RENEE COFFEY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR GRIFFITH: Good morning. Welcome to beautiful South Bank. A great time during school holidays with lots of families playing and enjoying themselves here. I'm Renee Coffey. I'm the Federal Member for Griffith in this area.

It’s been almost 12 months since I was elected into this government and in that time one of the things that I am most proud of is our social media ban for under-16s. It is a world-leading ban that shows that we are serious about protecting young people from online harm. That really matters to me for a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons is I'm the mother of an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old boy. What we’re here to talk about this morning is some further measures, which we’re really proud to announce, that demonstrate that this government is also incredibly passionate about ensuring that young people are protected whilst they're engaging in online platforms for gaming. The world has changed since I was a primary school student playing Chuck Yeager's Air Combat on my father's PC, and the harm that can come from online gaming is very real and something that we are serious about protecting our children from, Australian children.

So I am very pleased to hand over to our Minister for Communications, Anika Wells.

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: Thanks so much, Renee.

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for coming out. In February, you'll remember, I put Roblox on notice about what Australian children are being exposed to on their platform. I made it very clear when meeting the CEO and founder of Roblox that I expected an emphatic response when it came to the concerns of Australian parents and children about their platform. Australian families want Roblox to be a safe place, and they want it to be a place where kids can talk to their friends and where they can play the games that they enjoy. They don't want to be contacted by adult strangers, and they don't want to see anything that makes them feel weird or makes them feel unsafe.

So, overnight, we have just seen how quickly these giants can respond when we hold their feet to the fire, because big tech knows that when Australia sets a standard for online safety, we expect action. It shows that our world-leading online safety laws are leading to global results. The eSafety Commissioner and I will be watching closely as these changes are now rolled out to make sure that these new protections actually create meaningful change for Australian kids on the platform.

This is why I am also releasing the Albanese Government's full response to the Review into the Online Safety Act. At the heart of our response is a commitment to legislate a Digital Duty of Care. A Digital Duty of Care makes sure that the proactive safety protections that Roblox is introducing become the norm across big tech rather than just the exception. It will also empower eSafety to react twice as fast to child cyberbullying and to adult cyber abuse, compel more transparency for the tech companies to ensure they are keeping kids safe. And we will transition the Act away from industry-led regulation to more robust legislative rules subject to parliamentary scrutiny, so when new harms emerge, we can act quickly. 

The online world is evolving rapidly. Australia is leading the world in our response. We have shown that when pressure is applied, these companies can act. And we will continue to apply pressure until Australian parents know that big tech is doing all it can to make sure that our kids are safe from online harm.

I'd be pleased to take your questions.

JOURNALIST: Minister, are the measures that Roblox has announced, is that the emphatic response you were hoping to see, or did you want to see more?

WELLS: It is steps towards an emphatic response, I think we can say. I'm encouraged by the fact they flew out to Australia, they have been responsive, they've introduced these measures overnight. But I think for us, it's not enough for them to announce these measures. We've got to see the implementation. We've got to see it work. One of the things I talked about with the Roblox founder when he came out to Australia was they had some measures they’d introduced in December to improve safety. I'd been in classrooms across January and summer, and I hadn't seen that safety improved in the experience of kids. They were saying to me they hadn't noticed any of the changes that Roblox had introduced. So, while we are encouraged by the steps that Roblox has announced overnight, absolutely, the eSafety Commissioner and I will be continuing to hold their feet to the fire.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you spoke to adults on the program, and there's been reports of grooming on Roblox specifically. Do you think the changes they're proposing will be significant enough when weighed against the dangers of the platform?

WELLS: Well, that's exactly right – the grooming that was reported and noted by the eSafety Commissioner is what prompted me to call for greater action from Roblox particularly, which I did back in February. I think the measures they've announced overnight, the colour-coding for parents to see at a glance which part of the platform their kids are on, I think the age verification, if introduced and implemented correctly to limit that social chat, that social hangout function, will be a great improvement. But we've just got to see it work in action. And I think the difference between making announcements and having Australian students tell me in classrooms, ‘yes, I have noticed that difference’, is the gap that we will now look for.

JOURNALIST: Minister, polling from UK research firm, the Molly Rose Foundation, found three in five underage Australians who had accounts on restricted platforms before the bans still have access today. Have we failed to effectively legislate this ban?

WELLS: You probably also note that the BBC reported this morning that some of that research has been funded by Meta and Pinterest, and so it's unsurprising that big tech is using every play in the playbook to push back against these laws, because they are worried that now more than a dozen countries have followed Australia and that these laws are rolling out in different places across the world. I have been incredibly clear along the way that I expect this to be untidy on the way through. I've also said that it takes a while for cultural change to seep through a country, which is what we learned when seatbelts became mandatory for example. And that is why I've made that point all through last year and I'm unsurprised by reports and research coming out that speak to the experience that Australian parents and kids are telling me as the comms minister.

We've been really transparent about that research because we want to bring everybody on the journey, and ultimately, what I know from Australian parents is no one was expecting this to work perfectly at the start. Everyone's glad we're having a crack, and everyone wants us to keep having a crack until we can make these laws as effective as they can possibly be.

JOURNALIST: On that, we were hearing of some teething issues when the social media ban first came in around facial identification and kids using VPNs. To what extent have those issues been ironed out?

WELLS: I think eSafety has commented on this, but they noted a fluctuation point in use of VPNs in the week leading up to the ban coming into place and the week after, but then that's really dissipated out as I think platforms were prepared for VPN usage. Obviously, age verification, we did a 1500-page study into it last year. Roblox is using it now to improve safety features on their platform. It is the future and big tech will use it for their own purposes, have used it for their own purposes, for their own commercial revenue, and we expect them to use that same know-how to protect Australian kids online.

