Press conference, Canberra

MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS ANIKA WELLS: Well, good morning. It’s been a really big week across both of my portfolios so I’ll speak to that first and then I’m happy to take your questions. It’s been a big fortnight of delivery for Australians and now, after extensive consultation and negotiation, the Albanese Government has delivered historic reforms to tackle gambling harm.

Some people wanted more, others wanted less, but mostly Australians wanted action. And with its passage through the Parliament last night, that is what we have delivered – an extensive package of measures that will stop the saturation of gambling ads on TV, on radio and online. It will put real distance between the sports that Australians love and the gambling products that are promoted alongside them.

It will crack down on illegal operators and harmful online products, take action on predatory inducements and it will strengthen protections for those most at risk of gambling harm. As Sports Minister, I want kids to fall in love with the game, not with the odds. Children should be able to know the players and follow their team and celebrate a goal without gambling being an inextricable part of that, either watching on a screen without having gambling ads follow them around or watching at the ground without seeing it on jerseys and on stadium signage.

These reforms also introduce choice. If you do not want to see gambling ads online, you will not have to. The government has listened to parents, to sports fans, to gambling harm reduction advocates, to broadcasters, to charities and to industry.

We have worked across the Parliament to deliver a balanced, practical and enforceable package of gambling reforms which are the most significant in Australia's history. On match-fixing – a few moments ago we introduced legislation to criminalise match fixing, which will strengthen the integrity of sport in Australia. These new offences will be covered by the Criminal Code.

That is how seriously we take this. They will cement Australia's position as a leader in the global fight against match-fixing in sport. As Minister for Sport, my message is clear: those who seek to undermine the integrity of sport through corruption or manipulation will face the full force of the law.

On Roblox – I welcome today's action by the eSafety Commissioner. It is not good enough that despite promises made to me, in person, and to the eSafety Commissioner in February, Roblox has not yet managed to clean up its act. 1.7 million Aussie kids are on Roblox, and parents need to know that their children will not be approached by adults while playing the game.

Roblox has talked a big game. It must now deliver on all of its promises that they have promised Australian parents. And the clock is ticking.

If eSafety is not satisfied within three months, Roblox will find itself explaining why it cannot prevent potential grooming in the Federal Court of Australia. News bargaining – today, we will continue debate on the News Bargaining Incentive and the News Journalism Payments legislation, which will ensure the sustainability of Australian journalism. It is an important step for a strong and diverse news sector that is vital for a healthy democracy and for communities across the nation.

We want to see digital platforms do deals with news organisations for the content that they use, and that's what these laws are about. Journalism is the lifeblood of a robust democracy. It holds people, businesses and governments to account, which is why the Albanese Government is backing a strong and sustainable media sector.

And there's never been a more critical time to ensure the sustainability of Australia's media sector, and that is why we are working to see the passage of these bills through the Parliament today. On the Sydney Swans – sport matters hugely to a lot of us, but some things matter more. And women's safety, dignity and wellbeing must come before chatter about finals, the ladder, sponsors or reputations.

And on Nick Kyrgios – integrity in sport matters. This process now needs to run its course and we should respect that whilst being able to acknowledge that there is a human being at the heart of it. Together with the Geelong Cats concussion waiver, this has been a grim week for the social license of professional sport.

And we wouldn't want to conflate these three issues, but one common thread that does run through them is that the rules and the expectations and standards must apply to everybody, no matter how big the name or how brilliant the athlete. Happy to take any questions. JOURNALIST: Minister, would it be fair to say you don’t quite know how the opt-out register would work yet?

I would say it’s akin to the Do Not Call register, and ACMA had to build BetStop, and it will be akin to BetStop. So that's why we've factored in 12 months in order to build it, but we have built similar things before and we believe it's possible. JOURNALIST: Minister, just on that, BetStop was legislated in 2019, the bill commissioned in ’21 and it didn't launch until ’23.

So how are you going to build a much larger register across all of these online platforms in only 12 months? Because we know how to do it now because we've done it with BetStop. JOURNALIST: Just on the betting inducements and banning predatory inducements, what is your thinking around how you'll set a threshold for what is a high-risk gambler?

