Good morning, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Nat.
BARR: I think a lot of parents will be on board with this. This is so frustrating, it is harming lives. The big question now, how is it going to work?
PRIME MINISTER: Well what we want to do Nat, is to get our kids off their devices and on to the footy fields or the netball courts, to get them interacting with real people, having real experiences. And we know that social media is doing social harm. That is why we have put funding in the Budget to have this age verification trial. We want to make sure we get it right, but we want to make sure as well that we act which is why we have said we will introduce legislation before the end of this year.
BARR: Okay so, how is it going to work? My understanding is that experts are saying that facial recognition is about the only way to make this happen. Is that what you’re considering?
PRIME MINISTER: That is one of the things we will be trialling, but there is a range of technologies that we can use. We also want to put some responsibility back on to these social media companies. Social media companies have a social responsibility and we are seeing the mental health issues are rising from young people. We know that this is having a devastating impact. I pay tribute to those parents, courageous, brave people, who have spoken about their own experiences with their children about the harm that has been caused. We need to act as a society. When my son was young this was an issue more than a decade ago. That has grown in year after year, and we know that we need to act and my government is determined to do so. I pay tribute to the Premier, Peter Malinauskas in South Australia. He initiated this work from Robert French the former Chief Justice of the High Court, so that we do have a body of work that is there. What we need to do, do this age verification trial which is underway, is funded, and we want to make sure that we get this right. But we know that parents want us to act.
BARR: They do, they absolutely do. The only problem is no country in the world has successfully been able to do this. In the UK, they have trialled it for adult sites, in France they have legal challenges, same in Germany. In the US there has been 1000 per cent increase in VPNs to bypass it. So exactly how do you think we can achieve this?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that is why we are doing the trial to get it right. If it was easy it would have been done around the world. But just because something is hard doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try. And we want to work with parents, to work with companies, to work with state and territory governments to make sure that we act in this area. We know that getting it perfect will be difficult. That is the truth because people will try and work their way around it. Young people, as you know, Nat –
BARR: They are smart.
PRIME MINISTER: They are pretty clever as well on these devices –
BARR: Yeah I know. And social media companies –
PRIME MINISTER: They will try to –
BARR: They are dodgy. Those scam ads, we have all seen the ones with people like Kochie, scamming Australians out of tens of thousands of dollars, they won’t take those down. What why you think they will take notice of getting kids off?
PRIME MINISTER: That is why we are prepared to act including the sort of suggestions that are put forward by former Justice French in this report to the South Australian Premier. We are prepared to act. We want to work as well across the parliament to get this right. That is why we said we will introduce legislation before the end of the year.
BARR: Okay, well we look forward to seeing what it is, because parents want action as you said. Look, a new report has found Australia’s veterans department is unfit to support our ex-servicemen and women. They will continue to take their own lives at tragically high rates unless something changes. This was horrific, they are killing themselves at 20 times the number killed in active duty, sexual violence and bullying in the ADF. What do you do about it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the first thing that you do is to acknowledge the problem which is there. This royal commission report is seven volumes. There are 122 recommendations. It is a serious report that the Government will go through, we will respond very quickly to it. I called for the royal commission. This is a tragedy. The men and woman who wear our uniform serve us. We need to respect them and look after them, either during or after their service. And that is why this royal commission has been under taken. There are too many lives that have been lost. We quite clearly need to act. One of the things we have done is to have an additional 500 people immediately recruited into the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. It was in a shocking state. The delays in processing of support was a national shame, frankly, and we need to do better.
BARR: Yep, you’re right, and to all those families who watched their kids go overseas and serve this country and they came back and then they lost their lives, our hearts go out to you today. Prime Minister, thank you very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Absolutely. Thanks very much, Nat.
