MATT DORAN:
Stephen Jones, welcome back to afternoon briefing. I want to ask you about some of the comments from the media executives appearing before parliament today, warning of the pretty dire consequences for their companies if the news bargaining code and the commercial agreements that were formed under it don’t continue. Where are we at with the process of trying to have those discussions with the big social media companies – Meta, obviously pulling out of its deals? Where are we at with the process that’s legislated under the news bargaining code?
STEPHEN JONES:
Fairly strict set of requirements under the bargaining code for me as the responsible Minister and I’ll follow those requirements to the law. I’m just waiting on the finalisation of some advice from Treasury before I consider both what the ACCC has given me and what Treasury will give me. Obviously, consult with some of my colleagues as well. What you can be assured of, Matt, is myself as the Minister, and right across the government, we’re focused on the public interest, we’re focused on journalism and journalists and how we have sustainable business models which support journalism and the inquiry that you mentioned, incredibly important. It’s looking at the economic, the social and the democratic harms that have been visited upon Australians through social media platforms. We will have a programme to address every single one of them.
DORAN:
When it comes to the potential next steps, can you remind our viewers what they are, given the position that we’re at at the moment?
JONES:
Thanks, Matt. Well, under the code, it encourages voluntary agreement making between social media platforms and the publishers. If voluntary agreements can’t be struck, or if a party is behaving in bad faith, it is available to me as the Minister, to designate a platform or platforms, and that triggers compulsory bargaining and compulsory arbitration processes under the code. Of course, we hope it doesn’t get to that. Again, we hope that Meta plays by the rules of the game and acts like a good corporate citizen. But if they won’t, then we’ll use all of the levers available to us to ensure that we have sustainable journalist and journalism and business models in this country.
DORAN:
Given Meta’s public utterances to this point, do you think they will come to the table?
JONES:
Hope springs eternal, Matt. Hope springs eternal. I’m not naive. I’ve seen what they’ve done in other countries. But I just want to make this point. The government is 100 per cent resolved to ensure that all of the harms that arise out of social media are addressed and that we lift up our laws right across the board. Whether it’s the social harms through mis– and disinformation, through the sharing of illicit content, fake illicit content, whether it’s economic harms through the misuse of economic power and market power, or whether through the democratic harms that are occurring. We want to have the best laws to ensure that Australians get all the benefits of social medias, but none of the really, really significant harms that have been created and visited upon Australians and businesses because of that. We need to get the balance right, and we’re not there at the moment.
DORAN:
Let’s touch on a couple more issues. Stephen Jones, we saw a meeting this week of the Reserve bank board, and there was probably a sigh of relief across the country when it was revealed that they decided to keep interest rates at their same level, 4.35 per cent. But Michele Bullock, the RBA Governor, had some pretty pointed words in her press conference afterwards, saying that she still thinks Australia is on a narrow path. But it does appear that path is getting a bit narrower when it comes to emerging out of this inflation crisis that we’ve seen. Does that mean that Australian households are going to have to wait longer for some sort of cost‑of‑living relief? Aside from what the government is delivering, but when it comes to interest rates?
JONES:
Look, inflation has come down. It’s halved what it was when we came into office. But we’ve still got a little way to go before within that comfort zone for the Reserve bank to start reducing interest rates. Yeah, the path is narrow. Let’s just be frank, Matt. The path is narrow, but we think we’ve got the right strategy. We don’t want to ensure that all the gains that we’ve made on full employment are lost. And that’s what the government is very focused on. We’ve got very strong employment growth. Over 800,000 new jobs been created in the last 2 years. We don’t want to see that go backwards. So, the Reserve bank and ourselves are ensuring that we maintain that strong employment growth but bring inflation back down. And they’re the, if you like, the 2 things that we’re trying to balance, but we think we’ve got the balance right in our Budget. Acknowledge it’s a narrow path and acknowledge that households are doing it tough, particularly if they’ve got a mortgage.
DORAN:
Do you and your colleagues fear that if interest rates are kept at the same rate they are now for many months into the future, that the economy is really going to be suffering and make the job of trying to steer the ship from the government even harder?
JONES:
Absolutely acknowledge the fact that households and small businesses are doing it tough at the moment. There’s no doubt about that. There’s no doubt that sustained high interest rates are having an impact on the economy. It’s dampening demand, we saw that in the last GDP figures. We’re seeing that in the retail sale figures. The one remarkable thing in all of this, I’ve got to say, is the fact that the labour market is holding up. More Australians in work, more Australians earning more. And it’s this which gives us hope that we can walk that narrow path, get a soft landing and ensure that we can turn the economy around. We’ve got to stick the course. No big spending measures that are going to blow the economy up. No big cash splashes that are going to blow the economy up. But also no slash and burn, which is going to make a hard situation even worse. That’s the path we’re taking.
DORAN:
It would be remiss of me not to ask you about the fallout from Peter Dutton’s announcement earlier this week, his proposal for nuclear power plants across the country. Earlier in the programme, we spoke to Ziggy Switkowski, who has said that, yes, there will be, if the nation does go down this path, a significant initial public outlay in terms of funding for nuclear reactors, but they would provide value to the nation in the decades to come. Is he wrong?
JONES:
Look, Ziggy Switkowski has been Australia’s number one advocate for nuclear power for more than a decade now, so no surprises that he’s in there cheering for this. His background, obviously, as a nuclear scientist, he’s going to back that cause. But we’re listening to the advice of the CSIRO and others. And the simple fact of the matter is that nuclear energy is the most expensive option for Australia. And I make that point. It’s the most expensive option for Australia. For other countries around the world, it is a viable choice because it’s not the most expensive option because they don’t have the abundance of other sources of energy that we have. But if you’ve got the sunniest, windiest, some of the best hydro assets in the world, why on earth would you overlook those and go for a nuclear option that won’t deliver one watt of energy for the next 15 years, more like 20 years, while Australians are doing it tough with their power right now. In fact, what we’ve seen in comments from energy market participants over the last 24 hours is great hesitancy from them to start investing in long term renewable energy because of the uncertainty that Peter Dutton’s reckless policy brain bubble has visited upon Australian political debate. So far from him putting out a policy which is going to create certainty, what he’s done has spooked all the investors who are lined up to invest in renewable energy. And he’s got them saying, well, we’re not sure whether we could make these long term investments now if he’s going to completely scrap the energy policy.
DORAN:
Stephen Jones, we’re out of time. Thanks for joining us.
JONES:
Good to be with you.