And do you have an idea of what that threshold is at this point? So, I want to correct a misunderstanding floating around out there. It is not for gambling service providers to mark their own homework.

It will be set by legislative instrument that I and ACMA will work together to set. We want it set by legislative instrument so that it can take into account the latest expert technical advice. It exists in some forms in other states at the moment, and at-risk indicators might be continual deposits, overnight deposits, failed deposits.

Those are some of the at-risk indicators that we'll be looking at. But that's something that I should be taking advice on, and that's why we want it done by legislative instrument. JOURNALIST: Minister, just on the opt-out, so this will apply to basically any online platform, right?

This opt-out register will apply to social media platforms, it would apply to news websites, it would apply to whatever website you go to, podcasts and things like that. Have you had consultation with, say, the big social media companies about how they would allow people to have ads on any other topic but carve out gambling from the ads they're serving to people?

Any other, like, say Google Ads and things like that – what consultation have you had, or what advice have you received about how technically feasible that will be? So, I guess the first thing I would say is that the number one way you can make sure that you comply with the law, that is, as of last night, the law, is to not show gambling ads. And if you want to show gambling ads, then you're going to have to jump through these hoops.

The fact that we have BetStop, and if you have a look at the rigorous ways that wagering service providers have to comply with BetStop now, they have a number of checkpoints that they have to hit to check that people have not opted out of BetStop before they're allowed to promote their services. They have to check every time you log in. They have to check every time you make a deposit.

They have to check every time you check your balance. So we are confident on the basis that we have built BetStop that we're going to be able to do that, and these are many of the same players that will now be engaging in this. And I met with Meta and Google yesterday.

Obviously, we will continue to engage with them about all of this because start time is 1 January. JOURNALIST: Do you anticipate that because it actually might be so difficult for social media platforms, search engines to comply with this opt-out register that they might not just show advertising from gambling companies at all? What a great outcome that would be.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you've taken us through quite the array of topics this morning and you've got quite a few still on the plate – Digital Duty of Care, Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligations, more work on the social media ban. Can you give us an indication of what's kind of next on your plate, what you want to prioritise after having gotten this mammoth amount of legislation through Parliament this week?

I think for me that the most consequential piece of work that I am thinking about at the moment is the Digital Duty of Care. Australia is really proud to be a world leader in online safety, and the Digital Duty of Care is going to be a really big piece of work that will capture a lot of the things that people want to see improved in not just the social media ban, but the rise of chatbots, the introduction of AI, how that's going to impact everybody.

The social licence of some of the biggest, richest, most resourced companies that seek to come to Australian shores, use our data, make a lot of money off Australians, and what we expect of them. So, I would nominate Digital Duty of Care as the biggest task ahead of me at the moment. But I'd note that modernising Aus Post, making the transition through to fibre and the delivery that we've promised on NBN and some of the other things we just mentioned, making sure that Triple Zero is fit for purpose in the telco space, delivering Universal Service Obligations through the Parliament, which we expect to do very soon.

And I look forward to the way that LEOSats are emerging and the way that will interact with our obligatios and the service that we can offer Australians. There's five pillars in the Communications portfolio, all of which are really important, and I love this job. JOURNALIST: On that last one, Helen Haines raised, I think yesterday, wasn’t it, the Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation.

Why has it taken so long? So, like I said to Helen Haines in the parliament, the nominated start date is 1 December 2027. And really, the number one factor on hitting that is the industry having the tech ready for direct-to-device.

So, whether I legislated it four months ago, whether I legislate it today, whether I legislate it next sitting fortnight, it's still 1 December 2027, and it’s still on the industry to [inaudible] that. We talk to them constantly about this. I agree with Helen.

It's really important. I’m looking forward to delivering this for Australians, particularly for regional Australians. But I reject the fact that not having done it already in some way impinges its ability to do good for Australians.

And I'd note, we've just passed eight bills through the House in the Comms portfolio this week, and we've just introduced another one that will deal with match-fixing. So, you know, we've got a bit on the books. JOURNALIST: Minister, just on a couple of the points you've mentioned, with the register, you say it's going to operate like BetStop.

Akin to, yeah. JOURNALIST: Akin to, but is it your understanding that the mechanics would be similar in the online organisations would have to be constantly pinging a centrally held register? But they do that already.

