December 4, 2025 • 26 mins
This week the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was on his honeymoon after his low-key Lodge wedding last weekend, while Senate estimates rolled on in Canberra, uncovering some interesting secrets.
Notable was the head-scratching amount that Communications Minister Anika Wells spent on flights to New York, made public ahead of the mammoth social media ban coming into effect.
Chief political correspondent Paul Sakkal and federal political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos join host Jacqueline Maley for this week's Inside Politics.
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S1 (00:00):
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. It's Friday, December
the 5th. This week the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was
on his honeymoon, of course, after his low key wedding
at the Lodge last weekend. But Senate estimates rolled on
in Canberra and we did uncover some interesting secrets. Joining
me to discuss is our chief political correspondent, Paul Circle,
(00:22):
and our political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos, both beaming in live
from Canberra.
S2 (00:28):
Hi, Jack. Hello.
S1 (00:30):
So on this podcast, regular listeners will have clocked that
we've recently focused a lot on the opposition. Last week
we interviewed Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, and we've talked a
lot about their internal implosion over net zero. So we
feel a little bit like we've undercooked the government or
sort of scrutiny on the government these last few weeks.
So I want to correct that. To that end, the
(00:51):
big story this week was the government's social media ban,
which will come into effect next week on December 10th,
I believe. And Communications Minister Anika Wells, who is was
young and were led to believe up and coming minister,
gave a speech to the National Press Club about that ban.
Natasha attended and it was sort of tasks supposed to
be sort of like a crowning achievement type speech, wasn't it?
(01:11):
Because this social media ban has got bipartisan support. It's
hugely popular amongst parents, maybe not so much amongst teens
and tweens, but the whole speech kind of got hijacked
by another issue. Can you tell us what happened?
S3 (01:23):
Yeah. And in terms of the kind of scene setter,
you know, I think people criticize this government for a
lack of of ambition at times. The social media ban
is probably one of the big policies it would point
to as a sign of its appetite for bold reform.
So there's a lot resting on it. Anika Wells inherited
this big policy after the election, and so the speech
(01:46):
this week was a bit of a kind of, I guess,
laying the groundwork for that, but also tempering expectations, I think,
for what people should expect.
S2 (01:57):
Hugely.
S3 (01:58):
Next week. At the same time you have a story break.
The previous night around Senate estimates.
S4 (02:05):
Taxpayers coughed up almost $100,000 for flights, so the communications
minister and her staff could spruik Australia's world first social
media ban in New York. The controversy comes.
S3 (02:18):
And according to this document, the flights for wells cost
about $34,000 return and for her staff member cost about
$38,000 return. So there was a big please explain over that.
S1 (02:29):
Well, according to our story, it was nearly $100,000 on
flights for the three of them. So Minister Wells and
then two staffers basically, which is an extraordinary amount of money.
And I actually struggle to understand how any flight can
cost $30,000. But apparently they did.
S2 (02:45):
They haven't really explained how.
S1 (02:46):
No the only well, so this and as you say,
this was to the UN General Assembly and they got
really good publicity out of it at the time because
it was this world leading thing. And I think the
president of the EU showed up to this event and
it got really good coverage and I think not just
in Australia, but also a little bit globally because because
it's a world leading ban, as they keep saying. And
(03:07):
now we're finding out that the cost was just astronomical.
It always amazes me when this stuff comes up, because
so many politicians have fallen on their sword over it.
And it's a really easy reference point for voters because
they know, like, hang on, how can a how can
a flight cost $30,000 or Susan Lee got done for
this when, you know, in 2017, when she was found
to have taken a taxpayer funded flight to the Gold
(03:27):
Coast to buy an apartment privately.
S3 (03:29):
And I think this one is like, you know, it
was strictly government business. They have an argument for why
it was important. So I think perhaps they, you know,
they knew how much the flight cost. They had a
night's preparation that this story was going to come out.
There could have perhaps been a slightly more robust defence
of that.
S1 (03:49):
I was actually really intrigued to know how one single
flight could cost $30,000 or in excess of $30,000, $80,000. Having,
you know, I'm more of a kind of bogan missile
type flyer. Like I'm Jetstar or Bust.
S2 (04:02):
I'm the same. Actually a Jetstar.
S1 (04:04):
Yeah, actually, you know, shout out to Jetstar.
S3 (04:06):
I think everyone was very intrigued when we the The
Office by like 8 a.m. was googling how much it
would cost to fly first class Qantas to New York
the next day, and that came up at 16 grand return.
So we're talking double that now.
S2 (04:24):
And this was $38,000, but.
S3 (04:25):
It was 38,000 return. I was talking to a government
staffer about it. And they were kind of saying, you know,
flights do fluctuate wildly, especially the business class prices for
these big global summits and events. Right. Because the airlines
are aware, like and especially I think it was maybe
New York Fashion Week around that time as well. And
(04:46):
it was the UN. And there were a couple of
things on.
S2 (04:49):
So and she had to delay a flight right till
the last moment because she was dealing with the Optus trip.
S5 (04:53):
Look, it's a matter of public record that I delayed
my departure because of the Optus outages.
S6 (04:58):
So the scale of the tragedy linked to Thursday's Optus
outage is becoming clearer tonight. In the last hour, the
death of a fourth person has been confirmed by the
West Australian premier. A 49 year old man.
S2 (05:12):
But the Prime Minister was questioning whether she should go
and he gave.
S3 (05:16):
The Prime Minister's plane. Then she couldn't end up going
on the Prime Minister's plane, so.
S2 (05:19):
It wasn't very last.
S3 (05:20):
Minute.
S1 (05:20):
Sorry. I just loved the idea of all the journalists going, what?
What is a business class flight even cost? And what
is a first class flight cost? And it's beyond our.
S3 (05:27):
World, like everyone was also like first class flight tomorrow.
