Acknowledgement of Country//
Headlines//
Dr Rhys Farthing is a policy worker who focuses on children's rights around technology and disadvantage. She is the Director of Children's Policy at Reset Tech and has worked in international think tanks and held academic posts at Oxford University in the UK and RMIT here in Naarm. She joins us today to speak about recent research by Reset Australia has shown that the current approach – where the Government allows the social media industry to self-draft their own Codes around online safety and online privacy for children – is flawed.//
Welfare advocate and activist Thomas Studans speaks with us about the second set of Robodebt Royal Commission hearings, which wrapped up its first block of hearings on November 11th. The Royal Commission is investigating serious concerns about the establishment and legality of this devastating program of automated debt recovery. Thomas is a JobSeeker recipient and a member of the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union.//
Dr Adam Fletcher, lecturer at RMIT's Graduate School of Business and Law, spoke with Priya earlier this week about a report he authored for the Human Rights Law Centre which reviews the improper scrutiny of human rights concerns in bills passed by Federal Parliament between 2019 and 2022. The review highlights the need for a Federal Charter of Human Rights, given Australia's lack of robust human rights safeguards at the national level.//
Anna Draffin, CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Initiative, joins us to discuss the Treasury's 12-month review of the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which was released early this month, as well as the need for additional regulatory changes to address outstanding concerns about Australia's media environment. The Code, which came into effect in March 2021, seeks to regulate the power imbalance in commercial relationships between digital platforms and Australian media organisations.//
Songs//
Emily Cowlrick, Inez Winters, Leila Baptist, Priya Kunjan
