: Welcome back. Australia's landmark social media ban for under 16s is officially in effect, with kids booted off platforms like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat as well.
NAT BARR, HOST: Well, joining us now live in the studio is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Good morning to you.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. And it's a proud day to be the Australian Prime Minister. This is a reform that's come from parents who've lost their young sons or daughters. It's come from young people themselves. This is families taking back control. Parents getting more peace of mind over what their young ones are looking at, but young people as well being able to enjoy their childhood.
BARR: Some kids, obviously, like you said in the last few weeks, some kids try to get around it. What do you say to parents helping them and kids saying, 'I hate this, I'm never going to be able to live again?'
PRIME MINISTER: What I say is that generations have survived without being on social media before. And what we are seeing in recent times is the rise in mental health issues affecting young people. We see something like 13 per cent of young people have been encouraged through social media to take their own lives. It has led to tragedies. But it also has in it that - young people need to have this conversation - it has chemicals go off in the brain that encourage them to keep scrolling. Affects adults as well, of course. And one of the great things about this, I was asked the other day what success looks like. Success looks like having this discussion, people being aware. Technology has done wonderful things for our lives, but we need to keep in control of it. And this is families taking back control.
SHIRVINGTON: Are you going to ban secondary platforms like Lemon8, which we're hearing - that's ByteDance, isn't it? The owners of TikTok?
PRIME MINISTER: The eSafety Commissioner will keep an eye on all of these issues. We take her recommendations. We have increased funding for the eSafety Commission and they're doing a great job. The world is looking at this as well, and this is a global phenomenon. Malaysia begins on 1 January. The European Union have already passed a resolution looking at legislation across Europe, but Denmark is leading the way there. Indonesia are making changes as well. Very large country, of course, big population to our north. New Zealand following Australia's lead. So, this is world-leading. There will be bumps in the road. We know that that's the case, but we encourage parents to have those conversations with their children. Teachers will be having those conversations as well and it's a great thing. This hasn't come from the Government either. This has come from parents who've taken personal tragedies, who'd lost a son or daughter and have channelled that trauma into not wanting other parents to go through what they've gone through.
BARR: Look, somehow this has become the second biggest story in Canberra this week. Every day, Anika Wells, as you know, has been on the front page of newspapers because of her taxpayer spending, a total of $62,000 to attend 60 events since your government came to power, $4 million for MPs to follow the rules and get their families flown around the country. Is this a good use of taxpayer money?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is rules that were put in place by the former government after Sussan Ley had to resign as a minister after going to the Gold Coast to look at property issues, came up. These are arm's length from the Government. I think that's really important. Anika Wells has referred all of her expenditure to that independent authority to look at. That's a good thing. They'll have a look at it. I'm sure they'll look at other people's as well as it comes through. We have a different Parliament today from even when I was elected. I have a caucus that's 56 per cent female. Anika Wells gave birth to twins in office. I'm the member for Grayndler, we went through in NSW, 83 years until 1983, electing a male, usually an Anglo-Celtic male, for every seat in every electorate, for every party across every seat in NSW. Now, Parliament has changed. Families are now there, there's young mums, they're our people.
BARR: But you know what this phone is? This is a text line to the viewers of this show. And I can tell you what they're saying. They're not gender specific. They're saying, 'my husband's a truck driver, he's away all the time, I don't get flown to see him.' 'I'm a nurse with NSW Health. That Comcar bill for $1,000 to wait 8-10 hours. That's my weekly wage that I take home.' 'I'm a pensioner, I can't afford heating and cooling and I'm looking at these politicians and it's disgusting. What about the army, the Navy and the Air Force? They all work away from home for months. Politicians are not special.' This is a quote, 'I don't want to hear that this spending is within the rules, it's common sense, it's too much money.'
PRIME MINISTER: I understand that that's the case, and whenever -
BARR: Should the rules change?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the rules are not - I haven't set the rules -
BARR: But you have an opinion. You're the head guy.
PRIME MINISTER: We have an independent - one of the things that's really important, the [Remuneration] Tribunal, something at arm's length, sets my salary and the salary of politicians. The Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority was set up by the former government to examine things independently at arm's length. I don't want to be the arbiter of what my colleagues across the Parliament, across political parties - this isn't one person, this isn't one political party.
SHIRVINGTON: It's fair that you say that, but you were just spruiking that your government is connected to the people and it's more diverse than it's ever been and is more connected to, socially, than everyone than ever before. But this is a disconnect. People are crying out to say it's unfair, it doesn't pass the pub test. Where as a nation we're in debt, we're pushing a trillion dollars in debt and our politicians are spending this while we're saving money at home. We can't afford to buy meat. We just did a segment over there about bulk buying for Christmas.
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, look, I understand that perfectly and I understand where people are coming from. When you ask people about MP salaries, you'll get a common answer across every single dollar that is spent by parliamentarians. But this began of course, with the Minister's visit to New York. That was a really important event that has led to, has led directly to global action following Australia. And one of the things that's been really important here is that Australia not be isolated, that we not be the only country that are taking action. Because then the big tech giants -
SHIRVINGTON: It's about the $90,000 plus it cost to get her and two of her staff over there. That's the -
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they weren't even all her staff, by the way. One of them was a departmental officer.
BARR: Okay, whoever they were, when you saw the bill, when - because you signed off on this - when you saw that it was three lots of $35,000, would you not think, 'we'll send one person, the others can fly economy?' That's people's money.
PRIME MINISTER: I understand that. And we had circumstances where Anika was going to fly with the others, with me over there. We made a decision that that wasn't appropriate because of what was happening with Triple Zero, that she wanted to stay. She stayed and came later on. But I'll tell you what, a trip to New York for two days is work. That's not fun. I flew to Washington -
BARR: Worth $100,000?
PRIME MINISTER: I flew to Washington recently. It would have cost more than $100,000 for me to fly to Washington to meet President Trump in the flight that we did, with media all queuing up to be a part of that flight that I took over there, as we did to New York as well.
SHIRVINGTON: Will you promise to look at it, pollie spending?
PRIME MINISTER: We always look at measures, and the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority examine these things on a consistent basis and they will continue to do so.
BARR: And if they want to stick with the three business class airfares that every MP gets to fly their family around, you're okay with that?
PRIME MINISTER: No, what I'm okay with is it being at arm's length from me. I don't want to be the arbiter any more -
BARR: The guy who dobs everyone in.
PRIME MINISTER: Any more, Nat, than you get to decide Shirvo's salary or what his conditions are, or vice versa.
BARR: Except the taxpayers aren't paying for us.
PRIME MINISTER: And that's why it's important there be an independent authority. That's why it's there.
BARR: Fair enough.
SHIRVINGTON: We're out of time. Thank you so much. Always enjoy having you in the studio. Particularly congratulations to you and Jodie as well on a beautiful wedding. Enjoy your first Christmas together. As a married couple, I should say.
PRIME MINISTER: Can I take the opportunity to just thank the generosity of Australians for the warm messages that we got. It was truly heartening that people - you know, love is love and it was a great celebration of that in front of our family and friends and people were really generous.
SHIRVINGTON: It looked lovely and it looked personal and congratulations. Thanks for coming.
BARR: I think we've got some of the food left over, so you can pick up some on your way out if you want to. Thank you very much, Prime Minister.
