SUBJECTS: Trust Exchange; Gaza; gambling ads

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Joining us to discuss that and many other issues is government services and NDI Minister Bill Shorten, who joins me live in the studio here in Parliament House. Hello.

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR GOVERNMENT SERVICES AND THE NDIS: Good morning.

KARVELAS: We are both usually in Melbourne, but we're here this week.

SHORTEN: Well, Canberra weather's getting better.

KARVELAS: It is. Can you briefly explain how this is actually going to work?

SHORTEN: We want to make sure that Australians have control over their own personal data and that it is secure and that they are able to consent when it's used. So, in a nutshell, how would this work? We want to start a proof of concept and test what's called a Trust Exchange. There's a lot of jargon in our tech world, so I won't try and bamboozle everyone. But the sort of practical thing which we're thinking of, it's application is if you were a tenant renting a house, you, instead of providing, and they ask you to give you a copy of your passport or your driver's licence, all of that, rather than the current system, they'll photocopy it and maybe store it securely, or maybe not store it securely, this extra information. Instead, what we want you to be able to do is use your myGov app and it would be digitally read by a QR code which the vendor who's requesting the information would have, and that would be a digital handshake and say, yep, this is who you are. Could be like a tap and go that way. You decide what information you give the person asking the information. So, you're in control, you consent, and it means that all the other information which organisations normally keep and don't need to keep and becomes a risk if it gets hacked, that problem goes away.

KARVELAS: There are some privacy concerns which I mentioned, because the data, of course, then will be incredibly powerful in one spot. Is that, is that kind of a honeypot potentially?

SHORTEN: No, it will be the exact opposite. We're going to build the trust exchange to ensure there isn't a centralised store of personal data. I mean, you don't have to use it. That's the first thing. You can just keep giving someone your driver's licence or your passport and by the way, that is not secure. We will not have access to who you shared the information with, so this is actually verifiable identification using the security features of your phone, which you control and the Government doesn't, and it's actually a lot more secure.

KARVELAS: Okay-

SHORTEN: - and by, just as a special thing, we haven't said this yet, but I'll say it on your show for the first time. To those people who are worried, fair enough. Everyone's allowed to ask questions. It's important people can trust that the system works. I've convinced our agency to use open source as a principle. Now, open source again, another term that has a particular meaning. We will allow people to see what is the code that we've used to produce the software. Services Australia will still do the coding, I want to be clear about that, but I think it's important if we're building trust and that the consumer or the citizen feels they have control, it's about them that it'll be open source and that people can, with technical understanding, will be able to look under the hood and clarify that the system is working as we're describing.

KARVELAS: Why have you decided on that approach? I know that's a huge debate in the tech world. Why is there such a push to get access?

SHORTEN: Well, one of the first things I did when I became Minister is asked, who's doing citizen ID best in the world? And frankly, the Europeans are better than us, privacy, that's my opinion. And in Estonia, this little country next to Russia, Estonia was the victim in the first ever site cyber war. 1.4 million people were literally bombarded in 2006, their system shut down. So, they've developed a de-centralised identification system, which means the data is distributed and when I thought, well, if an Estonia of 1.4 million people can come up with something which is useful for citizens to use, how is it Australia, with 27 million people, can't? So, I've always had in my mind that open source is one of the ingredients to building trust, that people can look under the hood and see what the Government software is, how it's built and coded, and it's just a lot of hard to be scared of what you can actually see.

KARVELAS: There's a text message that I want to put to you because I can see this debate flaring up as well. Someone says, sounds like the Australia card.

SHORTEN: It's just not.

KARVELAS: It's not?

SHORTEN: No, it's just not. The Australia card was one centralised number. Plenty of nations use it, by the way, but it's not. And by the way, to that person, you don't have to use this.

KARVELAS: - so, the philosophy will be –

SHORTEN: - it's opt-in. The thing is, though, I want to break it to the text user. People are sharing their data every day. They get up on TikTok, they -

KARVELAS: - but people feel like there's little choice, right? I mean, it's hard to operate in the world without doing it.

SHORTEN: Yeah, but the point is people make a choice, and with MyGov you can download the app, 5.6 million people have. The Government is better at, to be honest, has multi factor identification, which is better. And the other thing about privacy, see, privacy and simplicity have got to be the goals of this. We're doing proof of concept till December, then we'll do pilots in the first half of next year and whoever is the Governor after that will hopefully see how we can do the applications. But going to that specific question about ID - we have to know who you are when you do your Medicare, we have to know who you are when you're claiming a benefit off Centrelink or if you had a baby and all of that. This is the Government data. We're not saying you give Government data to anyone else, but what we are saying is that why not take a lot of the current problems with data where you provide information you shouldn't have to, and restrict that so that you know when you're giving your data, you consent to it. This is about citizens having privacy, control and trust.

KARVELAS: If you're just tuning in, this is ABC Radio National Breakfast and you're hearing from the Minister for Government Services and the NDIS Bill Shorten. He's in the studio with me live in Parliament House, Canberra. I want to pivot, if I can, to a couple of other big issues that are dominating today. The Opposition Leader, Peter Dutton, has spoken this morning. There's been a debate about refugees from Gaza. He says he doesn't think people should be coming into Australia at all from Gaza. Of course, at the moment there is a screening process. He says it's a risk, full stop. What's your response to that?

