LAURA JAYES, HOST: I want to go live now to Communications Minister Anika Wells. She joins me on the program. It’s been a while, good to see you, Minister. I want to first start with the White House. It seems to view these social media laws as a kind of extortion.

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: I wouldn’t agree with that summary. I think if you’re talking about the reporting this morning, the Australian Financial Review has put a series of questions ,including some of the ATO tax arrangements, to the White House, and the White House has issued a statement, a broad statement, about their position. The Digital Duty of Care that we announced the exposure draft of yesterday is a piece of work that has been longstanding as- well, it’s one of the recommendations we need to respond to in the review of the Online Safety Act. And the Prime Minister, as you heard at the press conference yesterday, makes no apologies about standing up for Australian children and Australian parents and trying to keep them safer online.

JAYES: Well, Donald Trump does seem to see your attack on tech giants as an attack on America. Canada learnt this the hard way. Are you willing to wear the consequences here and not take a backward step?

WELLS: I wouldn't characterise it that way, and I haven't been approached by the US Consul General on this topic in my time as Minister for Communications.

JAYES: [Interrupts] Would you expect to be?

WELLS: Well, if it was as elevated, as you're saying, yes, I would have expected it to be. Obviously, I'm not the only person who engages with the US across the ministry, but in this particular piece of work, I wouldn't say that I have had that piece of feedback communicated to me, or meetings sought, and I think that's because this is a long-standing piece of work. And, like the Prime Minister said, we're a sovereign nation, we have the right to defend Australian parents and kids and we'll do that.

JAYES: Are you risking higher tariffs?

WELLS: Like I said, I have not been asked to participate in these discussions, and I haven't had that raised with me.

JAYES: OK. Who decides what is harmful online -- you, the eSafety Commissioner, Parliament or the platforms?

WELLS: Glad you asked. Some of the Coalition MPs and Senators seem quite worked up about this. Others don't. The Coalition are very split on this issue so far. The question of what the Digital Duty of Care polices for adults is just illegal things online. So, things like child online grooming or sexual violence or inciting extremism or terrorism. That is illegal content for online. It exists already. We're not declaring new illegal harms here. Whereas, for kids, we are having a lower threshold about psychosocial harms, and there's six of those that we've put in the exposure draft. Things like misogynistic content, eating disorder content, content that's likely to cause a child serious distress, for example, an AI chatbot teaching a child how to kill themselves.

JAYES: And that would all be fair enough. So, is there a definition of harm in the legislation?

WELLS: The test for what would constitute a new serious harm would ultimately be, I guess, made by me on the expert technical advice of the eSafety Commissioner. However, it's a disallowable instrument. So it is the Parliament that ultimately determines whether I've got that right or wrong.

JAYES: Right, but essentially, it's you with advice from the eSafety Commissioner. Do you see a potential problem with that?

WELLS: I think it's a distortion to say that the Digital Duty of Care is about this particular action. This is a rulemaking power that already exists elsewhere in the Online Safety Act. The Online Safety Act was drafted and legislated by Paul Fletcher, a Liberal minister. So this is a rulemaking power that the Liberals themselves brought in and have used, and I myself have used it, for example, when I put YouTube in the social media minimum age laws. These rules are disallowable instruments. So they are ultimately for the Parliament to deliberate on. That's a good check and balance.

JAYES: Is political misinformation included in the bill?

WELLS: No.

JAYES: Should it be?

WELLS: No, this isn’t about misinformation. This is about basic safety standards that Australians should expect from an industry that is selling them and their children products. Every other industry in Australia – appliances, food, cars – have basic safety standards they need to abide by. This industry hasn't until now, and the Digital Duty of Care is about installing basic safety standards.

JAYES: But do you accept when it comes to the algorithm that an opt-out function will hit right-wing politics the hardest, and that is seen as censorship?

WELLS: This isn't about content. This is about the operating platforms and the systems. They need to identify risks on their platforms and then they need to mitigate against those risks on their platforms. This is not about the content. Your right to be wrong on the internet remains preserved in the Digital Duty of Care. If you want to believe that the moon landing was fake, it is in no way impacted by the Digital Duty of Care. It's about basic safety standards online.

JAYES: Yes, but there's at least one academic this morning that says it will have a seismic impact on the right of politics. That does sound like censorship, doesn't it?

WELLS: Well, I don't understand how that would be the case. And the exposure draft is out now, and if the Coalition wants to make an argument about censorship, they should point out where it exists in the exposure draft because it's not there, it's not about policing content.

