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ESSENTIALS

– Anika Wells on Labor’s digital duty of care

– Legislation for gas reservation, trust tax in parliament this week

– Deloitte paid $2.2M for automated grant admin

DRIVING THE DAY

FIRST EPISODE OF POLITICO’S NEW CANBERRA PLAYBOOK PODCAST: Communications Minister Anika Wells is the first guest of host Amanda Copp, who joins POLITICO from Nine.

Wells tells POLITICO she’ll negotiate with the Coalition and Greens around narrowing controversial ministerial powers in her Digital Duty of Care bill, but she hasn’t spoken to either Sarah Henderson or David Shoebridge. The Greens demands will include giving individual Australians the right to sue big tech companies for compensation if they believe they were harmed online, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Wells warns that chatbots are coming for our “kids’ attachment,” and given that AI can develop emotional relationships with children, it’s essential for tech companies to be regulated.

Wells says the teen social media ban has hardened her resolve to complete the government’s collection of tech regulations: “the law isn’t failing. The platforms are failing to follow the law.” She plans to keep her own children away from smartphones “as long as I can delay it.”

Read Ryan Heath and Amanda Copp’s full story here.

Each 15-minute episode — out Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays — will feature an interview with a political figure, and a reporter chat with a member of POLITICO’s 550-person global newsroom.

Find the podcast here: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Everywhere else

LABOR LEG — GAS SCHEME, TRUST TAXES

In addition to the bill for a digital duty of care, in this sitting week the Albanese government will introduce legislation for its gas reservation policy, requiring that from July 2027 gas exporters must supply the equivalent of 20% of their exports to the Australian market.

Labor will also introduce a bill for a 30% minimum tax on discretionary trusts from July 2028, one of the key measures of the 2026 budget.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says the measure will hit 240,000 small businesses which use discretionary trusts to protect assets, manage irregular income, distribute profits and pass family-owned enterprises down generations.

On Sunday the Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, said the number of trusts (800,000) had doubled in the last 20 years, in part because of “people on higher income able to structure their finances … to avoid taxation.”

Nationals Leader Matt Canavan said small businesses “are under siege — from the taxation changes,” promising to scrap the change if the Coalition returns to government. “I’m not sure you will get more tax, you’ll just get a lot more red tape.”

LAWS OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: That’s Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson’s chosen line of attack this week, linking the “ATO credit card ban circus” to the budget blowback on trusts.

POLITICO IN THE NEWS — NEW SALES PARTNERSHIP WITH THE SQUIZ: We’re proud to be working with Claire Kimball and Kate Watson from our newsletter cousins The Squiz, who are joining the POLITICO family as our advertising and partnerships team. Kimball and Watson are Parliament House veterans who also rep Joe Aston’s Rampart.

THE PLAYBOOK INTERVIEW

ANIKA WELLS — ON LABOR’S NEXT BIG TECH BATTLE

Communications Minister Anika Wells is pushing a new frontier to regulate online spaces. Amanda Copp spoke with her as she prepares to introduce Labor’s Digital Duty of Care bill this week.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Coalition has already come out against the digital duty of care. Have you been having conversations in that case with the Greens?

We have been having conversations with everybody, and we’ll continue to do that this week. Every online safety law that Australia has passed has had both parties’ fingerprints on it, and I would like to keep that streak alive. Nobody ultimately remembers who passes the laws like the seatbelt laws. They just remember that you have to buckle up. So we’ll keep working in good faith.

Have you been speaking to their new leader David Shoebridge?

I haven’t spoken with him yet, but I’m happy to do so. Like I said, I’m willing to work in good faith with anybody across the parliamentary spectrum.

What about Sarah Henderson, the Shadow Communications Minister?

Our team has been speaking with her mostly to address the arguments she’s litigated publicly. She hasn’t called me, but I’m sure at some point we will sit down.

What is up for negotiation?