Only $16,000 worth it. I don't know, but what was interesting,
I think that in her, because it's more just like it,
I think the reason it became a story was that
it didn't make clear sense.
S1 (05:44):
No.
S3 (05:45):
When you when you kind of benchmark typical flight prices.
And so I think it was an interesting decision In
that given there was then so much speculation, for example,
like was it a first class flight? Because that that
tends to be kind of toward the higher end of
first class flights, those prices. Was it a charter flight
like there are all these questions. Um, but at the
(06:06):
press club, she was asked, you know, why did they
cost so much? Then she was asked again, you know,
can you just explain the costs? Were they were they
first class flights, for example? She said no, they weren't.
So then that leaves an assumption there. Business class flights,
in which case they're very expensive business class flights. She
was then thrown a bone, I think, by the host
of the press club who said, well, you know, was
it because it was such a last minute flight that
(06:27):
it just cost that much? And again, she didn't really say.
S5 (06:31):
Uh, no, they weren't first class flights. We will disclose
further through the usual ipea processes that haven't rolled out yet.
The reason you have this information now is because it
was a question on notice that we've provided ahead of
the Senate estimates process, all absolutely usual. Um, and we'll
continue to comply with all the usual rules. I would
refer you back to the fact that this is about
(06:53):
one of the most important public policy challenges.
S2 (06:55):
I think that those numbers I'm probably making some leaps here,
but I feel like the average voter would understand a
minister on a really long haul flight, taking a business
or first class tickets within the guidelines. They're looking at
sensitive documents. They need to be fresh immediately when they land,
to go to their events and deal with dignitaries, and
then they're on a different time zone, and they pretty
(07:17):
much stay up all day on on when they're back
on their previous sleep cycle. But I think it was
the numbers that just leapt out and looked absurd, like
a $38,000 flight strikes you as ridiculous. And her her
reluctance to explain why it was so high, which might
have a decent explanation, just furthers the narrative. And there's
a lot of a lot of the commentary in the
(07:38):
last day has been along the lines of this looking
on the nose in a cost of living crisis. I mean,
we live in a period of very high distrust of government. Yes,
some people are doing it tough, but even people who
are not would look at this and just think, oh, really?
And I think the instinct of voters these days is
to immediately look for a reason why this casts the
(07:58):
political class as out of touch and corrupt. That's where
most voters minds go. Cost of living, crisis or otherwise.
And I think if the government was just front footed
on this and said why her trip was important, why
it cost so much, they'd probably do a better job
of winning the argument.
S1 (08:12):
Yeah. And Paul, so the story came out sort of
through the estimates process, didn't it? So when Anika Wells
talks about transparency and sort of makes a virtue of
the transparency was actually, I think, opposition questions on notice
that they sort of that they had to answer basically,
and then they slipped out very late or sort of
reasonably late on Tuesday night. Is that right?
S2 (08:34):
I think it came out through a Senate question.
S3 (08:36):
Yeah. But I think it is disclosed ultimately through finance.
S2 (08:42):
But was it finances decision to put it out at
that time? Or is that when the.
S3 (08:45):
I think they generally have to bring they have to, um,
publish answers to before the next estimates hearing.
S2 (08:51):
Okay, so it needs to get published before finance rocks
up in Senate estimates. Yeah. So that's.
S3 (08:55):
Generally.
S1 (08:56):
Yeah. So I mean our story says that the government
replied to an opposition question on notice from Senate estimates
in October. So, you know, I guess it's a month
or two old this question. And they've slipped it out
on Tuesday, late on Tuesday, which is, you know, standard
operating procedure, I suppose, for most governments who who want
to downplay something. Let's talk about the actual social media ban. Paul,
do you think there's a risk here for the government?
(09:18):
It's such a it's such a popular policy amongst parents
like myself, who have such huge anxiety over what social
media is doing to their kids. Um, what do you
think the risks are? Why? Why do you think there
are risks in it?
S2 (09:32):
Well, I think this this little blow up over the
expenses helps bring to light this interesting paradox on this
policy debate. In one sense, the government's taken a huge
step forward here. They're a world leader in this space.
Anika Wells was in the UN General Assembly. Speaking at
a conference alongside Ursula von der Leyen, the EU president.
(09:53):
As you say, there's global momentum, momentum around what Australia
is doing. We look like the outlier nation that's willing
to take on the tech giants and do a reform that,
as you say, Jack, parents love. So we're getting a
lot of kudos internationally. Anika Wells did an interview with
the BBC the other night.
S7 (10:10):
For this interview. I met Anika Wells, the Australian communications minister,
at her electorate office in Brisbane. You're going to hear
about a new digital law that she's spearheading to protect
children's health and wellbeing.
S2 (10:25):
But in Australia in particular in the press gallery reporting
on this reform, there is a tendency to needle in
on the flaws, the messiness of how it's been put together.
This sense that only a week out, we're still adding
social media platforms to the ban. You're seeing the bipartisanship
on the coalition side, and they were actually the party
that first proposed this start to break away, they're questioning
(10:49):
whether it will work. They're saying that parents are worried
about data retention on the on the part of the
tech giants. You're saying teal MPs like Monique Ryan, who
support the essence of the ban, say, I don't think
this is going to work. And so you've got, on
the one hand, the government saying this is a momentous reform.
And it is in some ways. But there's this other
part of the debate about how it will work. And
(11:10):
over summer, as kids get bored during the school holiday period,
if there is a growing view that kids are just
getting around this through VPNs or using different apps like
Yope or lemonade, I don't know what those words meant
in a in an app sense until a week ago.
Then you could see a a growing narrative that this reform,
while worthy, is not practical.
S1 (11:31):
Yeah. Or just that the government's done a not a
very good job at implementing it. So then it becomes
I mean and I agree like we don't know how
it's going to work. It seems very audacious and brave actually.
And I think most people would agree that it's a
good thing to try whether or not they get points
for trying if and when it sort of falls apart.
