TRANSCRIPT – ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

Angie Bell MP
Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education
Shadow Minister for Youth
Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

18 June 2024

Subjects: : Chueng Lei, RBA decision, Social media harm

E&OE…………………………

GREG JENNETT:
Okay, let’s bring in our political panel now standing by to join us Labor frontbencher, Kristy McBain, welcome Kristy and LNP frontbencher Angie Bell is with us. Same to you, Angie, welcome back.

Why don’t we start with Premier Lee’s visit, and I’ll go to you first Kristy, was the Prime Minister flat footed around the Cheng Lei camera intimidation or censorship episode that we saw, it was pretty unseemly, I’ll suggest. But why wasn’t it more thoroughly and instantly condemned?

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:
I think what you saw was a condemnation of that. Journalists should be free to go about their jobs in this country. You saw Australian officials step in immediately to make sure that Cheng Lei could have full vision of that press conference and usher Chinese officials out of the way and in fact, the Prime Minister had the first question from Cheng Lei and answered that, which I think is a direct response to what we’re seeing there. So I think there can be no doubt that in Australia, journalists should be free to go about their day jobs, ask the questions they need to and shouldn’t be intimidated to do so by officials from any country.

GREG JENNETT:
Do you condemn it, Kristy?

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:
Oh, look, I think it was absolutely outrageous, particularly in our own house and Parliament to see that type of body language. And I think it’s rightly being called out by a number of politicians, by the Prime Minister. And as you said, Australian officials stepped in immediately to make sure that that changed.

GREG JENNETT:
Alright, Angie Bell, so we did discover from the Prime Minister today that a complaint subsequently was lodged by Australian officials with the Chinese Embassy here in Canberra. Is that sufficient?

ANGIE BELL MP:
It’s hard to believe that the Prime Minister wasn’t aware of this going into that press conference. So, what we’re seeing is a delayed response from the Prime Minister indeed, on the inappropriateness of this. It was counterproductive, and it’s not what we want to see in our nation’s Parliament where we have freedom of the press as one of our core key values. We are obviously very different countries, and we are a democratic society who celebrates freedom of the press.

But I think you know, it doesn’t really pass the pub test that the Prime Minister didn’t know about this and it’s taken him a day to respond with, you know, disapproval.

GREG JENNETT:
Yeah. All right. Okay, let’s move because we do want to cover a bit of ground with both of you today if we can, you’ll all be acutely aware of mortgage bill pain around constantly. high interest rates. We’ve had the RBA decision. It remains where it is. Kristy, I think the Reserve Bank Governor was a little coy when pressed about the cumulative effect of multiple budgets, the Federal Budget the Queensland Government and today in your state, the New South Wales Budget, she doesn’t say that they are calculating heavily in the Reserve Bank’s decisions this month, but they can’t be helping can they? Some of the big splurges that we’ve seen, especially in Queensland

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:
Look, what I think what you saw from our Budget back in May was trying to put downward pressure on a whole range of services. We know that people out there are doing it tough, particularly those mortgage holders. That’s why our Budget was calibrated to put downward pressure on energy prices through that $300 rebate. Is calculated to put downward pressure on medicines for our pension and a concession cardholders by putting a freeze on indexation of their medicines so they won’t go above $6.60 over the next five years. That’s why there’s been a freeze on the rest of the PBS medicine, so they won’t go over $31.70 for the next year. We’re obviously seeing measures come into place for cheaper childcare, all the things that we’re talking about putting downward pressure on services, but not adding to the inflationary impact that we’ve seen in other places around the world.

GREG JENNETT:
Angie, I see you sort of chortling there. Can I just tease you out on your position as an LNP federal representative? There was restraint show the government will say and you will argue there should have been even more restraint shown by Jim Chalmers, yet you look to Brisbane, and you have a state government backed by the opposition there, the LNP opposition, throwing money to the wind in that your home state’s budget.

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, I would say that $315 billion of extra spending into the economy is part of the reason why interest rates have remained on hold today. The government has been irresponsible now with three Federal Budgets, and that is why Australians with a mortgage of $750,000, at the moment, are paying an additional $35,000 a year on their mortgage under the Federal Albanese Labor Government.

To say in one breath, that it’s pulling down the price of services and is not inflationary at the same time. it’s just ridiculous rhetoric. How can $315 billion of extra spending going into the economy, how does that help the Reserve Bank in terms of restraint for spending in the economy? I mean, this Labor Government is on a spending spree whilst asking Australians to tighten their belts and that’s just simply not right.

GREG JENNETT:
And on the Queensland question Angie. There’s an election looming. It’s obviously in the interest of both parties to lure voters. The economy doesn’t really care where the money came from. It’s money in aggregate, isn’t it? Whether it came from the Federal Budget or the state budget, it’s got to be inflationary?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Well, I think the Queensland Government currently is looking to buy votes with their 50 cent transport offer to Queenslanders. They are a desperate government that is going to lose the next poll, I believe so anyway, and that’s what my constituents are telling me. People on the Gold Coast have had enough of this Labor State Government and they want to give the LNP a go and I will celebrate that post October.

