Radio interview - ABC Sydney

CRAIG REUCASSEL, HOST: The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese jets off to South America to attend the APEC Summit in Peru today and then heads to the G20 in Brazil. And before he heads off, he's in the studio with me. Good morning, Prime Minister.

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

REUCASSEL: Now, so you're heading off to APEC and the G20. And APEC's focused on a sustainable future, the G20 includes being about a sustainable planet. Are these forums going to be able to achieve any progress on what they're aiming to, given the shadow of Trump coming in soon?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I certainly hope that they do. And I'm sure that all of the leaders of the Asia Pacific, firstly at the APEC meeting and then the 20 largest economies in the world at the G20, will be focused on achieving some positive outcomes. For Australia, it's really important. APEC's focus is always on trade and we're a trading nation. One in four of our jobs is trade dependent. So I look forward to not just the forums as well, but at these events there's a lot of sideline one on one meetings as well. That engagement that can be really important for Australian jobs and Australian trade.

REUCASSEL: How do you convince Australians when they see you going off to these things overseas, we've got obviously a cost of living crisis at the moment. How do you explain to Australians why these meetings are important? You know, what are you trying to achieve at APEC, for instance, that will make a difference for Australians here?

PRIME MINISTER: It's important for them. It's about their jobs, about their cost of living, about the financial pressures that we understand people are under. So for example, the resumption of trade in a normal way with China has resulted in more than $20 billion of exports being resumed. So whether it's lobster trade that will begin by the end of the year, barley, meat products, other seafood, the range of agricultural resources products going to China, that's income for Australia, that's jobs being created, particularly in regional Australia, that makes a difference for them. So we don't trade as something academic, that's separate from people's lives. This is about people's jobs and our national economy.

REUCASSEL: Now in terms of that, as you say, you've kind of just thawed this Australian relationship with China. Will you be meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping? And what is going to happen if China and America become involved in a trade war? Obviously, our closest ally and our closest trading partner. How does Australia negotiate that? What are the difficulties we face with that?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we are a trading nation and we support free and fair trade between countries and we support a global system as well that is able to operate in everyone's interests. Everyone benefits if you have a fair trading system, and we'll continue to advocate that because that's in Australia's national interest. Now the strategic competition that exists between the United States and China is something that we're dealing with as well. We think that we can play a role as a middle power, essentially Australia is, we're trusted, our word matters. We, of course, have an alliance with the United States, but China's our major trading partner. More than one in four of every Australian trading dollar is related to China.

REUCASSEL: And that's the case. You spoke to the, well, President Elect Trump the other day. Did you bring up trade? Did you bring up that or this is the first polite conversation, we'll get down to that later?

PRIME MINISTER: I did. I pointed out that Australia has, or the United States has, a trade surplus with Australia. So it's in the United States interest to trade fairly with Australia, but it's also obviously in Australia's interests. The United States is a major investor here in Australia, that investment creates economic activity, creates jobs. I met with the head of a major US corporation just last week at the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Dinner. They're looking at a multi-billion dollar investment in Australia - that will create jobs here. And so we welcome constructive investment because it's all about our economy. And we're an island continent, but we are located in the fastest growing region of the world in human history. What that means is opportunity.

REUCASSEL: Absolutely. You're listening to 702 Sydney Breakfast. I'm talking to Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese ahead of his departure for APEC and G20 this morning. Look, some people look at the American election and think that misinformation thrived and that they're concerned about the way that election was actually undertaken. Your misinformation bill looks like it's destined to die in the Senate. So we'll head into the next election with no protection from misinformation. There'll be no requirements for politicians to be truthful. And there's still no reforms to political donation laws either. We haven't really improved the kind of situation of the election we're going to be facing, have we?

