The Prime Minister hopes that incoming US President Donald Trump will not allow his best friend, Elon Musk, to intervene in his telephone conversations as he did when Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Because if Musk does that, one would have to assume that Trump’s anti-Albo attitude will only solidify. The prime minister has been even ruder to Musk than Australian ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd, was to Trump.
In April, in an interview with ABC (who else), our Prime Minister called Musk an “arrogant billionaire who believes he is above the law.”
Similar insults were hurled at Musk, one of the world’s richest people, by Labor cabinet minister Tanya Plibersek (she called him “selfish”) and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young (a “narcissistic cowboy”).
The context for the barrage of insults was that Musk defied attempts to force him to remove graphic posts of a knife attack at a Sydney church.
Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman-Grant took the billionaire’s tech company to court in an attempt to force them to remove the widespread images, eventually withdrawing the action in what was truly a humiliating setback.
The entire saga did more to draw attention to X’s content than would have otherwise been the case. Images of the allegedly stabbed priest were also easily accessible on the Internet, and in mainstream media, not just social media.
Albanese’s government has since sought to amend federal law to ensure it has the powers to get its way in these types of disputes with social media companies in the future.
US President-elect Donald Trump meets with Elon Musk, right, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Musk has grown so close to Trump that he calls himself the next American leader’s “first friend,” and Trump has jokingly told House Republicans that he “can’t get rid of him.”
Leaving aside the irony of the Prime Minister labeling Musk as someone who arrogantly thinks he is above the law (when the Albo government seeks to amend said laws to achieve the desired result), it is difficult to escape the conclusion of that the Prime Minister’s concerns about online safety are applied selectively.
What about the existing easy access to graphic online pornography for minors, for example? You hear nothing from the government when it comes to addressing that issue.
Or tighter restrictions on online gambling? The crossbench has increasingly expressed frustration at expectations that the Labor government plans to backtrack on its previously strong rhetoric on the issue.
So why is the Labor Party more obsessed with tackling the social media giants than these other important issues?
Could it be because Albo is looking to please Australia’s legacy media companies who are currently fighting a losing war with social media giants?
It’s hard not to think that the Prime Minister and his strategists see this issue as a perfect way to try to appease senior media executives on the issue in an attempt to alleviate broader concerns about his government’s failures.
There is no escaping poor opinion polls and the growing perception that the first term of the Labor government has underperformed.
It is unlikely that Elon Musk has forgiven or forgotten what the Australian Prime Minister has said about him. Albanese will have to hope that Musk doesn’t join his calls with Trump, as he did with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The tough talk about taking on the social media giants – continued in Communications Minister Michelle Rowland’s speech at the Sydney Institute on Wednesday night – is no doubt also a populist speech for parents concerned about your children’s online activities.
But as we’ve already mentioned, the answer is selective at best.
Meanwhile, now that Trump has one foot back in the White House and his partner Musk has his ear more than anyone, Albo’s personalization of his attacks is clearly another misstep by a prime minister too prone to them.