SHORTEN: I think Peter's misfired on that. I think if somehow he's conflating the idea that every person who lives in Gaza is a member of Hamas. I don't share that view.

KARVELAS: Well, he hasn't said that, but he says there's risk.

SHORTEN: Well, we currently have a process where ASIO vet people, where we have national security checking. Memo to Peter Dutton. We're using the same process that he used. So, if he thinks our current process is no good, than what's he saying about all the time when he was in charge? There are some people, some hundreds, maybe even 1500. I don't know the precise number, but it's a very small number of people who've been accepted here temporarily. Their temporary visas are coming to an end. Unfortunately, the war in Gaza isn't. So, I don't know how humane it is to send people we've accepted back and we've always had a principle that in a war zone, whilst there's combatants and bad people, there's a lot of innocent people. And when we start saying that everyone's guilty because of some people, that's a problem.

KARVELAS: Let's move to another issue, and that's the gambling reforms before the parliament. We've spent a lot of time together this week, Bill Shorten, let's just call it for what it is. Monday night, we spent some time together on Q and A.

SHORTEN: Yeah, you’ve won the lottery.

KARVELAS: Aren’t I lucky? But you confirmed on Monday night that the Government will not go as far as perhaps the blanket ban that people are calling for on gambling ads. But you did say something that was controversial in some parts, that the tv networks need the financial stream from the gambling ads and that to turn the tap off would be problematic, that they would fall over. Many people are contesting that, saying that that's just the argument that was used over tobacco. What's your response to that?

SHORTEN: Oh, there's three points. First of all, I've seen the effects of gambling addiction. I had a family member who was severely affected by it underestimate the harm that gambling addiction can do, and I've seen it firsthand. I know that the Government has said, with this gambling advertising, which is out of control, that we want to make sure that it's not normalised for kids, so we want to do more on that. We've also said that you shouldn't be deluged during sport. We've also said we don't want to normalise it, so it shouldn't be really infiltrating the digital markets to the way it is. We don't want video games encouraging people. The other thing I said is this Government's done more on tackling gambling advertising than anyone. We banned the use of credit cards for online gambling. We've introduced new evidence based taglines in wagering advertising. We've strengthened the classification of gambling like features on video games to stop sucking kids in. We launched the national self exclusion register bet stop. And we will do more. So, this is a Government who's going to do a lot on it. What I raised on Monday night, though, is that free to air media has, you know, I've fought with big corporations my whole life, but free to air media has an important role in a pluralist democracy.

KARVELAS: But should it be at the cost of people's public health?

SHORTEN: Well, no, but I'm just getting to the point. The point about it is gambling, in my opinion, is not the same as tobacco. But having said that –

KARVELAS: - do you accept, though? Sorry to interrupt, I know that can be rude, but I think it's an important point. It does, you know, I've heard, oh, it doesn't kill like tobacco. It can kill, actually.

SHORTEN: All right, well, then abolish it. You know, like if prohibitionists are going to be prohibitionists, then be prohibitionists. And the thing is, merely because I won't do 100% of what an advocate wants doesn't mean I'm not interested in fixing it. We're actually looking at a more, I mean, it's not my portfolio, but I think the Government's looking at sensible, more reform than has ever been done before, tick. But in a way, which, and this is coming to this point, if I can be, I'll be really direct then the Internet and the social media giants, international organisations who don't really respect our national laws, they're killing our domestic news. They're killing our domestic free to air tv. Now, for some people, they don't care. They may be highly informed consumers of the Guardian internationally and read the New York Times and they're very well informed and maybe they don't care what everyone else is watching on the news. A lot of people no longer watch free to air, but news is still where people get their information about politics.

KARVELAS: About the hierarchy of what people care about. And what they're saying is that gambling is so hard fall that they want the most tough approach from your Government. And anything that looks like it's sort of halfway point, you'll be criticized for.

SHORTEN: For one, no one's been as tough as we've been, so I don't buy that. But what I also buy is in the pluralist system, if we don't have free to air tv, what happens then is you're going to get news from Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook and, you know –

KARVELAS: - hasn't the horse bolted on that?

SHORTEN: Well, you know what? I am not going to go into the dying of the night without fighting back against international tech giants giving us their extreme unfilled views with no accountability. So, yeah, I want to tackle gambling advertising and the argument that says that unless you are 100% going to do everything I ever asked for, that somehow you are not fair dinkum, is rubbish. I don't want WIN in Tasmania to shut. Yeah, I think it's bad that free to air tv has got to a point where gambling revenue is important to it. I buy that argument that people say life shouldn't be like that, but what I won't buy is the argument that therefore the world's too hard and we will just ignore the problem of the diminution of media diversity in this country. I am not arguing in favour of Seven, Nine or Ten. As individual corporations, they've never done me any favours. I've run for, you know, I've run for Prime Minister. I've seen how heavy media institutions can pile in. But you know what? Free to air tv is at least a voice of diversity in a world where we're getting a lot of misinformation. So, you know, let's just say to some of the extreme, you know, the zealot anti gamblers. I understand what you're saying, I can agree with a fair bit of what you're saying. But I'm also saying, please stop and think about the view that we don't want all our news coming from Facebook. They're not paying for Australian content now. And if you want more misinformation, then let's kill off regional media. Let's kill off free to air.

KARVELAS: Minister, thanks for joining us.

SHORTEN: Thank you.

KARVELAS: That's the Minister for Government Services and the NDIS, Bill Shorten.