I really only have three non-negotiables when it comes to getting this law passed. We have to make sure we protect kids. We have to get illegal content off platforms. We have to give Australians more choice over what they see online. If people have other ways of achieving those objectives, I’m very open to hearing them.

There is a provision in the legislation that allows the minister to define what’s classified as harmful content. It has raised concerns over free speech. Would you consider taking it out?

I recognize this has been a stumbling block for the Coalition from the beginning. I’m prepared to make changes to secure their support for the core elements of the reform. So I invite the Coalition to work with us in good faith to deliver these stronger protections online, especially for children. There should be no reason why we can’t get this done together.

American author and advocate Michael Shellenberger has labeled this bill a “sinister plan for mass censorship” while traveling to speak in Australia. What do you say?

Welcome to the country, Michael. If your products are safe, this costs you nothing. And it’s not about what people say, it is about what platforms do. We are regulating the machine here, not the message. And I don’t think anybody’s free speech depends on an algorithm pushing eating disorder content to a 14-year-old. But if Michael’s come to the country to make that case, let him do it.

Could this be a turning point for how people interact on the internet?

I firmly believe that it should be. If you build it, you own the risk. And for 20 years, big tech has not had to own the risk. Australian parents, Australian families, Australian teachers have had to own the risk of big tech and social media. It came for our attention, but chatbots, they’re now coming for our kids’ attachment. So we’re not regulating the technology; we’re regulating what it does to our kids.

Read the full transcript | Listen to Anika Wells on Canberra Playbook Podcast

BY THE NUMBERS

28%: One Nation’s national polling average. But as Ryan Heath explains, these polls disguise several massive hurdles for Pauline Hanson’s party.

One Nation is on track to replace the Nationals, but its weak support in cities and lack of a preference flow akin to the 88% achieved between Labor and Greens means it’s on track to finish second in many seats at state and federal level, much like Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, and Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

STATE OF THE NATION

DELOITTE PAID $2.2M FOR ‘AUTOMATED’ GRANT ADMIN

SCOOP: Paul Karp scoops that Deloitte was paid 2.2 million Australian dollars to administer grants upskilling the child care workforce, despite a government policy specifying this is core work that should ordinarily be done by public servants. The Greens and Community and Public Sector Union have raised concerns the contract shows the Albanese government has failed to wean itself off expensive and unnecessary outsourcing.

Deloitte was praised by an independent review for its use of “automation” to fulfill the contract, which the Department of Education assured us was not artificial intelligence, just a grants portal.

Clip of the ticket: This is no scandal on the scale of Deloitte’s use of AI to produce an error-laden report for the employment department. But honestly, did Australian taxpayers need to give the big consultancy a $2.2 million clip of the ticket to administer a $72.4 million grants program – all for the commonsense move of using a grants portal instead of manual spreadsheets?

Copy, paste, rinse, repeat: One child care provider quoted anonymously in a review of the program complained Deloitte would “parrot back to you what the guidelines say” and a second reported receiving email responses that were “very like copy and paste”. Hmm. The department spokesperson declined to answer follow-ups about whether AI was used to fulfill any aspect of the contract.

MINNS VS ALBO

“PURE RATFUCKERY”: in The Saturday Paper Chris Wallace has laid out the long trail of disagreements between NSW Premier Chris Minns and Prime MinisterAnthony Albanese. Immigration, tobacco excise, the distribution of GST revenue, the Tomago aluminum smelter bailout, and most recently Minns’ comments about government spending. It’s quite a list.

Minns has been comparing NSW’s spending growth favorably to federal Labor for more than six months now, but the observation after the Reserve Bank of Australia’s latest interest rate hike that “every government has a responsibility to do what it can to take demand out of the economy” was certainly on point, as the kids say.

WHEN YOU INVITE THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IN: So that you know exactly what you’re dealing with, you should know that CPAC Australia issued journalists who traveled to Brisbane to cover their weekend conference with press passes, to be hung around their necks that read: “First name. Last name. FAKE NEWS.”

