. Is the government looking to close that and shut that down?

WELLS: Look, negotiations are ongoing and in good faith, and I myself am also working in good faith with the Greens and hopefully all other parties to try and get these difficult but important pieces of legislation through the Parliament. We'll continue to do that work.

REBELLATO: Minister Anika Wells, thank you very much.

WELLS: Have a good morning.