MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS AND SPORT ANIKA WELLS: Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us. Local stories, local voices, and local media matter. That is why the Albanese Government is backing the media through the new $67 million Journalism Assistance Fund. It means diverse and regional communities will get the news that matters to them. We need Australians telling Australian stories, and that cannot happen without backing Australians and Australian journalists in diverse communities. Whether it's reading about what the government has done well or not so well or checking community notices or seeing stories that matter to you, journalism matters.

Brisbane, Queensland, and Australia is diverse. People want to hear different voices through the media and papers like the Queensland Chinese Times, which is based right here in Sunnybank. We are investing right now in programs to support journalists and papers like the Queensland Chinese Times. Here, they produce stories that Australians love and need. 

And while I have the opportunity this morning also, may I congratulate Emma Mason who has named been named Changemaker of the Year by Marie Clare Australia for her incredible and inspiring and extraordinary work advocating for Australia's world-leading social media minimum age reforms.

Now, please let me hand over to Federal Member for Moreton, an excellent friend of mine, Julie-Ann Campbell.

MEMBER FOR MORETON, JULIE-ANN CAMPBELL: Well, thank you very much, Minister, and welcome everyone to Sunnybank. Sunnybank is the absolute beating heart of our Brisbane southside multicultural community, and I'm incredibly proud to be able to represent the most multicultural community in all of Queensland.

And I'm so glad that the Minister can be here today, because it's a very special day for our local community. It's a special day because this is not just a shot in the arm for local journalists. It's also a shot in the arm for our diverse and multicultural communities here in Sunnybank. I'm joined here by Emily today, and Emily is a critical player in the Chinese Times. And the Chinese Times is so important to our community because it publishes the stories that make our community tick. It publishes the stories that are important to multicultural voices. It publishes the stories that people both enjoy and need to hear. And it publishes the stories that many people in my community rely on every single day. And the beauty of this announcement today is that it is not just about my local community. It is about the many, many local communities across the breadth and depth of our country, both rural and multicultural. And we're very excited to have the Chinese Times with us here today to share their experiences about how impactful and how effective that’s been at getting diverse stories into our community.

So, I'll hand over to Emily.

CHINESE HERALD MANAGING DIRECTOR EMILY HUANG: I am here to speak on behalf of the Queensland Chinese Times. Our newspaper has been part of Queensland’s growing Chinese community for more than 18 years. We began as a small local publication and have grown into a trusted news source for families, new migrants and the community groups. Our mission has always been the same, to keep our community informed and connected.

The support we received through the News Media Relief Program has made a real impact. It has helped us keep our journalists in their roles. People work hard every day to deliver accurate, local and culturally diverse news. The program gives a small multicultural publisher like ours stability at a time when the media industry is changing quickly. It ensures community voices are heard and that reliable news continues to be produced by trained, dedicated journalists.

On behalf of the Queensland Chinese Times, I thank the government for recognising the importance of multicultural news and supporting hundreds of news outlets across the country. Thank you.

WELLS: All right. Do you have any questions for any of the three of us?

JOURNALIST: Minister, beyond diverse and regional communities, is there any other eligibility criteria for this fund for news outlets?

WELLS: Well, it funds up to $39,000 for each person. It's about funneling more people into the industry. And I'm sure Emily can speak to it. She was just talking to me before about putting her new application in because the fund just opened this morning. But it is $67 million, as Julie-Ann pointed out, for diverse communities like this one, 18-year-old institutions like the Queensland Chinese Times that operates out of Sunnybank. But for equivalent communities right across this country, it's an important part of the work that the Albanese Government is doing, including you would have seen the consultation paper that we released about the News Media Bargaining Code on 13 November. Consultation about that is now open until 18 December, and like this application process which you can apply for through GrantConnect, we would encourage everybody who's concerned about the future of news media in this country to engage in that in the next month.

JOURNALIST: So, there's no other eligibility criteria for that?

WELLS: That's set out for you on the website. That was released probably since you've left the office.

JOURNALIST: Okay. And how many news outlets do you expect will be able to come under this fund?

WELLS: $67 million worth. I mean, that's the difficulty about programs like this. Communities apply and they're assessed against a rigorous criteria to make sure the taxpayers get their money. But ultimately, it'll be $67 million worth of new journalists, including cadets, being trained up to report Australian stories in Australian communities, with a particular note that diverse, regional, cultural communities need particular voices and we need to hear their stories.

JOURNALIST: And you mentioned the news bargaining agreement, which is very important for journalism across the board. Donald Trump has previously been, I guess, opposed to this, not so much in recent times. But will you guarantee that the Albanese Government will continue to push for this agreement to go through if Donald Trump does oppose it in the future?

WELLS: The Albanese Government is delivering what we promised, and this is one of the things that we have promised. And you would see that the most recent step along with this reform process is the release of the consultation paper, which I know mastheads like yours have been calling for us to do. We were able to do that on 13 November. It's now a very important part of the process which is consultation, which will close on 18 December and then we'll keep moving forward.

JOURNALIST: So, no matter what, this will go through even if Donald Trump comes out and opposes this?

WELLS: I've answered the question.

JOURNALIST: Minister, on the socials and the bans, how's all that all traveling at the moment?

WELLS: Tremendously well. Thank you for asking. You would have seen that the eSafety Commissioner has declared this morning that Twitch has now been declared one of the platforms that will be captured by the age-restricted social media minimums. She did flag that in a Blue Room press conference with me last sitting week that she was still assessing Twitch, and it will now be captured much like Kick has been captured. You may have seen that she has also declared that Pinterest is not captured by the age-restricted social media minimum age laws. So, whilst we acknowledge this is a dynamic list because we want to have the ability to prevent harm, if we see migratory patterns that are sending people to more harm, we don’t anticipate that this list is going to change again until 10 December. The one source of truth is eSafety.gov.au, and as ever for parents and for young people affected by these laws, the onus is on the platforms to do their bit. And you might’ve seen recent coverage that Meta has now taken steps to inform their customers about what this will look like for them.