PARTY ROOM

THE LIBERALS ARE JOSHING AROUND

Former treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s new autobiography, A Grateful Son, is stoking speculation that the one-time Liberal leadership front-runner wants another crack at parliament. That’s a dilemma for struggling Coalition Leader Angus Taylor, who needs all the help he can get — so long as it’s not too helpful.

“ROLE TO PLAY”: Taylor says he’ll welcome Fryndeberg helping out, whether that’s “liking Facebook and Instagram posts all the way through to being a candidate.”

Reality check: One would assume Josh isn’t doing a book tour to be Facebook-liker-in-chief, although he hasn’t made his mind up about whether to run again – a decision for the new year.

The Australian’s Paul Kelly sat down with Frydenberg and says he “hasn’t decided — yet” about a run.

What role Taylor wouldn’t welcome Frydenberg into: Liberal leader.

IN THIS ECONOMY?: Taylor immediately slapped down one of Frydenberg’s more ambitious ideas, raising the GST to pay for income tax cuts, during a cost of living crisis.

“I’m a fiscal conservative, I believe in lower taxes,” Taylor said. “That’s why we’ll be giving the tax back guarantee, lower income taxes for Australians without raising the GST.”

Fry-deal policy: Frydenberg also wants to make a proportion of a state’s GST revenue conditional based on how many homes they build. States that fail to meet their quotas would lose their money sent to states that do. “Competitive federalism in action,” Frydenberg wrote.

AND FROM THE RIGHT: News.com.au reports that Taylor also declined to share a stage with another challenger, One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson, at this weekend’s CPAC.

Hanson instead took the stage with Canavan, dressed in full tradie gear. (Canavan was a senior executive at KPMG before entering parliament as a political staffer.)

DIPLOMATT-IC FAUX PAS: In his own speech to the conference, Canavan accepted he might “look a bit silly” in his cosplay outfit. “[But not] as silly as Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese in those stupid Hawaiian shirts,” he said.

FUNAFUTI, TUVALU - OCTOBER 06: Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese arrives for a traditional welcome ceremony as part of the Pacific Pre-COP31 Summit on October 6, 2026 in Funafuti, Tuvalu. The Pacific pre-COP31 meeting is being held in Nadi, Fiji, from Oct. 5–8, with leaders from Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific gathering. Delegates and ministers met to build momentum for the COP31 climate summit, while regional leaders also convened in Tuvalu to spotlight the existential threat rising seas pose to low-lying Pacific nations. (Photo by Mick Tsikas - Pool/Getty Images) | Getty Images

That’s a reference to last week’s pre-COP climate summit in Fiji and Tuvalu, which Australia is eager to keep onside to keep China at bay. The shirts aren’t Hawaiian — Hawaii is in the U.S., for you geography nerds out there — and Canavan’s comments probably won’t make Pacific leaders feel any warmer towards the Coalition, which they were critical of under Scott Morrison.

HANDS OFF HMAS PENGUIN

The Albanese government’s proposed 3 billion Australian dollar defense land sell-off continues to ruffle feathers, this weekend mobilizing the troops against the sale of HMAS Penguin at a community rally at Balmoral beach on Sunday.

Speakers included former federal Labor frontbencher and Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett, Liberal Senator Jess Collins, federal Greens leader David Shoebridge, independent MP Zali Steggall and retired Major General Gus McLachlan. A healthy smattering of state MPs attended including Liberals Felicity Wilson and Jacqui Munro.

NSW Liberals have introduced a bill to require state parliament sign-off before the land could be rezoned, which Munro told POLITICO would make it “undesirable to sell … because it wouldn’t be as financially attractive to any developers.” NSW Premier Chris Minns has supported heritage listing Victoria Barracks, Paddington.

