Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
RADIO INTERVIEW 
ABC CANBERRA 
FRIDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2024

SUBJECTS: Senate sitting week; migration; social media ban for under-16s; Food and Grocery Code. 

ROSS SOLLY, HOST: Senator Katy Gallagher has joined us on the program. Good morning to you, Senator, it’s a busy couple of days and a busy morning for you, so I appreciate your time.

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Morning, Ross. Sorry I was a bit late.

SOLLY: That’s okay, I know you had other things to do. At the end of a busy year, are you happy with the legislation you were able to get through or are you frustrated that there’s still stuff that was left on the table?

GALLAGHER: Look, a bit of both, but I think today I’m a glass half full. So, we got an extraordinary amount of bills through yesterday and last night. I appreciate working across the Senate, including with Senator Pocock, to get those bills through. They’re all important. Obviously, we’ve got more to do, but it was a good start. Housing, economy, wages for early childhood educators. There was a whole range of things that got through and I’m really pleased with the end of the week.

SOLLY: Let’s just look at a couple of those bills. Let’s talk about the migration bill most of all, because that does seem to have caused a bit of angst in some sections of the community. I noticed there were refugee and asylum groups who were saying that these new laws are racist. David Pocock was just on the program saying that these new laws will allow the government to split families apart and that this is a really bad reflection on Australia. Are you comfortable with these laws, Katy Gallagher?

GALLAGHER: Well, we have to have a good, functioning migration system. When we came to government, there’s been three reviews done into the migration system. All of them said essentially it was broken and needed fixing. We’ve also had some pretty high-profile High Court cases and the Government – any government, and our Government – needs to respond. And so we’ve had to do that and you know –

SOLLY: If it means that families are torn apart, as David Pocock says it will, is that a price we have to be prepared to pay?

GALLAGHER: Well, I think the Department of Home Affairs and everyone involved in migration matters tries to deal with things as sensitively as carefully as they can. So, I don’t accept that. But I do accept that if there is a reason that you should be leaving the country, whether you don’t have a visa or some other reason, then I think the Australian government should be able to use those powers. You know, we have to have a way to manage the migration system. We respond to court matters when they go before the court, we respond to decisions and we respond to the reality of what we see happening across the migration system. And governments need to respond to that.

SOLLY: 8:55 AM. On the ban for social media for under-16 year olds, certainly judging by the text line this morning, the majority are supportive of it but there are many out there and many experts, Senator Katy Gallagher, who are concerned that this will have the opposite effect on our young kids, that they will actually have more mental health issues, they won’t be able to get in touch with groups that are important to them. Why do you think our laws will work when other countries who’ve tried this have basically thrown their hands in the air?

GALLAGHER: Well, this is world leading, I accept that. I think there’s a lot of other countries around the world that are looking at what’s happening here. Because every country and every government and probably every parent is dealing with the associated harm that comes with some of these platforms. And again, governments need to respond. They can’t solve all the problems but they can certainly set the standard. It’s similar to where we have bans in other areas, like alcohol. We take a decision that those under the age of 18 shouldn’t be able to consume or purchase alcohol. So, I think there are examples where government sets the standard, doesn’t mean that someone under the age of 18 doesn’t have a drink –

SOLLY: 16? Oh, a drink, yes.

GALLAGHER: I’m using the alcohol analogy.

SOLLY: Good analogy, yep.

GALLAGHER: But you put in place, I think, a standard. We’ve got 12 months now, the passage of this bill, to work with the platforms – and I think all of us in Parliament have met with parents who have lost children, who have buried children, because of the harms that either are caused by some of the algorithms or some of the ways that these platforms target young people and the way they’re used. We’ve got a lot of work to do in the next 12 months, I accept that.

SOLLY: But I wonder how much work has been done, though, on preparing the ground for this. Because people are concerned, adults are nervous about having to provide social media companies themselves with proof of age, because everyone’s gonna have to do it. Some in the community believe that social media companies are scumbags who can’t be trusted and they don’t want to provide that information, Katy Gallagher.

GALLAGHER: Yeah sure, I’ve heard that too. One of the discussions we had last night was about whether or not mechanisms like Digital ID could be used for this, and we made it clear that it wasn’t going to be a mandatory use of Digital ID. But those kind of verification platforms, I think, so you don’t hand over a lot of information about yourself, are useful. And also, social media platforms, some of them already have some levels of age verification. It may be 13. So, the way they do it are already in place, we’re obviously lifting that to 16 and the onus is going to be on the social media platforms, not on parents, not on children. But I think this will help a lot of parents with that really difficult navigation, particularly in teens between 12 and 16, navigating this digital world where yes, a lot of good comes with it, and there will be – there’s going to be a range of platforms available to young people. But a lot of harm comes with this as well.

SOLLY: Senator Katy Gallagher, just really quickly, on the food and grocery code – I asked Senator Pocock this, but what is to stop prices actually going up in supermarkets as a result of people watching more closely what the supermarkets are up to?

GALLAGHER: Well, I think the key here is moving from a voluntary to a mandatory code. But also, we have given considerable resources to the ACCC to monitor the behaviour or to monitor how these companies are operating, and you’ve seen some of the results of that already with some of the cases that the ACCC is taking. Nobody’s saying prices won’t go up, but we are saying that it has to be – people shouldn’t be fleeced, right? And I think anyone doing the shopping at the moment, when they’re paying for some things, like a block of cheese or a tub of butter in the last 12 months, wonder whether or not that’s happening and the powers for the ACCC will deal with that.

SOLLY: Good to chat with you Senator Gallagher, thank you for that.

GALLAGHER: Thanks Ross, sorry I was late.

SOLLY: No, no problem at all. That is ACT Senator Katy Gallagher.

ENDS