Australia news live: banks and social media networks told to toughen up against scammers; house prices rise more slowly

The education minister, Jason Clare, was on Sunrise earlier this morning, asked about accusations from Richard Marles’ chief of staff Jo Tarnawsky, who alleged Marles had effectively sacked her without warning when she raised a concern about colleagues’ behaviour.

Asked whether there a problem with the culture in government, Clare responded:

The culture in Parliament has changed in my time there. I have been in Parliament now for 17 years – I’ve got to tell you it is a hell of a lot better than it was when I got there all that time ago, but there’s still more work to do …

Two years ago, there wasn’t a service in Parliament House for people to go to, for staff to go to to make a complaint when something terrible happens in an office. There is now … and I can tell you that that is providing a very important service in the building.

Rowland questioned on gambling ad ban

Michelle Rowland was also asked why it has taken 16 months for the government – as yet – to make no decision on gambling ads. The communications minister said the government has “been working diligently in this space” but action “should have been taken on this some 10 years ago”.

We’re working very closely with the states and territories because the vast majority of recommendations in our late colleague Peta Murphy’s report go to issues that go across commonwealth and state jurisdictions.

We’re also working very closely to ensure that there are no unintended consequences here and it’s actually effective.

Rowland argued that the last time this was looked at by the previous government, “it resulted in an increase in advertising”.

We have every anticipation that we will be able to respond comprehensively this year and that’s what we’re working towards as a government.

Will that response include legislation? Rowland responded:

We will be taking advice on the appropriate form in which that can be done. Legislation is obviously an option because there is an interactive gambling act at the commonwealth level, which enables some of these approaches to be implemented.

Can you actually reduce gambling ads without legislation? Rowland said she would “take advice on that”, pointing to codes of practice as another option.

Rowland says legislation to ‘age-gate’ social media being introduced before end of year

Michelle Rowland was asked which incentives platforms will actually have to do better, given there is no penalties in the legislation?

She said there were no penalties on the actual users of the platforms but as a review into the Online Safety Act continues, “the issue of penalties is something that we are looking at very closely”. So will there be penalties for the platforms?

There will be penalty for the platforms just as they are now in the Online Safety Act … These penalties will be drafted and, as I said, we’re currently reviewing the Online Safety Act because the penalties as they stand … the maximum penalties are less than $1 million for some offences.

Rowland said the findings of the review will be delivered “in the next few weeks”.

She said the eSafety regulator has been doing this “for a number of years now” and “the fact that we do have certain platforms taking the regulator to court on a regular basis actually indicates that there is an understanding those laws are there”.

They are being challenged but, at the same time, the industry does understand the need to comply here and, by and large, does comply with the rules under the Online Safety Act.

Rowland said the government would be introducing legislation to age-gate access to social media in parliament this year.

Second day of social media summit under way in Adelaide

The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, has been speaking with ABC News Breakfast on the second day of the social media summit in Adelaide.

Rowland has today announced the “likely” amendments to the Online Safety Act banning children from social media will “place the onus on platforms, not parents or young people” to enforce the ban.

Rowland said the age assurance trial, under way right now, shows that platforms “have the capability to undertake this kind of enforcement themselves”,

We have seen that in recent weeks with Meta releasing its own version of Instagram for young people, limiting access under certain settings. So the platforms have the capacity to do more and they should be doing more [and] that’s why the government is taking this approach.

I think the ultimate issue here is about [incentivising] the platforms to do better. We are on to the second generation of digital natives now. It is the case that social media is not going to be excluded from everyone’s lives completely and also the fact is that we can’t keep every person – every child – safe at every moment of every day when they are online. But we can do better and that is why we are taking this approach.

Research finds 4,000 jobs could be created with local wind tower manufacturing

Australia could create thousands of jobs and transition workers out of the fossil fuel industry if wind towers were produced at home, a research group says.

As AAP reports, wind energy is one of Australia’s main renewables and generates enough electricity to meet 7% of the nation’s demand. But all of Australia’s wind towers are imported from overseas.

The Centre for Future Work’s research found that 4,000 jobs could be created with local wind tower manufacturing and thousands more in supply industries like steel. Once the workforce was established, it could produce 800 towers every year with a cumulative value of $15bn over the next 17 years.

Report author Phil Toner said about 2.6m tonnes of CO2 emissions would also be avoided due to reduced shipping:

Anyone concerned about the climate should be up in arms at the fact we’re importing huge heavy steel towers from China when we could be producing them here, which would provide fantastic opportunities for our burgeoning green steel sector.

Good morning

Emily Wind

Full Story podcast: Have Labor’s ‘nature positive’ plans turned negative?

This week the Albanese government hosted what has been billed as a “global nature-positive summit” in Sydney.

When announced nearly two years ago by the environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, it was hoped the event would highlight Labor’s leadership in developing new nature laws.

But the criticisms have been rolling in, with environment advocates saying the summit is all talk and no action.

Guardian Australia’s climate and environment editor, Adam Morton, tells Reged Ahmad about the protests, policies and promises made at the government’s environment summit this week.

Cautionary tale for building nuclear power stations in Australia

There’s a cautionary tale out of the UK this morning for those who advocate building nuclear power stations in Australia.

EDF, the French energy company and nuclear specialist, is reportedly in talks with investors to raise up to £4bn – that’s almost $8bn – just to finish the delayed Hinkley Point C project in Somerset, Britain’s first new nuclear reactors in a generation.

The cost of the project has ballooned to almost £50bn – nearly $100bn – due in part to supply chain issues and struggles securing skilled engineers, according to Bloomberg. And now EDF wants investors to cough up more.

Read the full story here:

House prices rise more slowly, report shows

Josh Taylor

Labor to announce anti-scam measures

Sarah Basford Canales

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