E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SUBJECTS: Gambling ads; free to air television accessibility; Trust Exchange

ALI MOORE, HOST: Yes, we've been talking about gambling ads and free to air TV, and are they the price that we pay for free to air, to watch our favourite shows, to watch our news on 10, 9 and 7? But also remember now, this is going to go back quite a while. But you remember the proposal for an Australia card? The whole idea was a national ID card. It didn't last long, but the government might just have announced a digital version. Using technology similar to tap to pay, it's going to create a digital token which will vouch for your ID based off details that are held in your MyGov wallet. That sounds a little convoluted, we will explain it all to you. It's a system that's called the Trust Exchange and the government says it will help prevent fraud. It was announced today by Bill Shorten, the Minister for the NDIS and Government Services. Bill Shorten, welcome back to Drive.

BILL SHORTEN, MINISTER FOR THE NDIS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES: Good afternoon, lovely to be back on your show.

MOORE: I'll get to the digital ID in just a tick. But first, gambling ads. Is it your contention that it's worth keeping gambling ads with all the attendant issues, according to the research, in order to keep free TV?

SHORTEN: No. I do think we need to reform gambling ads and that's what the government's doing. I think there's far too much in the way of normalising gambling, far too much exposure to kids and frankly, far too much interference with sports coverage. So, I know my colleague Michelle Rowland, who's the Minister of Communications, in sort of a very professional way, is talking to everyone, the advocates and everyone else. But clearly, she signalled that for the duration of sport and for a time before and after, that's one area where, do you really need gambling ads? You just want to enjoy the sport. She's also, I know, very committed to keeping our kids safe. So, you know, I haven't heard a convincing argument to have a gambling ad at the time when kids tv's on, when it might normalise betting for kids, and that also goes for the online world.

MOORE: But you can see a convincing argument for having some gambling ads on free to air.

SHORTEN: Well, what I haven't heard is a convincing argument about the future of free to air TV.

MOORE: But that's a different argument, isn't it?

SHORTEN: No, they're actually, they're actually related and that's, I suppose, the heart of this issue. I understand the terrible things that gambling addiction can do. I had a family member who is no longer with us, but he was a gambling addict, and it was terrible. But gambling is not illegal and not everyone who gambles is an addict. But I do think the ads have gone too far, so I want to rein that back in, as does the whole of the Albanese government. But there's a point where I'm also conscious that free to air media in this country is under siege. It's being disrupted by the Internet. I don't know about you, but I don't watch a lot of free to air media anymore. But I do know that in a pluralist democracy, if we don't have free media, I don't want to get my news from Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. So, as we approach one issue, you just got to recognise that there are flow on consequences and have that discussion.

MOORE: Sure, but I guess the question becomes –

SHORTEN: That’s all I’m saying.

MOORE: - the question becomes, where is that line between having gambling ads on free to air to support free to air?

SHORTEN: What you're saying is the line has to be abolition or something less than that. And I'm not convinced that prohibition will work. I don't accept that everyone who gambles is an addict, but leave that aside, I'm happy to rein in gambling ads. And I think this government's already done a fair bit. We're the ones who have said you can't use your credit card to bet online. We are the ones who've created betstop, which has seen tens of thousands of people stop gambling. So, yeah, I think we can reform it. I think we can do a lot better than we currently do. But for me, it's not an all or nothing proposition. And what I'm saying probably won't make some of the gambling - because the gambling abolitionists don't just want an end of ads, and I can't - you know, in a perfect world, I'd like to make everyone happy.

MOORE: I understand that. I get your point. But can I just ask you about, you want to rein it in? We had a long chat with, with Jeff Kennett yesterday about this. Can you be half pregnant on gambling ads? I mean, the way that everyone consumes things today.

SHORTEN: I didn't vote for Jeff Kennett, but I quite like him as a sort of raconteur and a banterer. But it was Jeffrey Gibb Kennett who opened Crown Casino. So, you know, I love getting a bit of advice now about Jeff on gambling. So, yeah, I think you can reform things without it being all or nothing. I think doing nothing is not acceptable. I think Peter Dutton's proposal just to ban it for an hour before, an hour after and during a sporting event, I don't think that goes far enough.

MOORE: So, what do you reckon for free tv? How do you support free tv. So, it doesn't -

SHORTEN: I don't have the solution to that. This has been a problem which has been going on since the arrival of the Internet. And despite what some of the abolitionists say, free tv has given me a hard time in the past. And I have no allegiance to a particular institution. But I do know that I don't want all our news coming from the Internet, you know, Facebook's now saying that -

MOORE: You know, there's an ABC and an SBS Minister.

