Television interview - Today

TOM STEINFORT, HOST: Well, the Labor Government is once again waging war on tech giants, releasing a draft Digital Duty of Care bill that allows Australians to opt out of addictive algorithms.

SYLVIA JEFFREYS, HOST: To discuss, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joins us now from New South Wales. Good morning to you, PM, and thank you for your time.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, great to be with you.

JEFFREYS: Look, no doubt a lot of parents will be happy about some of these changes. But how can you guarantee the tech giants will comply?

PRIME MINISTER: What we can do is make sure that we pass laws that ensure that the tech giants do have to comply. This is about putting the power back in the hands of consumers. And with the My Feed, My Way plan, what it's aimed at is if you want to go and continue to scroll and use the algorithms, you can do so. But if you want to opt out, you can certainly do so as well. This is about putting power back in the hands of Australians because we know that these big tech giants are having an impact. So, just one example is that you can have chatbots advising young girls and women on how to live on 600 calories a day. We know that that is just unhealthy, it's dangerous and it leads to eating disorders. And we want to make sure that that sort of behaviour doesn't occur. So, the government is prepared to pass this law. We've released an exposure draft just yesterday, and I think this is something the whole world is grappling with, frankly. But families watching this program are certainly grappling with it as well.

STEINFORT: Well, I think everyone across the board agrees something needs to be done on this front. I guess it's the how that raises contention. The Coalition has flagged that its big concern is that Communications Minister, Anika Wells will be the one that has the power to determine what is and isn't harmful content. Matt Canavan was on before saying that it's like getting you to referee a Bunnies' match. Why die on that hill? Why wouldn't you just hand the power on that issue solely to an independent body, perhaps the eSafety Commissioner?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, the eSafety Commissioner will of course, provide the advice. But Matt Canavan actually knows that he's been disingenuous, because all of these things will be disallowable. That is, it will be up to the whole Parliament, like the other previous laws have been. Otherwise, what you've got to do in order to make a change is to change the legislation so to be coming forward over and over again every time Parliament sits.

JEFFREYS: Okay, but why not only hand that power to the eSafety Commissioner, rather than allowing Anika Wells, the Communications Minister, to have a say on what is and what is not harmful content, therefore opening the door for this discussion around censorship?

PRIME MINISTER: The whole Parliament has a say. The whole Parliament. And under these laws, this isn't about censorship. This isn't about giving Anika Wells power. This is about giving your listeners power and people on their devices having the power themselves to either opt in or opt out. It's that simple. And the Coalition, a number of Liberal Party members, have supported this already. And Matt Canavan's in a position, competing with One Nation, as they do, of saying no to everything at the moment. But we're hoping that there be constructive engagement on this. We want this to pass with the support of the whole Parliament, because it should. Because this affects all Australians and it's about putting the power back in their hands.

STEINFORT: All right, we'll turn now to other news, Prime Minister. The tobacco war is obviously something that's been bubbling along for years now. The Coalition and One Nation have got on the front foot pledging these huge cuts to the tax on tobacco. I know that your government has said that it won't go that far. But would you consider cutting the excise in part to try and reduce the issue that's, as I said, just not going away?

PRIME MINISTER: Look, we've increased the excise by 34 per cent since we've been in government. It increased by 215 per cent while the Coalition were in government. What we want to do is to make sure that we continue to put that downward pressure on smoking rates. And making vapes available everywhere isn't going to help that. We also understand -

STEINFORT: So you won't reduce the excise, is that what you're saying? You're ruling that out?

PRIME MINISTER: What we're saying is the big thing that we have to do is to crack down on crime. And you would have seen the massive seizure that occurred in the Northern Territory -

STEINFORT: That hasn't been working, Prime Minister. We've been seeing that for quite some now.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, it is. Yesterday you saw that massive exposure and crackdown in the Northern Territory with arrests with the Australian Federal Police with Border Security making sure that these are seized. We don't want to wave the white flag when it comes to criminals and we want to crack down on that.

JEFFREYS: Ok, so sorry, just to answer that, to get to the bottom of that question that Tom asked. Are you saying you guarantee there will be no cut to the tobacco excise under a Labor government?

PRIME MINISTER: No, what I'm guaranteeing is we'll take on the criminals. That's what we're doing, and we know that -

JEFFREYS: So, you're open to a tax cut on tobacco?

PRIME MINISTER: No, what we know what we're saying is what we're open to is to cracking down on criminals. That is what we are concentrating on. We're not about to wave the white flag. State governments as well have a responsibility to crack down on shops that are selling illegal products. We have upped, with a considerable increase, with hundreds of millions of dollars making sure that customs is taking action, border security, making sure that those issues are dealt with as well. Because we don't want to say, oh, it's okay for criminals to engage in this action.

STEINFORT: All right, Prime Minister, finally, I guess we should ask why you're standing on the middle of a road today.

PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, well, this is going to be fantastic. On Friday, I'm standing here at Raymond Terrace where the M1 will open - 15 kilometres of new road. Anyone who's driven from Sydney to Brisbane or vice versa will have hit the bottleneck when you hit the area on the Hunter here. And this new road will mean that it is traffic light free from Melbourne all the way to Coffs Harbour. Coffs Harbour bypass will open hopefully later this year, which will mean you go all the way to the Queensland border. So, this will be a big benefit to people here in the Hunter, but a big benefit as well for productivity in our economy and for road safety as well.

JEFFREYS: I can't believe you missed an opportunity to wear high vis, Prime Minister. But we appreciate your time this morning.

STEINFORT: Still plenty of time left in the day.

JEFFREYS: Thank you for joining us. See you soon.