JOURNALIST: Do you welcome that?

WELLS: Absolutely.

JOURNALIST: Would you like to see other social media companies move earlier like Meta did?

WELLS: That’s right. I mean, you would’ve heard the eSafety Commissioner say all year that the laws start from 10 December, but that doesn’t prohibit any households from stepping in and putting these laws in place earlier than that if it suits your household. We welcome Meta signposting to their customers what this is going to look like. We’ve been working with other platforms in regular meetings with myself and the eSafety Commissioner and the CEOs of these platforms, representatives of these platforms about how this will look, how they will comply, and how they will uphold the regulatory guidance which talks about things like giving this kind and empathetic language to teens who are going to be affected by this, who are having something taken away. I think giving more notice, not less, is always helpful, and we’re grateful that Meta has set the standard on that.

JOURNALIST: Meta has said the onus should be on app stores and not the platforms themselves. Do you disagree with that?

WELLS: Firstly, because our laws put the onus on the platforms rather than the app stores, you'll be surprised to hear that the app stores, for example, disagree with Meta's view. I think essentially what we are doing as the Albanese Government is trying to lift the standard so that there is more online safety in all corners of the internet. It's been a bit of a wild, wild west and an unregulated space for a long time. And unfortunately, now the research, the data, the evidence is in to say that the harms are too significant for us not to act. Seven out of 10 kids have witnessed some kind of online harm. So, this is the first of our steps in taking some action to beef up online safety for Australians. The next step will be the Digital Duty of Care, which we as the Albanese Government have committed to, and we have recently as of last week opened consultation. And my genuine question to Australians and to people particularly interested in news media conveyed through the online space is, what do you think social media platforms owe to us as Australians? If they want us as customers, they want to transact business on our shores, they want to make money out of the advertising revenue that they make out of using our data, what do they owe us by way of duty of care? That's the question that we'll be seeking to answer over the coming year.

JOURNALIST: Do you think more can be added, more could be added- more social sites?

WELLS: Well, like I've said, LinkedIn is currently an exempt platform because it's a networking platform, so it qualifies under an exemption. If kids start flocking to LinkedIn and the eSafety Commissioner observes online harms being committed there where they haven't been before because they've come off TikTok, for example, onto LinkedIn, then we're just giving us the space to act. That's why we're saying it's a dynamic list. This is a very innovative, front-facing, forward-leaning space. It's exciting to work in, but it means that we have to be a bit more nimble and agile and give ourselves room to move.

JOURNALIST: What do you say to those under the age of 16 that have built confidence or maybe have communicated with their friends that this is going to be taken away from them?

WELLS: Yeah, what I would say to them is that we still allow messaging services. Messaging services are not captured by these laws, so things like WhatsApp, group chat or Facebook Messenger, Messenger Kids are not captured by these laws. One thing that you can do ahead of 10 December is set up those chats with your friends so that come 10 December or 4 December, whatever it looks like for the platforms that you're on as Meta have signposted from 4 December for Meta platforms, you are ready to still communicate with your friends online across the school holidays.

JOURNALIST: Sarah Henderson was calling for a Senate inquiry into the ABC for allegedly doctoring vision of events like Donald Trump's 6 January speech and Heston Russell's gunshot audio. She says: the BBC resignations recently highlight concerns the ABC isn’t meeting its statutory obligation to be impartial and accurate in its reporting. Do you have concerns about the ABC's reporting in the wake of those BBC revelations, and would you support a Senate inquiry?

WELLS: I would make the point to former minister for communications Sarah Henderson that she knows well that the ABC is subject to rigorous obligations, as they well should, as our national broadcaster. And obviously, as the Minister for Communications, we seek to uphold them to that. But equally, it is not for me to encroach upon the impartiality of the ABC as our national broadcaster, and that's the balance we're always striving to keep right.

JOURNALIST: Overnight the AFP arrested three people over threats to federal parliamentarians on social media. Should apps like Telegram be trying to do more to weed these messages out?

WELLS: With respect to the specific case that you're talking about, obviously as a result of the police investigation, this is now off to the courts. So I don't want to say anything in particular that would prejudice that process. But broadly, yes, like we've already discussed in in this presser alone, this has been the wild, wild west. This has been an unregulated space where too many Australians have found themselves the subject of online harm. eSafety is a great shopfront for Australians. The Albanese Government is reviewing our response to the review of the Online Safety Act to look at things like a Digital Duty of Care to increase safety for Australians who are going online. It is, I think, ultimately a balance between free speech and doing what we can to reasonably protect Australians online, and that's why I've drawn your attention to a genuine desire to hear from Australians about what the Digital Duty of Care should look like for Australia in 2026.

JOURNALIST: With that with the courts, is it fair enough to say that your hands are tied in terms of- as Communications Minister to do anything more to block threats like this being made on Telegram?

WELLS: That’s not how I'd classify that at all. I would say that as far as I know on the facts of the case, it was rightfully referred to AFP. AFP has rightfully undertaken an investigation and rightfully now putting it through the court process. That is a good use of our Westminster system in Australia. I just don't want to do anything to prejudice that process. As the Minister in charge of drafting good national public policy, my mind is on our response to the Online Safety Act review, the Digital Duty of Care and what do Australians reasonably expect of their governments and the eSafety Commission by way of policing a space that has been the wild, wild west for so long.