And yeah, like tweens and teens around the nation are way,
(11:54):
way savvier than the adults who are trying to police
them in getting around this stuff. It could become sort
of a competency issue for the Albanese government that they're
not particularly good at getting stuff done, particularly complex policy
reform like this. I mean, it'll be really interesting one
to watch because as I say, I do think it's
enormously popular. And it was it's a real winner. And
(12:14):
you sort of, you know, you can't really go wrong
when you're standing up to big tech giants who are
so on the nose internationally at the moment in terms
of their behaviour. And also it's protecting children and people
always want to do that.
S3 (12:27):
I think like at the end of the day, this
is about kind of long term behavioural change. Yep. Um,
sending a signal. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know,
even even if the kind of tech element is like
half or two thirds effective at getting kids off the apps,
kind of what the intent is, is that you change
(12:47):
the kind of social norms or behaviors or expectations of
that age group over time. And so they've got a
two year review, I think, like an expert review of
Australian academics and overseas academics monitoring it. And it'll probably
take at least that long before we can actually tell. Yeah.
S2 (13:03):
And she's a she's kind of at pains to point
out over and over. She's almost the first thing she
says when asked on this topic is that kids might
find a way around it. And she's fine. She's finding
new points to emphasize about how kids can get around it.
Like she said the other day, that you can get
your 17 year old brother to log you into Instagram.
So it's one of the only policy proposals I've seen
(13:23):
put forward where the government is trying to emphasize the
downside risk to manage.
S3 (13:29):
The really tricky part of this is, is for that
current 13 to 16 year old age group, you're turning
the tap off. So this is the real troublesome point.
Whereas kind of eventually the whole point is you're not
turning the tap on for 13 year olds for a
few years. So I think it's going to be hardest
for this group of kids. And that's also why it's
going to there's going to be a lot of evasion
(13:49):
or whatever.
S2 (13:50):
They're like the existing smokers.
S3 (13:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S2 (13:52):
The price of darts.
S1 (13:53):
Yeah. It's not it's not the kind of policy you
can grandfather. So there'll be 13 year olds who are
or sort of 15 year olds will be turned off
this week and be able to go back on next
week when they turn 16. It's imperfect in that sense.
But I mean, I've got a tween and it's just
an easy way. It's actually quite a good way to
open up a conversation about all this stuff. You know,
they hear on the news and you can say, there's
a lot of talk now about why adults, you know,
(14:16):
why this stuff maybe isn't so good for children. Social
media can be harmful for them. It's all about protecting
your brain, that kind of stuff. So look, I do
think it's really popular, but it's going to be really,
really interesting to see how it's implemented. And if it's messy,
it might end up it might end up going to
the government's competence as we talked about before. It was
Senate estimates this week. But Paul, it wasn't supposed to
(14:36):
be Senate estimates. The Senate estimates week was sort of
forced upon them all by independent Senator David Pocock. How
did that happen?
S2 (14:44):
Yeah. So this wasn't booked in this final week of
Senate estimates. So Senate estimates means that the senators are
here grilling bureaucrats. All the members of the House of Representatives,
151 or however many it is, are back in the electorate.
It's only the 76 senators. David Pocock, the Act independent senator,
big on transparency, big on government accountability. He had been
pushing labor to release this report called the Briggs Report,
(15:07):
which they'd been sitting on for, I think, more than
a year commissioned during the Morrison know, commissioned by labor
two years.
S1 (15:13):
Yeah.
S2 (15:13):
Natasha says two years. Commissioned by commissioned by labor. After
a long running debate about the Morrison government stacking boards
and other organizations with political appointments labor had commissioned, the review,
had its recommendations on the ministerial desk, and spent a
long time agonizing over what to do because they also
make some political appointments. And David Pocock thought this was
(15:35):
a disgrace, and effectively teamed up with the coalition to
Penalize Penalise Labour for not releasing this report, and part
of that penalty was to add an additional week of
estimates on. So Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher, the Labour
leaders in the Senate, have been complaining privately to coalition
MPs this week, saying, you know, we didn't want to
be here. You don't want to be here either. Why
(15:57):
are you working with Pocock? We had the Prime Minister's
wedding on Saturday and all we had to do was
prepare for estimates. So there's lots of grumbling across Canberra.
The coalition people are flat as a tack. Don't really
want to be here. Labor ministers don't want to be
defending these questions. But here we all are.
S3 (16:12):
I think, though, that also just like as a throw
forward to next year, this kind of emerging alliance on
certain things between coalition Greens and Pocock, it's kind of
like an unholy trinity of of independent centre right opposition
and left. And because they are finding points, they're finding
points to cross. And it really annoys the government.
S1 (16:32):
It's the beauty of the bicameral system that, you know,
governments almost never control the Senate. So it's a real wildcard.
And it always, always annoys the hell out of them.
The fight that all of this was about was this
report a very sort of bold and dynamic title, I
thought called No Favorites. And as you say, it was
commissioned in 2023. It was basically about government board appointments. So,
(16:54):
you know, there's all of these government boards like I
was having a look at them. There's so many of
them like Airservices Australia Board, the Australia Post Board, Australian
Building Codes Board, you know, things in more high profile
things like the board of the ABC. And they all
need people highly qualified. One hopes meritocratic appointments to these boards.
But governments often have been known to disappoint their mates
(17:15):
or people who are former politicians or people who have
been good to, you know, good to the party in
whatever way. The Morrison government was notorious for it. And
particularly with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which is a very
important it's not actually a government board. It's a very important,
you know, legal institution basically that oversees, um, and scrutinises
government decisions. And they were absolute bandits for political appointments
(17:40):
to that to the eight. So much so that the
that the labor opposition actually made a big thing of
it and ended up abolishing that the 18 and replacing
it with the art. So that's sort of the background, right.
So they've made a big deal about this in opposition.
