Prime Minister Anthony Albanese spent an hour on Sunday (AEST) with former Apple chief Tim Cook at the company's mothership, doing a walk and talk through the famed infinite circle gardens in the heart of Silicon Valley and getting a demonstration of the tech juggernaut’s new parental controls.
Apple’s strict management of media access meant there was no invitation for Australian press cameras to capture the moment Albanese says he was lauded by the director of Apple’s board and credited with driving international efforts to keep kids off social media.
Just a handful of still photographs and a 27-second compilation of silent video were cleared and circulated by the Prime Minister’s Office, showing his interactions with the cult figure, who has a devoted following in the tech world.
Even during a demonstration of the products and controls for Aussie journalists, the company’s media minders asked us not to show the faces of Apple employees, record audio, or publish any further pictures of the inside of the building.
The whole experience aligned with Apple’s famously protective approach to independent media roaming its facilities and its wish to impose privacy measures on its internal workings, from the architecture to the acoustics.
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With this high-profile tête-à-tête now Instagram official, Albanese moves on to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, drumming up support for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
In no small part, his government's digital policies will propel this bid, including restrictions on social media companies to protect children from online harm.
The government just pushed bolstered legislation through the parliament to increase the powers of the e-Safety Commissioner to investigate tech compliance and massively increased the fine for social media companies to $99 million if they fail to adequately block children from accessing their platforms.
The laws were passed a fortnight ago and mean the commissioner has much more at her disposal to act on tech breaches.
Reforms such as putting guardrails on artificial intelligence are also set to be on the agenda in New York, with Albanese indicating a multilateral response was needed.
"Companies need to have in place mechanisms and need to assure the public that those mechanisms are in place," he said.
"That needs to be reinforced by nation states taking action, but also there is a need for a discussion about what the global framework is for the rollout of AI, because it is moving very quickly.
"We need to make sure that humans remain in control."
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