GREG JENNETT:
All right, and there’ll be an economic recognized suppose yeah, as you go on, I think because sorry, Kristy.

[CROSSTALK]

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:
The Shadow Treasurer has come out and said $315 billion. of extra spending and Angie’s just repeated the figure. But you say to let us know if they don’t want pensions to be indexed, because that was part of that spend. Do they not want us to put a cap on cheaper medicine? Do they not want us to bring down the price of child care for families? Because I’d love to know what they think is discretionary spending in that Budget, because it’s all about helping people with their hip pocket costs. So they can point to a particular measure that they would like to take out of the Budget… Interrupted

GREG JENNETT:
One moment Angie, you can respond to it.

ANGIE BELL MP:
What helps Australians is the Reserve Bank being able to bring inflation down between the two and three per cent band, and that has not happened today. And it has said in its statement that there has been extra spending into the economy, and I’ll put that down to, and so does the Shadow Treasurer, and so do very many economists across Australia, the extra spending under the Labor Government, which is what they always do.

GREG JENNETT:
And the line item that you would have cut then Angie?

ANGIE BELL MP:
Oh, I’m not the Shadow Treasurer with the line items in front of me but for example, she mentioned cheaper child care. What we’ve seen is an increase in the last eight months of 7.1 per cent in prices. So, the government has put in $4.5 billion dollars into the economy with child care subsidy, and we really don’t know how much of that has just disappeared in price rises. It’s very difficult to measure that, but families are still telling me they can’t afford it.

GREG JENNETT:
Okay, let’s move on to a matter of I suppose, social policy and we’re talking about social media use here. We’ve been asking lots of your colleagues fully over a week now and there’s obviously a convergence of opinion that something needs to be done about it. Rather than sort of I suppose examining the domestic policy proposals, keen to get your ideas on a development in the US where their Surgeon General, no less has called on the Congress to require a tobacco style health warning on social media products because of its known detrimental effect to mental health, particularly among the young.

Kristy McBain to you, first of all, do you see that catching on here?

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:
Look, I’ve got a 14 year old daughter and I think it’s really important that parents take some responsibility and make sure that we’ve got good rules around social media use in the home. I think it’s great that the New South Wales Government took the step of banning mobile phones in schools as well. But I do think more has to be done in this space. It’s clear that there is more misogynistic content, there’s more pornographic content and that there is a confirmed bias through the algorithms, which we are seeing come through directly to our kids eyes.

So yes, more has to be done through codes of conduct we’ve quadrupled the funding to the Safety Commissioner. We’ve got our age trial verification happening. And there is a review of the Online Safety Act. But there is more that has to be done. And I think it’s a problem that exists around the world as you rightly point out. Things like warnings on social media apps would be great. But I think there is more that needs to be done in terms of bringing the tech giants to the table and saying you’ve got a social responsibility here as well. You either need to contribute to our mental health system in education in schools, or you need to do more with these algorithms to make sure that there is safe content for our kids online.

GREG JENNETT:
All right. Interesting. Well, you’ve got an open mind anyway, I suppose. Kristy to all of the above I suppose in many ways. Angie Bell we’re just trying to clear a little glitch in our end on our connection to you. I’m hoping that comes good momentarily. Yeah, I might have to push on. We haven’t lost Angie, in fact, I think you’re back with us now, which is a good thing.

Let me just flick that question over to you then Angie, the US Surgeon General.

ANGIE BELL MP:
Yes. Thank you for that question. Of course, social media is causing harm to young people here in Australia as well as all around the world, including the United States with inappropriate content. And so that is why the Coalition has promised and announced that in the first 100 days should we come to government, that we will increase the age of access for Australians from 13 to 16. That will assist parents, and I agree with what Kristy said in terms of responsible parenting, but parents need help for that as well and they need some guardrails for their children.

This is about keeping Australian children safe from harm and we did put forward an age verification motion to Labor last November, and at that point in time they opposed it and now here we are six months later in May, last month and they are now going for that and supporting age verification.

So, I think we’ve got a government who flip flops and a government who’s not committed to doing the right thing when it comes to social media and harms online and protecting our young Australians.

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:
Angie, this should absolutely be a bipartisan approach and politicking over an issue like this, which is so important to the next generation shouldn’t be done. Age verification needs to be done appropriately because we don’t want to see our kids data being handed over to big tech, which was one of the premises of Andrew Wallace’s motion. What we need to do is really work together as a Parliament, as an Australian community, but as I said worldwide, to make sure we are bringing these tech giants to the table to say you’ve got a social responsibility as well absolutely. We can put in place laws. The current age verification on a number of platforms is easily got around. We need to work out ways that we can do that better to keep our kids safe, and that should be a bipartisan approach above politics.

GREG JENNETT:
Well I think I might wrap it up there by observing the prospects of bipartisanship are, well, reasonably strong, I think based on the conversations that we’ve had on this program, including with both of you today, even if it doesn’t always sound like it. I know you’re all pushing in the same direction. Angie Bell, Kristy McBain appreciate it as always. We’ll have you back soon.

ANGIE BELL MP:
Thanks Greg.

[ends]