And then they've come into government, commissioned a report about it.
And then they've said on the report for a long time, Paul,
(18:00):
why would they do that? And what did the report
sort of find?
S2 (18:04):
The report recommended stripping a lot of power from the
government to make political appointments, not allowing them to make
them within six months of an election, because that's seen
as a period where you can make some contentious calls
just before you might lose power. And effectively, without going
into too much detail on the recommendations, they recommended a
total overhaul of how appointments work to make it much
(18:26):
harder for government to put in friends of a political
party or former MPs or former staff into bodies. Labor
wanted to do some of it, but not all because
they think there's a balance to be struck here. They
do want to appoint Kevin Rudd to be an ambassador.
They do want to appoint Kim Beazley to be the
war memorial director or chairman or whatever he is. But
they do think there's a problem that needs to be solved.
(18:48):
And this is a similar kind of dynamic. You see
play out with labor on a bunch of different transparency
issues now where they came into power wanting to reverse
course on the Morrison era, which was seen to be,
you know, a degradation of how good government operates, maybe
played up and exaggerated by labor. And then on Labor's
left flank now, particularly with David Pocock, who's becoming a
(19:12):
real figure of annoyance for labor, he can always outflank
them on the transparency side. And he's expert at using
social media and traditional media to portray labor as not
interested in integrity. And on this issue, labor needs to
find a middle path through where they can continue to
make politically expedient decisions, but also appear to be less
(19:33):
corrupt than previous governments. but they've got David Pocock making
them making them appear. Yeah. You know, not quite pure enough.
S1 (19:40):
Yeah. It's interesting sort of turning of the tables because
and I think it's called gray corruption. So it's not
like sort of, you know, cash piles of cash in
brown paper bag type corruption. But it is the sort of,
as you say, the the rewarding of friends with appointments
that are often very, very well remunerated, like we're talking
sort of salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(20:03):
And it over time, as the, as the report sort
of makes clear, erodes public trust in institutions. It further
erodes public trust in politicians because, you know, voters get
the sense that politicians are only in it for themselves
and maybe to enrich or help their mates. So it
is it is an issue. And I think I personally
think it was a it was a major issue along
with sports rorts for painting this picture of the Morrison
(20:25):
government as being very self-interested and interested in in themselves
above and beyond the interests of the Australian people.
S2 (20:33):
And Morrison with the eight like the Liberal Party like.
To be blunt, they started to take the piss with
the eight like they were. They were 85. I think
it's 85 MPs, staffers or former party associates. But and
that's labor.
S1 (20:45):
That those jobs. I mean, you require, you know, solid
legal minds to do those jobs. It's actually a very
important arm of government. The the old art. So yeah,
that was that was actually quite egregious. But I remember
the yeah, the labor opposition, Tony Burke at the time,
they were so onto it, they were really upset about it.
They made a big deal of it. And to their credit,
they actually sort of, you know, got a little bit
(21:06):
of sort of public, um, they got a little bit
of publicity over it, even though it was a pretty
dry area of administrative sort of law. And now they're
being scrutinised and it's not so fun on the other side.
S2 (21:18):
Yeah. And labor knows that say for example, the the
Australia Post board or any bunch of these kinds of
important agencies, labor knows that some of their former MPs
and party officials have the kind of executive authority and
political go getter mindset to to play important roles in
some of these bodies. So it's not it's not that
(21:40):
easy to find a bureaucrat with no link to a
political party to go and do these roles for people
who have been involved in politics or had had a
role for a period in a ministerial office, are often
the best suited person for a job. So Labor's trying
to strike that balance, and we probably don't help in
the media where we scrutinize every single one of these
decisions as if they are gray corruption, when sometimes these
(22:03):
other people for a job.
S1 (22:04):
No, I mean, I would I would disagree on that
because I think what the report says is not don't
make political appointments because as like politicians, former politicians have skills.
They know how government works, they have personal relationships. You know,
they have a lot of knowledge and experience to bring
to the kinds of things, you know, the kinds of
things they need for a government board role. But I
think the report just says that's fine, but they need
(22:26):
to go through a process like they need to apply
for it like everybody else does, which is perhaps is
not always convenient if you're the government minister and you
just need someone to be appointed straight away, and it's
just easier to pop them in there. But, um, I
guess you've got to balance that against the public trust issue.
Very interesting stuff. We know also, Albanese has been on
his honeymoon this week. Any ideas where he's been on
(22:47):
his honeymoon?
S2 (22:47):
Guys in Australia, as all we know. Not Hawaii.
S1 (22:51):
Okay. And maybe, um, he played for his own flights.
I'm sure.
S3 (22:55):
They were. They were papped at the airport with the punters.
S2 (23:00):
In the Sydney International terminal. Domestic terminal?
S3 (23:03):
Terminal, please. Yeah.
S1 (23:04):
Okay. So what did they sit down? Did they sit
down in the general area and, like, read the paper
and like, have a coffee with the with the hoi
polloi or were they in the.
S3 (23:12):
Corners holding both the bags.
S1 (23:14):
Oh, gentlemen.
S3 (23:15):
So no bag carrier.
S1 (23:17):
Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Well, we wish them well, I think.
S3 (23:20):
Just two normal people in a honeymoon over December.
S2 (23:22):
Anika Wells could take some pointers on how to do
how to do air travel the right way.
S1 (23:26):
Good luck to them. I think the Anthony Albanese and
Jodie Hayden back this weekend and I'm sure on the
Prime Minister will be on deck for work next week
I think. Guys, thanks so much. That was fun as always,
and I'll see you next week.
S2 (23:40):
Talk to you next week.
S3 (23:41):
Bye!
S1 (23:49):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and
special thanks to Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. To listen
to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside
Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to
your podcasts. To stay up to date with all the politics,
(24:09):
news and exclusives, visit The Age and The Sydney Morning
Herald website. And to support our journalism, subscribe to us
by visiting the page or smh.com.au. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank
you for listening.