PRIME MINISTER: Well we're trying, Craig, and we wish the Senate would pass this legislation. I think that one of the things we have to grapple with as a society is technology can bring great benefits - social media, artificial intelligence, robotics. But governments need to adapt as well to make sure that all of those new technologies operate in the interests of people. And what we saw during the US election, I've seen some elements of it here as well in the recent Queensland election. It was memes and things on social media which purported to be someone, whether it's Steven Miles or David Crisafulli in that case, saying things that weren't actually them. You can take people's voice, you can attach a -

REUCASSEL: I mean, I think we're all concerned about this type of misrepresentation. And we spoke to Professor Anne Twomey yesterday on the show who seemed to suggest that the, or at least the explanatory memorandum of this bill suggested the government had gone further than just stopping misinformation or misrepresentation, that it was actually, had gone as far as saying, you know, opinions could be found to be wrong. And now we obviously, we want to stop factual inaccuracies, but the Government can't step in and kind of, you know, change our opinions or regulate them at all.

PRIME MINISTER: Of course, and we don't seek to do that. People -

REUCASSEL: Apparently your bill does.

PRIME MINISTER: No, no. You get ten lawyers, you get ten opinions, Craig. Get ten lawyers in here and they'll have different views.

REUCASSEL: I don't think we can fit them in right now.

PRIME MINISTER: But what's important is that there is a distinction between fact and opinion, and that's what's important as well. Increasingly we're seeing in the media things that are opinion reported as fact and that is a concern for people. The changing media landscape where everyone can be a producer of course as well with their device means that society has to respond to that. It's not easy. The whole world is grappling with this.

REUCASSEL: Talking about social media, it looks like you're, it looks like this ban on people under 16 having social media, access to social media may actually pass the Parliament pretty quickly. The Opposition has said that they're going to support this. I feel like, personally, I feel like this has gone from, kind of, discussions and forums to really quickly being potentially going into law there. I don't really have a sense of how this is going to be regulated. So for instance, if my 17 year old has to prove that he's over 16, doesn't that mean that I'm also going to have to do the same thing? Am I going to have to be handing over my ID, my passport, my licence to X, to TikTok to Meta? How is this going to actually happen?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we've got a year for that detail, and one of the things that we're doing is having a trial as well of age verification. And that's why we're doing a trial, to make sure that we get this right, to make sure there aren't unintended consequences.

REUCASSEL: But the trial hasn't finished yet.

PRIME MINISTER: No, that's right -

REUCASSEL: But your legislation might be going through fairly soon.

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, yes, but it won't kick in for one year, for one year. So it will provide the framework going forward. This is something that I give Chris Minns credit here in New South Wales. There was a forum here and then one in Adelaide hosted by Peter Malinauskas. And parents are really concerned about this. And I've spoken to, tragically, I've spoken to parents who've lost loved ones and the impact on the mental health of young Australians, it is of great concern. And remember when phones, mobiles were banned from classrooms, there was some opposition to that as well. How will it work? Will kids sneak in a phone? Yeah well, occasionally that'll happen. It's like the ban on buying alcohol for under 18s - this weekend chances are there'll be someone under 18 somewhere in New South Wales who will get access to alcohol. That doesn't mean that society doesn't show its values by having that law in place.

REUCASSEL: So the legislation will kind of pass the principle, we'll set in place the principle what has to happen and that'll force the action to take place on how it will actually, we'll find out later how it will be implemented?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, there'll be detail in the legislation, but we don't pretend that this is easy. We don't pretend that you can just flick a switch. We don't pretend either that this will mean that there isn't some getting around it. But we've been clear as well that parents won't be penalised, people won't be penalised. The onus will be on these social media companies. And one of the things that we know, Craig, is that these social media companies, anyone who looks at their feed and the way that the algorithms work, they know more about us than some of our friends and family do. That's the truth. Everyone knows that that's the case, and the social media companies certainly know that that's the case as well.

REUCASSEL: Well, we'll see what happens. Good luck with APEC and G20 as well. Thanks for coming in, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: Terrific.

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