Stephen Cenatiempo: Finally the government, three weeks into this crisis, has initiated some action. Now I don’t think they’ve gone far enough with the 50 per cent cut on the fuel excise duty. There’s a lot more that needs to be done here but it just seems to be the hallmark of this government that there’s no leadership, it’s just following?
Senator Henderson: Well that’s right, of course, we announced our plan on Friday, under Angus Taylor’s leadership, to halve the fuel tax. And now, belatedly, after four weeks of this Prime Minister saying there was no problem, nothing to see here, no issues with supply, the government has now announced the halving of the fuel tax mimicking our policy. And we welcome this, but we don’t think that the government has done nearly enough – it has sat on its hands for many weeks. And of course, there is still no solution on how to get fuel to the servos which have run dry.
Stephen Cenatiempo: To me, I find it extraordinary that, you know, it’s taken this long to act. For the first week, the government told us there was no crisis. Everything was fine and now that they admit there is a crisis but they’re still trying to tell us that there’s no shortage of fuel?
Senator Henderson: Well that’s exactly right. There’s been no leadership, there’s been no plan and there’s been no sense of urgency. We were, in fact, mocked. Coalition senators and members were mocked. We were even called ‘extremists’ because we were raising genuine concerns that fuel was not getting particularly to regional communities. And now we are facing a full blown crisis in this country. And of course, again, the Prime Minister is always the last to lead in a national crisis. And the fuel excise cut that has been announced by the government, there’s been no offset, so that is inflationary. That is bound to drive up inflation, and that’s also a very serious concern.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Look, I’ve advocated for getting rid of the fuel excise altogether. I don’t think we should have punishment taxes but you’re right, the offset is the real key here, $2.5 billion dollars is what we’re saying it’s going to cost. But there’s no $2.5 billion dollars saving anywhere else and we know that there’s plenty of room to cut the fat.
Senator Henderson: Well, I think Australians can be pretty concerned that the budget’s going to have some grim news in it. So we are expecting that Labor is looking to introduce a range of taxes, a housing tax, a small business tax, a tax on our critical resources? So I think the government has got some pretty dire news for Australians ahead. Australians can’t take any more, Stephen, Australians are facing a shocking cost of living crisis, the cost of everything is going up. Electricity alone is nearly a 40 per cent increase, which makes a mockery of the government’s claim that electricity would come down by $275 by 2025. So everything is running off the cliff, out of control government spending, high inflation which of course, means that for the average mortgage holder, that’s an extra $27,000 a year in mortgage payments. Australians are just simply not coping under this government. We’ve got to get rid of this government. They don’t know what they’re doing. They’re running the economy off a cliff, and we’re seeing it every single day as the government scrambles to manage this national fuel crisis.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Sarah, in your new role as Shadow Minister for Communications, last time we spoke, we were talking about this under 16 social media ban, which has now been in place for a little over 100 days. Most experts are saying it’s been an abject failure but even the government’s claim that 4.7 million social media accounts have been shut down since the ban came into place, they’re now walking away from those figures because, well, as you and I discussed, there was no way to ascertain whether or not they’re actually under 16s?
Senator Henderson: Well, this is a government which is very big on announcements, Stephen, and hopeless on implementation. We’ve been very concerned about the rushed nature of the social media ban. The government did not do the hard work to make this work in the real world, and now we’re seeing exactly what we feared, a policy that is simply not working. It’s riddled with defects. And as you say, the Prime Minister and the Communications Minister, Anika Wells, made an announcement in January that 4.7 million accounts had been deactivated, removed or restricted under the social media ban. Under the eSafety Commissioner’s compliance update released today, there’s no mention of that figure. The eSafety Commissioner is meant to be investigating how many accounts have been shut down but certainly the platforms are saying it’s much less than that. So we’ve been misled by this Prime Minister, there is no doubt about it. And the bottom line is that because the government hasn’t done the hard work, they are simply not doing enough to keep children safe online.
Stephen Cenatiempo: It is an extraordinary situation. Yesterday, there was also a forum in Parliament House looking specifically at doing more to combat live streaming of child abuse material, and very much the same as this social media ban, it’s looking at doing things at a device level, which is what most of the experts were telling the government they needed to do in the lead up to the social media ban. Here’s just another example of technology being available to combat a problem but we’re not using it?
Senator Henderson: Well that’s right. Perhaps the minister’s spending too much time flying around the world including to the US, at great expense to the taxpayer, when she spruiked the social media ban but she hadn’t done the hard work. I mean, she made the same catastrophic mistakes in the aged care portfolio. She’s now doing it in the communications portfolio. I just don’t think she’s up to the job because you’re absolutely right. And in fact, I question the eSafety Commissioner on why the government is not looking at device-level safety technology, safety tools which give parents choice but also address the horrendous issue with child sexual abuse online. There is technology available to combat this but the government has turned its back on these policy solutions. This is just simply not good enough and it’s of course, exposing children to horrendous risk. And I say, really, the Prime Minister probably needs to start looking for another communications minister because this is an abject failure. The social media ban is an abject failure, but what’s even more serious is that the minister has not looked at other policy solutions to keep children safe online.
Stephen Cenatiempo: It is extraordinary. It’s such an important thing keeping our most vulnerable safe and there are easy ways to do it. We have some of the foremost experts in the world, here in this country and for some reason, our government won’t listen to them. Sarah, great to talk to you. We’ll catch up again in a fortnight.