From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
This is inside politics. I'm Jacqueline Maley. It's Friday, December
the 5th. This week the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, was
on his honeymoon, of course, after his low key wedding
at the Lodge last weekend. But Senate estimates rolled on
in Canberra and we did uncover some interesting secrets. Joining
me to discuss is our chief political correspondent, Paul Circle,
(00:22):
and our political correspondent Natassia Chrysanthos, both beaming in live
from Canberra.
S2 (00:28):
Hi, Jack. Hello.
S1 (00:30):
So on this podcast, regular listeners will have clocked that
we've recently focused a lot on the opposition. Last week
we interviewed Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, and we've talked a
lot about their internal implosion over net zero. So we
feel a little bit like we've undercooked the government or
sort of scrutiny on the government these last few weeks.
So I want to correct that. To that end, the
(00:51):
big story this week was the government's social media ban,
which will come into effect next week on December 10th,
I believe. And Communications Minister Anika Wells, who is was
young and were led to believe up and coming minister,
gave a speech to the National Press Club about that ban.
Natasha attended and it was sort of tasks supposed to
be sort of like a crowning achievement type speech, wasn't it?
(01:11):
Because this social media ban has got bipartisan support. It's
hugely popular amongst parents, maybe not so much amongst teens
and tweens, but the whole speech kind of got hijacked
by another issue. Can you tell us what happened?
S3 (01:23):
Yeah. And in terms of the kind of scene setter,
you know, I think people criticize this government for a
lack of of ambition at times. The social media ban
is probably one of the big policies it would point
to as a sign of its appetite for bold reform.
So there's a lot resting on it. Anika Wells inherited
this big policy after the election, and so the speech
(01:46):
this week was a bit of a kind of, I guess,
laying the groundwork for that, but also tempering expectations, I think,
for what people should expect.
S2 (01:57):
Hugely.
S3 (01:58):
Next week. At the same time you have a story break.
The previous night around Senate estimates.
S4 (02:05):
Taxpayers coughed up almost $100,000 for flights, so the communications
minister and her staff could spruik Australia's world first social
media ban in New York. The controversy comes.
S3 (02:18):
And according to this document, the flights for wells cost
about $34,000 return and for her staff member cost about
$38,000 return. So there was a big please explain over that.
S1 (02:29):
Well, according to our story, it was nearly $100,000 on
flights for the three of them. So Minister Wells and
then two staffers basically, which is an extraordinary amount of money.
And I actually struggle to understand how any flight can
cost $30,000. But apparently they did.
S2 (02:45):
They haven't really explained how.
S1 (02:46):
No the only well, so this and as you say,
this was to the UN General Assembly and they got
really good publicity out of it at the time because
it was this world leading thing. And I think the
president of the EU showed up to this event and
it got really good coverage and I think not just
in Australia, but also a little bit globally because because
it's a world leading ban, as they keep saying. And
(03:07):
now we're finding out that the cost was just astronomical.
It always amazes me when this stuff comes up, because
so many politicians have fallen on their sword over it.
And it's a really easy reference point for voters because
they know, like, hang on, how can a how can
a flight cost $30,000 or Susan Lee got done for
this when, you know, in 2017, when she was found
to have taken a taxpayer funded flight to the Gold
(03:27):
Coast to buy an apartment privately.
S3 (03:29):
And I think this one is like, you know, it
was strictly government business. They have an argument for why
it was important. So I think perhaps they, you know,
they knew how much the flight cost. They had a
night's preparation that this story was going to come out.
There could have perhaps been a slightly more robust defence
of that.
S1 (03:49):
I was actually really intrigued to know how one single
flight could cost $30,000 or in excess of $30,000, $80,000. Having,
you know, I'm more of a kind of bogan missile
type flyer. Like I'm Jetstar or Bust.
S2 (04:02):
I'm the same. Actually a Jetstar.
S1 (04:04):
Yeah, actually, you know, shout out to Jetstar.
S3 (04:06):
I think everyone was very intrigued when we the The
Office by like 8 a.m. was googling how much it
would cost to fly first class Qantas to New York
the next day, and that came up at 16 grand return.
So we're talking double that now.
S2 (04:24):
And this was $38,000, but.
S3 (04:25):
It was 38,000 return. I was talking to a government
staffer about it. And they were kind of saying, you know,
flights do fluctuate wildly, especially the business class prices for
these big global summits and events. Right. Because the airlines
are aware, like and especially I think it was maybe
New York Fashion Week around that time as well. And
(04:46):
it was the UN. And there were a couple of
things on.
S2 (04:49):
So and she had to delay a flight right till
the last moment because she was dealing with the Optus trip.
S5 (04:53):
Look, it's a matter of public record that I delayed
my departure because of the Optus outages.
S6 (04:58):
So the scale of the tragedy linked to Thursday's Optus
outage is becoming clearer tonight. In the last hour, the
death of a fourth person has been confirmed by the
West Australian premier. A 49 year old man.
S2 (05:12):
But the Prime Minister was questioning whether she should go
and he gave.
S3 (05:16):
The Prime Minister's plane. Then she couldn't end up going
on the Prime Minister's plane, so.
S2 (05:19):
It wasn't very last.
S3 (05:20):
Minute.
S1 (05:20):
Sorry. I just loved the idea of all the journalists going, what?
What is a business class flight even cost? And what
is a first class flight cost? And it's beyond our.
S3 (05:27):
World, like everyone was also like first class flight tomorrow.
Only $16,000 worth it. I don't know, but what was interesting,
I think that in her, because it's more just like it,
I think the reason it became a story was that
it didn't make clear sense.
S1 (05:44):
No.
S3 (05:45):
When you when you kind of benchmark typical flight prices.
