News and politics recap: Anika Wells says Telstra has ‘awful lot of work to do’ to regain trust

Labor frontbencher Anika Wells has issued scathing criticism of the Coalition’s response to tech initiatives by the Albanese Government.

The Communications Minister said the Coalition had left the Australian government to fight international tech giants “with one hand tied behind our backs” in their efforts to keep people safe online.

Her criticisms come after the Coalition, Greens and crossbench sent amendments to their social media ban, which would strengthen it and give the eSafety commissioner more powers, to an eight-week parliamentary inquiry.

Speaking in Brisbane on Tuesday she urged them to get behind the upcoming Digital Duty of Care which would seek to push the onus back onto tech companies to make all online spaces safe.

“This is beyond politics,” she said.

“This is about protecting our future, Australian children and Australian young people.

“Yet we’ve already seen the Coalition put politics before kids’ safety online with their decision to stall laws that would strengthen eSafety’s powers.

“They are leaving us all to fight with one hand tied behind our backs.

“The Albanese government won’t let that happen because big tech is looking for shortcuts.

“We will do everything in our powers to stop that from happening.

“Angus Taylor and the coalition should be doing that as well.

“We will back Australians over billion-dollar companies every single time.”

Communication Minister Anika Wells urged big tech companies to use all tools possible to stop Australia’s being sexually extorted online after a new eSafety report showed it’s a growing issue.

Speaking in Queensland on Tuesday, Ms Wells said that tech companies behind popular social media, messaging and live streaming platforms had “no excuses” and needed to work harder or risk facing large fines.

“This is some of the most heinous content and conduct that we see online, and yet the report has found that big tech is simply not doing enough,” she said.

“They have the tools, they have the resources, and yet they are choosing not to use them with full effect.

“My message for big tech is this: there are no excuses here.

“Big tech is required under Australian law to protect Australians online from illegal material or face fines of up to $54.6 million.”

Communication Minister Anika Wells says Telstra has disappointed customers and has an “awful lot of work to do” to regain Australia’s trust after a major outage.

The major nationwide Telstra outage last Wednesday caused by a software defect in its time-synchronisation systems left millions of Australians without mobile calls or internet data.

It severely disrupted public transport, payment systems, and some emergency Triple Zero calls before being resolved that afternoon.

“Telstra has an awful lot of work to do here to make it up to its customers and to Australians, and that will take a lot of time and it will take a lot of effort for Telstra to do that,” she said in Brisbane on Tuesday.

“I’m in regular contact with Telstra. I met with the triple zero custodian yesterday.

“I think one of the differences in the Telstra adage last week compared to the Optus outage in September, is that in September, many of those welfare checks took 13 hours to commence from the time that the triple zero call was dropped.

“Whereas last week calls to do welfare checks were taking place often within minutes of the call being dropped.”

US President Donald Trump said that a deal with Iran was “possible”.

The President made the comments while speaking at the White House after signing a number of executive orders.

“Yeah I think a deal is possible,” he said. “I do.”

The US military has struck Iran for a third straight night as tensions between the two countries reignite.

The Australian sharemarket dropped as US and Iran tensions in the Strait of Hormuz lifted oil prices to the highest level since June.

The S&P/ASX200 index fell 37.3 points, or 0.4 per cent, to 8,771.20 at 11.39am (AEST) on Tuesday.

US President Donald Trump placed a blockade against Iran over the Strait of Hormuz and announced plans for a 20 per cent shipping toll.

Donald Trump will address the nation on Thursday night at 9pm local time (Friday 11am AEST).

The US President didn’t provide any details about what the speech would be about when he made the announcement in a Truth Social post.

The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) says it has fired a third round of strikes at Iran under President Donald Trump’s direction.

“At 4:45 p.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command began launching the third consecutive night of strikes against Iran, at the Commander in Chief’s direction,” CentCom wrote on X.

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”

Oil prices surged 10 per cent to a four-week high on Tuesday, raising fresh fears of another jump in Australian petrol and diesel prices as conflict in the Middle East intensified.

US President Donald Trump said Washington would reimpose a blockade on Iranian vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, while allowing ships sailing under other national flags to pass.

Mr Trump also said the United States would charge a fee equal to 20 per cent of cargo values in return for providing security through the strategically important waterway.

Brent crude jumped to $US83.86 a barrel following the announcement, while benchmark diesel prices surged 9.8 per cent to $US1106.75 a tonne.

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said movements in global oil markets typically took between seven and 10 days to flow through to prices at Australian service stations.

“Rising terminal gate prices would be the first indication to expect pump prices to rise again,” he said.

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Big tech has been accused of failing to detect sextortion with more than 8000 cases of image-based abuse made in Australia across the past year.

The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said overwhelmingly young men were being sexually extorted online and warned the “devastating” crime could be just the tip of the iceberg.

She said scammers would trick or coerce young men into sharing nude or intimate content before blackmailing them for money.

In the third and latest transparency report of big tech, Ms Inman Grant found platforms had blind spots in protecting youths online, such as a failure to deploy language analysis tools to detect it.

She said despite having some of the most sophisticated technology in the world, apps failed to identify well-known coercion scripts used by sexual extortion offenders.

“These are some of the most innovative companies on the planet. We would like to see some of this innovation going into the development of new technologies to tackle the worst-of-the-worst online content,” she said.

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Emergency Services Minister Kristy McBain has joined a chorus of politicians pushing back against Donald Trump’s plan to impose a 20 per cent levy on ships travelling through the critical waterway.

Ms McBain spoke out against the proposal, saying the government would continue to reject the plans and fight for “constructive engagement to prevent further escalation” in teh region.

“Australia’s long called for de-escalation and an end to this conflict. As we’ve said, the longer this war goes on, the greater the impact will be, particularly to Australian households and Australian businesses. So we really need to see some restraint here and constructive engagement to prevent further escalation,” she said, speaking to Radio National.

“I think it is really important that shipping continues to be free wherever it goes and make sure that there isn’t any adverse outcomes to people who are ultimately ferrying these ships around.”