They have been very upfront about the difficulties in it. We have been very upfront that we know that they are capable of using this to protect kids, in the same way they've been using these tools to raise revenue off the data that we all willingly give them on these platforms.

So like I said, I always said this was going to look untidy on the way through. I'm happy to keep answering questions about research and stats as we go along the way because I want people to understand. We know that it's not perfect. We never said it would be perfect, but we will keep fighting for you against the richest, most resourced companies in the world who want to use your children's data for revenue.

JOURNALIST: When there are these questions, though, about the effectiveness of the ban and the framework of the legislation, if we’re meant to be world leaders, should other countries follow suit if it's shown to not always be as effective or have these teething issues?

WELLS: Absolutely. And I've had so many bilateral meetings with my counterparts in places like Indonesia and Malaysia that have now adopted the same rules after talking with me honestly about what this looks like. We want people to go in with their eyes open and that's why we've always said, cultural change will take time. We will not get 100 per cent strike rate or anything like it for any amount of time shortly after the ban comes in. That's exactly what it's like with the seatbelt rules. But also by the same token you could extrapolate that out to - there is no 100 per cent effectiveness for the law against murdering people in this country. People will still murder in this country. No one's making an argument that we shouldn't have a law against murdering people in this country. It’s the same for anything, like kids underage drinking.

The law is important because it sets a cultural standard. The law is important because parents want to feel less powerless in this battle in their households, and that's why we will defend this law. And will we seek to improve it? Absolutely. We will use every single piece of research along the way to try and improve it, and we will never apologise for having something that’s imperfect but important, particularly when it's world-leading.

JOURNALIST: Is there anything that you would have liked to see Roblox go further on in this announcement today that you discussed in the meeting earlier this year?

WELLS: I appreciate they've been honest about the limitations to age verification but also that they are putting their shoulder to the wheel to improve age verification on their platform. I think a lot of big tech has been pretty upfront about their perceived limitations of that technology. They've been less upfront about how they use it powerfully elsewhere.

But it's such a rapidly evolving field, it's a really exciting area to work in. We don't know what's coming at us next month. You know, we didn't know at the start of summer that the Grok nudification stuff would flare up in such a way. So we're always looking at ways to keep our law dynamic, and that's why one of the elements of our response to the Online Safety Act that we're announcing today is making parliamentary scrutiny and new powers within the Parliament rather than industry codes so that we can be a bit quicker and more responsive to the stuff as it flares up.

JOURNALIST: You referred to this as an untidy period while some of these issues are ironed out. What do you say to parents who are then in their homes and battling this, and they can't then rely on legislation at this stage to do the heavy lifting for them?

WELLS: I've always referred to this as untidy. You would have seen this in the months running up to the ban on 10 December predicting this would look untidy on the way through. What I want parents to know is, we've got your back. This is on big tech to protect your kids online. If big tech wants to transact business in this country, it is on them to protect Australians online, particularly to protect young Australians online.

We know that you have felt powerless in your battles around screen time in the house. We know that you have felt ill-equipped to navigate these features and functions that are addicting your children online. We're doing something about it. These are world-leading laws, an Online Safety Act response that will deliver more, that we're announcing today. And we will keep the big tech’s feet to fire on this and we will not relent.

JOURNALIST: If we know at least some children are still on their accounts, why haven't we seen the Commissioner kind of talk about giving out those fines? Is the reasonable steps framework a bit too vague?

WELLS: You would have seen me give an update and a press conference on that two weeks ago in the Parliament when the eSafety Commissioner released that interim finding on the use of reasonable steps. When we created the law, it was the first in the world and people wanted a reasonable steps approach because this is technology that is constantly evolving, this is the first of its kind in the world, rather than a per-usage fine.

But as eSafety has said, they are currently investigating five big tech platforms in particular for breaches of reasonable steps usage. And whilst I would have liked to see fines in December, that's not my role and that's not my power. It's the power of the eSafety Commissioner. And the eSafety Commissioner has said to you all that she'll have more to say on that when she concludes her investigation.

JOURNALIST: Can I just get your thoughts on the Coalition's immigration policy on checking Facebook, checking social media at immigration?

WELLS: I mean, as such details exist prior to the Opposition Leader delivering his speech, it hasn't really stood up to media scrutiny this morning with respect to detail. I think, if anything, it exposes that the Coalition is far more concerned about their right flank and about One Nation, than they are about delivering good public policy outcomes in the field of migration.

JOURNALIST: Can you detail how exactly Roblox- what these changes would do to prevent the production of explicit child material or to prevent child grooming? What exactly will these changes do to address that?

WELLS: It's not quite that. Roblox has announced overnight two measures – they're introducing new accounts for younger users to make sure that kids are playing age appropriate games and talking to age appropriate peers. And the second one is its strengthening parental controls on their platform so that parents can allow or block specific games. That's what they've announced overnight.

We have in existence industry codes that prevent the use of illegal material being exposed to children online. And at the start of March we ramped up those industry codes so that now platforms have to prevent age-inappropriate materials. What I'm saying in our response to the Online Safety Act, which we're announcing today, is that we're going to go further than that and legislate a Digital Duty of Care. So, it will no longer be industry regulating itself. It will be the law, which will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and will give parliamentarians the ability to react more quickly and more strongly when these flare ups occur.

JOURNALIST: Just one more on the Angus Taylor thing. With immigration, what’s your response to him wanting to deport 65,000 people?

WELLS: Like I said, the Opposition spokespeople who’ve been up this morning haven’t given us a lot of details, haven’t been able to answer the questions of journalists. So, let’s look to the Opposition Leader to provide all that to you when he speaks shortly.