And so I think it was an interesting decision In
that given there was then so much speculation, for example,
like was it a first class flight? Because that that
tends to be kind of toward the higher end of
first class flights, those prices. Was it a charter flight
like there are all these questions. Um, but at the
(06:06):
press club, she was asked, you know, why did they
cost so much? Then she was asked again, you know,
can you just explain the costs? Were they were they
first class flights, for example? She said no, they weren't.
So then that leaves an assumption there. Business class flights,
in which case they're very expensive business class flights. She
was then thrown a bone, I think, by the host
of the press club who said, well, you know, was
it because it was such a last minute flight that
(06:27):
it just cost that much? And again, she didn't really say.
S5 (06:31):
Uh, no, they weren't first class flights. We will disclose
further through the usual ipea processes that haven't rolled out yet.
The reason you have this information now is because it
was a question on notice that we've provided ahead of
the Senate estimates process, all absolutely usual. Um, and we'll
continue to comply with all the usual rules. I would
refer you back to the fact that this is about
(06:53):
one of the most important public policy challenges.
S2 (06:55):
I think that those numbers I'm probably making some leaps here,
but I feel like the average voter would understand a
minister on a really long haul flight, taking a business
or first class tickets within the guidelines. They're looking at
sensitive documents. They need to be fresh immediately when they land,
to go to their events and deal with dignitaries, and
then they're on a different time zone, and they pretty
(07:17):
much stay up all day on on when they're back
on their previous sleep cycle. But I think it was
the numbers that just leapt out and looked absurd, like
a $38,000 flight strikes you as ridiculous. And her her
reluctance to explain why it was so high, which might
have a decent explanation, just furthers the narrative. And there's
a lot of a lot of the commentary in the
(07:38):
last day has been along the lines of this looking
on the nose in a cost of living crisis. I mean,
we live in a period of very high distrust of government. Yes,
some people are doing it tough, but even people who
are not would look at this and just think, oh, really?
And I think the instinct of voters these days is
to immediately look for a reason why this casts the
(07:58):
political class as out of touch and corrupt. That's where
most voters minds go. Cost of living, crisis or otherwise.
And I think if the government was just front footed
on this and said why her trip was important, why
it cost so much, they'd probably do a better job
of winning the argument.
S1 (08:12):
Yeah. And Paul, so the story came out sort of
through the estimates process, didn't it? So when Anika Wells
talks about transparency and sort of makes a virtue of
the transparency was actually, I think, opposition questions on notice
that they sort of that they had to answer basically,
and then they slipped out very late or sort of
reasonably late on Tuesday night. Is that right?
S2 (08:34):
I think it came out through a Senate question.
S3 (08:36):
Yeah. But I think it is disclosed ultimately through finance.
S2 (08:42):
But was it finances decision to put it out at
that time? Or is that when the.
S3 (08:45):
I think they generally have to bring they have to, um,
publish answers to before the next estimates hearing.
S2 (08:51):
Okay, so it needs to get published before finance rocks
up in Senate estimates. Yeah. So that's.
S3 (08:55):
Generally.
S1 (08:56):
Yeah. So I mean our story says that the government
replied to an opposition question on notice from Senate estimates
in October. So, you know, I guess it's a month
or two old this question. And they've slipped it out
on Tuesday, late on Tuesday, which is, you know, standard
operating procedure, I suppose, for most governments who who want
to downplay something. Let's talk about the actual social media ban. Paul,
do you think there's a risk here for the government?
(09:18):
It's such a it's such a popular policy amongst parents
like myself, who have such huge anxiety over what social
media is doing to their kids. Um, what do you
think the risks are? Why? Why do you think there
are risks in it?
S2 (09:32):
Well, I think this this little blow up over the
expenses helps bring to light this interesting paradox on this
policy debate. In one sense, the government's taken a huge
step forward here. They're a world leader in this space.
Anika Wells was in the UN General Assembly. Speaking at
a conference alongside Ursula von der Leyen, the EU president.
(09:53):
As you say, there's global momentum, momentum around what Australia
is doing. We look like the outlier nation that's willing
to take on the tech giants and do a reform that,
as you say, Jack, parents love. So we're getting a
lot of kudos internationally. Anika Wells did an interview with
the BBC the other night.
S7 (10:10):
For this interview. I met Anika Wells, the Australian communications minister,
at her electorate office in Brisbane. You're going to hear
about a new digital law that she's spearheading to protect
children's health and wellbeing.
S2 (10:25):
But in Australia in particular in the press gallery reporting
on this reform, there is a tendency to needle in
on the flaws, the messiness of how it's been put together.
This sense that only a week out, we're still adding
social media platforms to the ban. You're seeing the bipartisanship
on the coalition side, and they were actually the party
that first proposed this start to break away, they're questioning
(10:49):
whether it will work. They're saying that parents are worried
about data retention on the on the part of the
tech giants. You're saying teal MPs like Monique Ryan, who
support the essence of the ban, say, I don't think
this is going to work. And so you've got, on
the one hand, the government saying this is a momentous reform.
And it is in some ways. But there's this other
part of the debate about how it will work. And
(11:10):
over summer, as kids get bored during the school holiday period,
if there is a growing view that kids are just
getting around this through VPNs or using different apps like
Yope or lemonade, I don't know what those words meant
in a in an app sense until a week ago.
Then you could see a a growing narrative that this reform,
while worthy, is not practical.
S1 (11:31):
Yeah. Or just that the government's done a not a
very good job at implementing it. So then it becomes
I mean and I agree like we don't know how
it's going to work. It seems very audacious and brave actually.
And I think most people would agree that it's a
good thing to try whether or not they get points
for trying if and when it sort of falls apart.
And yeah, like tweens and teens around the nation are way,
(11:54):
way savvier than the adults who are trying to police
them in getting around this stuff. It could become sort
of a competency issue for the Albanese government that they're
not particularly good at getting stuff done, particularly complex policy
reform like this. I mean, it'll be really interesting one
to watch because as I say, I do think it's
enormously popular. And it was it's a real winner. And
(12:14):
you sort of, you know, you can't really go wrong
when you're standing up to big tech giants who are
so on the nose internationally at the moment in terms
of their behaviour. And also it's protecting children and people
always want to do that.