JAYES: But you haven't looked at this?

WELLS: We've put the exposure draft out after a discussion and issues paper which was cited earlier in the year, and we will now go through a two-week consultation process with everybody before we introduce this legislation to the Parliament next month.

JAYES: Yeah, I just want to bring this up. I know you've seen it but our viewers may have not. You spoke on a social media post about some of the challenges that you've faced in your role. I just want to show our viewers.

[Excerpt]

WELLS: A lady came to talk to me about her various grievances, and I was struck by how I could say to her, I’m a member of the cabinet, that's not true. We're not doing that, that's a scare campaign from online. I look you in the eye and I tell you, that will never happen in this government. And she didn't believe me.

[End of excerpt]

JAYES: So that's a modern problem that you've outlined there. We have also some within Labor blaming the Secret Harbour by-election win to One Nation on some misinformation. You've said this and now we have that bill where academics are saying that this will affect the right of politics. I mean, as I sit here this morning, I think it's a fair question to ask whether there is, you know, some kind of ulterior motive.

WELLS: Like you say, the question of decline of public trust is something that all politicians are navigating, no matter which political party you want to triumph at the next election. Senator Henderson, the Shadow Communications Minister, is on the record talking about the harms of algorithms. Zoe McKenzie, another rising star of the Liberal Party, has been on the committee talking about the harms of algorithms. We can hold two concepts in our mind at once about what does the algorithm do to public discourse. I was talking about a lady that came to visit my Banyo mobile office. At the next mobile office that day at Northgate, a gentleman came to me because he’d been scammed online by those AI slop videos where someone had purported to be the RBA governor and tried to sell him a financial product. Someone else as the Prime Minister had tried to sell his mate a financial product.

We can talk about the impact that that's having to our democracy, but we can also talk the Digital Duty of Care that we'll introduce in October. And the Digital Duty of Care is about installing basic safety standards in an industry that hasn't previously had them, about the psychosocial harms that we seek to keep our children from, and about the illegal content that circulates online that adults don't want to see. And also, I guess for adults, apart from the illegal content, it's about more user choice, user empowerment tools, where you should have more power over what you choose to see online, whatever political persuasion that is.

JAYES: Do you see the algorithm at the moment rewarding right-wing politics, though? Because if you're talking about you just not being able to get through to voters because of the algorithm as the way it is now, I mean, can't the opposite be true?

WELLS: I wouldn't draw a broad generalisation out of that anecdote. That lady had a number of different grievances that had led to her experience to come to a mobile office to ask for help. What I would say is the algorithm is designed to keep your eyeballs on the screen for as long as possible so that they can sell as much advertising as possible. That's the point. And if your eyeballs are on the screen, the research suggests that you stay there longer if you feel strong emotions. There's lots of different strong emotions. One of them is grievance, and I think that's led to this debate. But we're a long way from a digital duty of care that's about basic safety standards online.

JAYES: Yeah, sure, but could it be- I mean, you- and it's not just you complaining about this. It's harder to get through to voters these days. Could it be that these voters aren't believing you in person because promises have been broken, whether it's telling voters that they're going to get $275 off their power bill or that they wouldn't touch negative gearing 50 times? I mean, there is some personal responsibility from your government, surely.

WELLS: Of course, and this is one anecdote about a lady in Banyo that looked me in the eye and said, I don't believe you. And my personal experience had been, that was a new experience for me because previously, I'd been on someone's doorstep and they'd said, oh, I heard this on the internet, and I'd say, well, it's not true, and they'd say, oh, I feel so relieved. So you just can't draw, either from me as a political ideology or policy viewpoint, anything more than me relating in an interview with The Saturday Paper an instance about how the experience had changed for me and what that meant for all of us. Because like you say, there's volumetric attacks going online, there's an increase in trolling. That's a prohibitor to-

JAYES: [Talks over] But I think the broader point, and I think you're right, is that misinformation campaigns are damaging politics. Would you agree with that?

WELLS: Like I said, that gentleman that came to me about the AI scams, I still worry about him and everyone else having that experience. And we know that scam rates are up, and we know that AI is contributing to that and we need to do more about it. The digital agenda is a huge one, and it's not one we're going to solve with one bill. I mean, I've got- I just passed a UOMO in the House this morning. We're debating amendments on the social media minimum age law, trying to strengthen that bill in the Senate in the next hour or two. And now we’ve put the Digital Duty of Care exposure draft out so that we can get everybody's consultation on. It's a big piece of work. It's important that we have a broad reform agenda here.