SHORTEN: Yeah, and that's - and do you know what? Thank goodness Labor's in to fund you properly. And that has been my policy as Opposition Leader. So, yeah, I'm aware you exist. I'm conscious that I'm talking to you now. But the point about it is, if you say that we don't need to worry about free to air tv because we have a government run broadcaster, I support a government run broadcaster. You're crucial for pluralism. But what I would also say is that I don't want people only getting one source of news. And sure, the free to air networks are very imperfect beasts, but I don't want to see a world where there's no regional WIN and you only get your news from Fox, or sorry, you know, their brand in Australia.

MOORE: Bill Shorten, just before I move off from this, do you think, though, that there is an argument that if you wanted to remove gambling ads and still support free tv, there are things that could be done along the lines of, for example, the $46 million the government takes from the free tv industry every year in payment for Spectrum. I mean, for example, there are things that could be done that could mean less ads, but they don't lose so much revenue.

SHORTEN: Sure. I'm not the Communications Minister. I was on Q and A last night. I am just raising what I think is a legitimate issue, that in our rush to solve one problem, which is a real problem and deserves robust response, and we've already been doing a fair bit of that, is just be aware of the problems that we might be exacerbating, which already exist. I don't have the solutions. You've offered two possible solutions there, but I think it's legitimate, and I'm a centre sort of guy, I can sort of, I absolutely see the harm that gambling does. Absolutely see the proliferation of ads and the need to rein it back in, we all agree on that. But I also - you know, I see what happens with global tech giants when they control your news feed and they're not paying for Australian content. And I think that is a problem for our democracy.

MOORE: Let me move to an area that is in your purview, Minister, and that is the digital ID that you've announced today. How exactly will it work? Is it the sort of thing that you'd have to sort of log into an app to use?

SHORTEN: Listen, you did say in the opening, is this an Australia card? It's absolutely not.

MOORE: Well, it's not because it's digital to start with.

SHORTEN: But also, it's not because it doesn't have a single number. It's discretionary, it doesn't seek to duplicate your digital ID. We're at the proof-of-concept stage and then after six months, we'll move to the pilot stage. We've got a fair bit of time just to talk through how this works. What it's about is, it'll use myGov and myGovID to make the sharing of personal information more secure and trustworthy. Let me pick an example of how it would work. You need a service. Say you're renting a house. When you rent it, the real estate agent will ask for your personal information. It could be including your driver's license or your passport. Under TEx if it works, which I'm sure it will, we're no longer handing over those documents and having them taken to the back office to be photocopied and not properly data protected. How it would work is you'd scan a QR code on the front desk or, using technology similar to tap to pay machines, which digitally shakes hands with your MyGov wallet, you choose the information that you share from your digital wallet and you get to consent to its use. You'll have a record of how your myGov wallet, in your myGov wallet, of what has been shared and with whom you'd share it.

MOORE: And what of the, I guess it depends a little, doesn't it, on what the requirements are of those hotels or clubs or whatever they might be, what information they need to keep.

SHORTEN: Well, that's right, but we've seen that - I think a lot of businesses thought data was an asset when they first started to accumulate it. Now they've realised it's a liability. You can think, and many of your listeners can think, of the number of times where people ask you to give them a lot of id to prove who you are, and they keep that record. The reality is that they don't need to keep all of that. Now, listen, if you're staying in a hotel, they need your credit card number because you've got to pay for it. This doesn't mean you get to stay somewhere for free. But it does mean, and, you know, think about it. Next time anyone cheques into a motel or you're required to give you a copy of your passport or a copy of your driver's licence, we want to take that insecurity out of the system.

MOORE: But they're still going to need to keep, I mean, they take that information because they're required to take it, don't they?

SHORTEN: No, they take that information to prove who you are. And if you've got a QR code with your myGov app, that proves who you are. So, you don't need to give them all of that. And what that means is that you don't have a whole lot of organisations accumulating a whole lot of data they don't need, and you don't want, and you don't consent to the use of that information in any other fashion.

MOORE: And you're fairly confident that from a cyber security point of view, you can ensure that that is safe, that extra step?

SHORTEN: I'm confident that our systems are safer than getting a hotel to photocopy your details. Yeah, I am. But we’ll work through all of that. What I want is world leading government services. At the moment, quite often people using government services, it's like using a rope ladder rather than a seamless sort of highway. And we want to use this exchange to help businesses deal with consumers, consumers deal with businesses and government deal with citizens and citizens deal with government.

I mean, the thing is, we already, we've already developed a pass key for myGov. A passkey is just another way of saying your biometric information. Australians use their facial id to turn their phones on. Now you can use that to activate your myGov app. That is much safer than trying to, one, remember passwords, two, you store your passwords, and you got to be careful that you don't inadvertently give away information. So, we'll work with all the cyber experts. That’s not an issue.

MOORE: Well, we will wait to see with interest. As you say, you're at the sort of early proof of concept stage. Minister, thank you very much for joining us.

SHORTEN: Lovely to chat to you. Have a nice day.

MOORE: Bill Shorten there, Minister for the NDIS and Government Services