S3 (12:27):
I think like at the end of the day, this
is about kind of long term behavioural change. Yep. Um,
sending a signal. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, you know,
even even if the kind of tech element is like
half or two thirds effective at getting kids off the apps,
kind of what the intent is, is that you change
(12:47):
the kind of social norms or behaviors or expectations of
that age group over time. And so they've got a
two year review, I think, like an expert review of
Australian academics and overseas academics monitoring it. And it'll probably
take at least that long before we can actually tell. Yeah.
S2 (13:03):
And she's a she's kind of at pains to point
out over and over. She's almost the first thing she
says when asked on this topic is that kids might
find a way around it. And she's fine. She's finding
new points to emphasize about how kids can get around it.
Like she said the other day, that you can get
your 17 year old brother to log you into Instagram.
So it's one of the only policy proposals I've seen
(13:23):
put forward where the government is trying to emphasize the
downside risk to manage.
S3 (13:29):
The really tricky part of this is, is for that
current 13 to 16 year old age group, you're turning
the tap off. So this is the real troublesome point.
Whereas kind of eventually the whole point is you're not
turning the tap on for 13 year olds for a
few years. So I think it's going to be hardest
for this group of kids. And that's also why it's
going to there's going to be a lot of evasion
(13:49):
or whatever.
S2 (13:50):
They're like the existing smokers.
S3 (13:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S2 (13:52):
The price of darts.
S1 (13:53):
Yeah. It's not it's not the kind of policy you
can grandfather. So there'll be 13 year olds who are
or sort of 15 year olds will be turned off
this week and be able to go back on next
week when they turn 16. It's imperfect in that sense.
But I mean, I've got a tween and it's just
an easy way. It's actually quite a good way to
open up a conversation about all this stuff. You know,
they hear on the news and you can say, there's
a lot of talk now about why adults, you know,
(14:16):
why this stuff maybe isn't so good for children. Social
media can be harmful for them. It's all about protecting
your brain, that kind of stuff. So look, I do
think it's really popular, but it's going to be really,
really interesting to see how it's implemented. And if it's messy,
it might end up it might end up going to
the government's competence as we talked about before. It was
Senate estimates this week. But Paul, it wasn't supposed to
(14:36):
be Senate estimates. The Senate estimates week was sort of
forced upon them all by independent Senator David Pocock. How
did that happen?
S2 (14:44):
Yeah. So this wasn't booked in this final week of
Senate estimates. So Senate estimates means that the senators are
here grilling bureaucrats. All the members of the House of Representatives,
151 or however many it is, are back in the electorate.
It's only the 76 senators. David Pocock, the Act independent senator,
big on transparency, big on government accountability. He had been
pushing labor to release this report called the Briggs Report,
(15:07):
which they'd been sitting on for, I think, more than
a year commissioned during the Morrison know, commissioned by labor
two years.
S1 (15:13):
Yeah.
S2 (15:13):
Natasha says two years. Commissioned by commissioned by labor. After
a long running debate about the Morrison government stacking boards
and other organizations with political appointments labor had commissioned, the review,
had its recommendations on the ministerial desk, and spent a
long time agonizing over what to do because they also
make some political appointments. And David Pocock thought this was
(15:35):
a disgrace, and effectively teamed up with the coalition to
Penalize Penalise Labour for not releasing this report, and part
of that penalty was to add an additional week of
estimates on. So Penny Wong and Katy Gallagher, the Labour
leaders in the Senate, have been complaining privately to coalition
MPs this week, saying, you know, we didn't want to
be here. You don't want to be here either. Why
(15:57):
are you working with Pocock? We had the Prime Minister's
wedding on Saturday and all we had to do was
prepare for estimates. So there's lots of grumbling across Canberra.
The coalition people are flat as a tack. Don't really
want to be here. Labor ministers don't want to be
defending these questions. But here we all are.
S3 (16:12):
I think, though, that also just like as a throw
forward to next year, this kind of emerging alliance on
certain things between coalition Greens and Pocock, it's kind of
like an unholy trinity of of independent centre right opposition
and left. And because they are finding points, they're finding
points to cross. And it really annoys the government.
S1 (16:32):
It's the beauty of the bicameral system that, you know,
governments almost never control the Senate. So it's a real wildcard.
And it always, always annoys the hell out of them.
The fight that all of this was about was this
report a very sort of bold and dynamic title, I
thought called No Favorites. And as you say, it was
commissioned in 2023. It was basically about government board appointments. So,
(16:54):
you know, there's all of these government boards like I
was having a look at them. There's so many of
them like Airservices Australia Board, the Australia Post Board, Australian
Building Codes Board, you know, things in more high profile
things like the board of the ABC. And they all
need people highly qualified. One hopes meritocratic appointments to these boards.
But governments often have been known to disappoint their mates
(17:15):
or people who are former politicians or people who have
been good to, you know, good to the party in
whatever way. The Morrison government was notorious for it. And
particularly with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, which is a very
important it's not actually a government board. It's a very important,
you know, legal institution basically that oversees, um, and scrutinises
government decisions. And they were absolute bandits for political appointments
(17:40):
to that to the eight. So much so that the
that the labor opposition actually made a big thing of
it and ended up abolishing that the 18 and replacing
it with the art. So that's sort of the background, right.
So they've made a big deal about this in opposition.
And then they've come into government, commissioned a report about it.
And then they've said on the report for a long time, Paul,
(18:00):
why would they do that? And what did the report
sort of find?