JAYES: Okay, we're going to look at misinformation a little bit more broadly. Does it need to be some self-reflection from Labor as well? Last election, there was the misinformation campaign about work from home and the extent of what the Liberals wanted to do. Before that, there was the Mediscare campaign. That was misinformation, wasn't it?

WELLS: I think we're a long way from the Digital Duty of Care, which in no way arbitrates content online.

JAYES: But do you think it's completely irrelevant to the debate that we're having about what we see online and how it shapes our political views and our lives?

WELLS: I think it's irrelevant to the premise of the Digital Duty of Care legislation, which is about making big tech take ownership and responsibility for the harms that are being perpetrated on their platforms, the tools, the features, the functions that are perpetrating harm on Australians. The premise of the Digital Duty of Care is to change the onus of responsibility. So instead of these things just happening in a fairly unregulated space, there's an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. People go to the eSafety Commissioner about particular instances. The whole thing is wholly unsatisfactory in its current form. A digital duty of care moves the onus onto the tech platforms to identify risks online and to mitigate against those risks in a systemic way. They're going to have to put a risk assessment to eSafety. Every 12 months, they’re going to have to mitigate against those risks, and if they don't, she can take them to the Federal Court for arbitration. Ultimately, it's the eSafety Commissioner going to the Federal Court for a determination about a serious harm, to hark back to one of your earlier questions.

JAYES: Yeah, the duty of care legislation is so broad. It could capture more than social media, though. It could capture news websites, no?

WELLS: Well, sorry, yes, it does- the Digital Duty of Care, my apologies, does go to all online services, and that's an attempt to try and capture things like Roblox, games, AI chatbots…

JAYES: [Talks over] News sites?

WELLS: …where we are noticing our children- well, it's online services so...

JAYES: Yeah. So that's a problem, isn't it? That's a tricky one.

WELLS: Why is that a problem?

JAYES: Well, because it's news sites, and that would amount to censorship, would it not? Because I'm wondering who then defines harm because if it's the eSafety Commissioner and then you deciding…

WELLS: It's not about content. It's about identifying risks that the online services may be offering their viewers, what risks is a news site offering its viewers.

JAYES: Well, what's the risk?

WELLS: That's right. I'm saying what risks they need to identify.

JAYES: [Talks over] Well, this is a problem, isn't it, Minister? The complexity of this and the broadness of this legislation could capture news sites, and then who is it up to say what is harmful and what is the risk?

WELLS: I don't accept the premise of this argument. It is not captured by the Digital Duty of Care. It's just not. It's not about content. It's about the systems and processes of big tech and the functions and features of online platforms.

JAYES: Okay.

WELLS: News websites are not a function and feature of an online platform.

JAYES: Yes, they are. They're on online platforms.

WELLS: How are they a function or feature?

JAYES: Because if you were turning off the algorithm, that would change how news websites would be seen, would it not?

WELLS: Well, you as a user, would be making a choice about whether you wish to follow the algorithm or whether you wish to follow your following feed, which is your friends and the online creators that you choose to follow. So if you choose to follow News24 on your following feed, you'd see it.

JAYES: I hope you choose that. Two final questions. It would be remiss of me...

WELLS: [Talks over] Why wouldn’t I?

JAYES: …not to ask you if you're travelling to New York and how much it might cost.

WELLS: You heard from the PM yesterday. He is going to pursue our online safety agenda. I am working on our Digital Duty of Care, which we want to bring to the Parliament in October. Lot of work to-

JAYES: [Interrupts] So you're not going?

WELLS: No.

JAYES: Okay. Finally, Warren Pickering, quite revealing yesterday. Do you think that should preclude him or rule him out of any kind of leadership position in Victoria? Have you ever taken drugs in your 20s?

WELLS: No. No, and I didn't get to see the interview because I was working. We're very busy here this week. Like said, we've just passed UOMO through the House of Representatives. And yesterday, I think as you were talking about it, we were releasing the exposure draft and holding a 45-minute press conference. Certainly not someone I'd be voting for.

JAYES: Okay. Anika Wells, you've been generous with your time. Thank you. Appreciate it.

WELLS: Thanks, Laura. Good to see you.

JAYES: Good to see you. It is a very complex area of policy. It needs time, and we need to take anything in this legislation quite seriously with consideration. Every politician, every journalist, should be doing that. I hope we did little bit of that today in the limited time that we had. Anika Wells, she’ll be welcome back on the program any time.