It's automated. It won't be on the user. This technology exists, we've built it.

And yeah, it took a while to build it, but we know how to do it now. JOURNALIST: And just on the red flags, is it your view that there'll be some kind of transparency mechanism there if you set these standards that the companies then flag problem gamblers to not then send inducements? But will there be a way for the government to get an appreciation of how many people have been flagged to get a sense of whether it's actually being implemented?

Yeah, I'm confident that we'll be able to work with ACMA to have a sense of that. We want wagering service providers to step up and do more. We know that the Alliance for Gambling Reform wants the same.

That's why they put it in the submission to the Senate inquiry. But we think, by legislative instrument, we can make it enforceable and we can have penalties. JOURNALIST: On the jersey and stadium sponsorships issue, I think the grandfathering of existing deals runs until 2032.

There's one that runs until 2031. JOURNALIST: Why is that such a long tail on that, and would you hope that maybe sporting organisations might voluntarily cease their deals before that, before their current deals run out? Of course, I would hope that, but those are commercial arrangements for the clubs.

And in trying to strike a balance here between grandfathering existing arrangements and ensuring viability, that's what we got to. That is the most egregious one, I agree with you, but there's plenty that are expiring this year, for example. JOURNALIST: Minister, just on news bargaining, there are calls out of the US for the Trump administration to commence a review into these reforms that are passing the parliament today.

Are you confident that if that happens- like, what happens if that happens? Well, the Prime Minister has a very good relationship with President Trump. They spoke again last week.

I have been working with the Consulate General. We've obviously got the new ambassador arriving. I'm happy to engage with him about all this.

Australia has long signaled news bargaining as a priority of our government, and indeed the government before our government, because we believe in a free press and it needs to be viable. And when you think about the sort of threats to democracy that we have, not just in Australia but across the globe, that's more important than ever. So, we're proud to stand by it.

JOURNALIST: Just on the Swans, the Governor-General issued quite extensive comments yesterday about that alleged incident, also about the position of women in sport and the kind of actions sports take. It was quite a rare statement for someone of that stature. What did you make of that intervention?

She was the first AFL female commissioner. She's been a previous Sydney Swans board member, I believe, and it's something that she has long worked on and advocated for before she became the Governor-General, and she became the Governor-General because she's an eminent Australian who cares about important issues and standing up for what's right when it matters.

I was glad that she added her voice to it. I've tried to do that today, and I think it's incumbent upon everybody. I thought the AFL CEO's statement was good.

I think everyone could do more. It's an important conversation, and that's why I said what must come first is women's safety and dignity and women's wellbeing before an immediate discussion about how this impacts finals. JOURNALIST: Just on the UOMO reforms, I guess given the nascent nature of direct to device technology via LEOsat, are you erring towards pushing that start date back out further from December 2027?

JOURNALIST: On match fixing – first of all, can you go through the penalties, and perhaps the surprise that many Australians will bring to this, that match fixing isn't already legal. Yes, so what we have put into the House this morning is making seven enforceable infringements a criminal penalty in the criminal code. So the Attorney-General has done that because she looks after the criminal code.

This is speaking to a problem that we, me being the Sports Minister, and Sport Integrity Australia, have identified, where we're getting more sophisticated intelligence. We know that these things are on the rise, but because we have a state and territory jurisdictional system, sometimes we know things in WA that we need to enforce in Tasmania and we need a national framework to do it.

So in order fix that and deliver on our obligations to the Macolin Convention, which is something that Australia has signed up to, and you'll know I also sit on the Executive Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency, it is something that we need to uphold to maintain our status as a proud leader in anti-doping. So happy to get you more on that if you want to cover it.

But it's seven new criminal offences to try and scoop up the fact that, at the moment, and you would have seen coverage, we have situations where vulnerable 19-year-olds come from Sudan to play in domestic soccer leagues or even the under-19s, and they are targeted for match-fixing by overseas operators. And when the Prime Minister spoke at the National Press Club about our gambling reforms needing to incorporate a holistic approach, this is exactly what we were talking about, trying to crack down on some of the sources of the gambling as well as the people who profit from it.

Have a good day.