S2 (18:04):
The report recommended stripping a lot of power from the
government to make political appointments, not allowing them to make
them within six months of an election, because that's seen
as a period where you can make some contentious calls
just before you might lose power. And effectively, without going
into too much detail on the recommendations, they recommended a
total overhaul of how appointments work to make it much
(18:26):
harder for government to put in friends of a political
party or former MPs or former staff into bodies. Labor
wanted to do some of it, but not all because
they think there's a balance to be struck here. They
do want to appoint Kevin Rudd to be an ambassador.
They do want to appoint Kim Beazley to be the
war memorial director or chairman or whatever he is. But
they do think there's a problem that needs to be solved.
(18:48):
And this is a similar kind of dynamic. You see
play out with labor on a bunch of different transparency
issues now where they came into power wanting to reverse
course on the Morrison era, which was seen to be,
you know, a degradation of how good government operates, maybe
played up and exaggerated by labor. And then on Labor's
left flank now, particularly with David Pocock, who's becoming a
(19:12):
real figure of annoyance for labor, he can always outflank
them on the transparency side. And he's expert at using
social media and traditional media to portray labor as not
interested in integrity. And on this issue, labor needs to
find a middle path through where they can continue to
make politically expedient decisions, but also appear to be less
(19:33):
corrupt than previous governments. but they've got David Pocock making
them making them appear. Yeah. You know, not quite pure enough.
S1 (19:40):
Yeah. It's interesting sort of turning of the tables because
and I think it's called gray corruption. So it's not
like sort of, you know, cash piles of cash in
brown paper bag type corruption. But it is the sort of,
as you say, the the rewarding of friends with appointments
that are often very, very well remunerated, like we're talking
sort of salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
(20:03):
And it over time, as the, as the report sort
of makes clear, erodes public trust in institutions. It further
erodes public trust in politicians because, you know, voters get
the sense that politicians are only in it for themselves
and maybe to enrich or help their mates. So it
is it is an issue. And I think I personally
think it was a it was a major issue along
with sports rorts for painting this picture of the Morrison
(20:25):
government as being very self-interested and interested in in themselves
above and beyond the interests of the Australian people.
S2 (20:33):
And Morrison with the eight like the Liberal Party like.
To be blunt, they started to take the piss with
the eight like they were. They were 85. I think
it's 85 MPs, staffers or former party associates. But and
that's labor.
S1 (20:45):
That those jobs. I mean, you require, you know, solid
legal minds to do those jobs. It's actually a very
important arm of government. The the old art. So yeah,
that was that was actually quite egregious. But I remember
the yeah, the labor opposition, Tony Burke at the time,
they were so onto it, they were really upset about it.
They made a big deal of it. And to their credit,
they actually sort of, you know, got a little bit
(21:06):
of sort of public, um, they got a little bit
of publicity over it, even though it was a pretty
dry area of administrative sort of law. And now they're
being scrutinised and it's not so fun on the other side.
S2 (21:18):
Yeah. And labor knows that say for example, the the
Australia Post board or any bunch of these kinds of
important agencies, labor knows that some of their former MPs
and party officials have the kind of executive authority and
political go getter mindset to to play important roles in
some of these bodies. So it's not it's not that
(21:40):
easy to find a bureaucrat with no link to a
political party to go and do these roles for people
who have been involved in politics or had had a
role for a period in a ministerial office, are often
the best suited person for a job. So Labor's trying
to strike that balance, and we probably don't help in
the media where we scrutinize every single one of these
decisions as if they are gray corruption, when sometimes these
(22:03):
other people for a job.
S1 (22:04):
No, I mean, I would I would disagree on that
because I think what the report says is not don't
make political appointments because as like politicians, former politicians have skills.
They know how government works, they have personal relationships. You know,
they have a lot of knowledge and experience to bring
to the kinds of things, you know, the kinds of
things they need for a government board role. But I
think the report just says that's fine, but they need
(22:26):
to go through a process like they need to apply
for it like everybody else does, which is perhaps is
not always convenient if you're the government minister and you
just need someone to be appointed straight away, and it's
just easier to pop them in there. But, um, I
guess you've got to balance that against the public trust issue.
Very interesting stuff. We know also, Albanese has been on
his honeymoon this week. Any ideas where he's been on
(22:47):
his honeymoon?
S2 (22:47):
Guys in Australia, as all we know. Not Hawaii.
S1 (22:51):
Okay. And maybe, um, he played for his own flights.
I'm sure.
S3 (22:55):
They were. They were papped at the airport with the punters.
S2 (23:00):
In the Sydney International terminal. Domestic terminal?
S3 (23:03):
Terminal, please. Yeah.
S1 (23:04):
Okay. So what did they sit down? Did they sit
down in the general area and, like, read the paper
and like, have a coffee with the with the hoi
polloi or were they in the.
S3 (23:12):
Corners holding both the bags.
S1 (23:14):
Oh, gentlemen.
S3 (23:15):
So no bag carrier.
S1 (23:17):
Yeah, yeah. Okay, good. Well, we wish them well, I think.
S3 (23:20):
Just two normal people in a honeymoon over December.
S2 (23:22):
Anika Wells could take some pointers on how to do
how to do air travel the right way.
S1 (23:26):
Good luck to them. I think the Anthony Albanese and
Jodie Hayden back this weekend and I'm sure on the
Prime Minister will be on deck for work next week
I think. Guys, thanks so much. That was fun as always,
and I'll see you next week.
S2 (23:40):
Talk to you next week.
S3 (23:41):
Bye!
S1 (23:49):
Today's episode was produced by Kai Wong with technical assistance
from Debbie Harrington. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills, and
special thanks to Lisa Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. To listen
to our episodes as soon as they drop, follow Inside
Politics on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen to
your podcasts. To stay up to date with all the politics,
(24:09):
news and exclusives, visit The Age and The Sydney Morning
Herald website. And to support our journalism, subscribe to us
by visiting the page or smh.com.au. I'm Jacqueline Maley. Thank
you for listening.
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