It’s also worth noting the cooperation between the Coalition and Greens on this issue. Like so many savings proposed by federal Labor — aged care changes, the private health care rebate, veterans entitlements, and now the land sell-off — it seems fiscal conservatism is good in theory but hard to practise when each individual saving gets shot down.

CANBERRA MEETS WORLD

MILTON DICK ELECTED PRESIDENT OF IPU: Australia’s speaker is now the leader of the Inter Parliamentary Union, winning 56% of the vote in the first round, at the IPU assembly in Tanzania. That’s the kind of primary vote Labor would dream of!

Most importantly, he won it the clean way: that is, Dick and Australia weren’t dropping gold Swiss watches into the pockets of other parliament speakers who make up the IPU electorate, which was the expectation of some of them, according to Playbook’s well-placed sources.

STOP THE WORLD: The latest episode of ASPI’s Stop the World features Jeffrey Bleich, International Special Envoy at Anthropic, in conversation with Ryan Heath. They cover AI safety, recent AI cyber incidents, Anthropic’s Australia plans and how frontier AI companies and governments should work together to develop consistent with democratic principles.

🎧 Listen 📺 Watch

AUSTRALIA WANTS NO RUSSIAN FUEL

The U.S. President Donald Trump has moved to lift sanctions on Russian diesel and called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to go, rewarding the aggressor in an illegal war and blaming Ukraine for defending itself.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke responded on News24 that “Australia has no interest in buying fuel from Russia.” Burke noted the highest number of humanitarian visas the government has granted has been for Ukrainians. “The war in Ukraine has been horrific and unacceptable, and there is no way in the world we want to see a situation where [Vladimir] Putin gets advantages from those sorts of conflicts.”

AUSTRALIA WANTS NO RUSSIAN PLAGUE

The World Health Organization still doesn’t know exactly what suddenly killed a Russian working at an anti-plague research center, and that no plague case has been registered with it.

That’s already prompted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to demand Moscow provide more information on how the 28-year-old died, though Russia insists there’s no second case.

“We are closely monitoring reports of the death of a laboratory worker in Russia,” a DFAT spokesperson told Playbook, in characteristically vague language. “Australia takes global health security seriously and supports international efforts to detect and respond to emerging health risks.”

AGENDA ASSISTANT

Oct. 14 — Madeleine King, Minister for Resources and Minister for Northern Australia, is speaking at the National Press Club about exports and domestic use of critical minerals and rare earths.

Oct. 15 — Anika Wells, Minister for Communications, is speaking at the National Press Club about the Albanese government’s proposed digital duty of care.

Oct. 16 — Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, inquiry into the 2025 federal election. The Australian reports Bruce Hales, global leader of the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, will appear after threats from chair, Labor MP Jerome Laxale, he would be compelled by subpoena if he did not come voluntarily.

LOCAL CANBERRA

RAMPART PODCAST WITH GREG BOORER, CDC FOUNDER AND CEO: Boorer runs the biggest company founded in the ACT, Canberra Data Centres, and is in the middle of two bitter debates. The first around data centers themselves, and the second around Firmus — the firm that just dropped its stock market listing plan, the same week Boorer ended their $73 billion partnership to develop 1.6 gigawatts of AI compute in Australia by 2028. Listen to the podcast

Boorer is chair of Cricket ACT and is campaigning for a local Big Bash League franchise.

COMMUNITY CORNER

MOVES AND APPOINTMENTS

SENATE CLERK SEARCH: Senate President Sue Lines is looking for a new clerk — the principal adviser to the Senate and its office holders, and custodian of its institutional knowledge — with Richard Pye, finishing his 10-year fixed term in March 2027.

BIRTHDAYS

Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown, former DFAT secretary and UK high commissioner Michael L’Estrange, Robodebt royal commission commissioner Catherine Holmes turns 70, former Republican National Convention chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump.

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Free speech doesn’t ‘depend on an algorithm pushing eating disorder content’