David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition will be supporting the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024. Back in June, the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, stood up in Sydney and committed the coalition to implementing an age limit of 16 for social media in Australia within 100 days of the election of a future coalition government. He did that because he believes passionately in protecting Australian children from harm. He has done that all his career, whether as a police officer, as the Minister for Home Affairs or in so many other roles in this place. When you think about it, what is more important than protecting children from harm? It is one of our very highest responsibilities in this place.

I'll come to the specifics of the bill in a moment, but first I want to note at the outset that the coalition has negotiated two significant improvements to this bill with the government. These have been agreed with the government and will be presented in the final version of the bill to be presented in the Senate. Firstly, the legislation will include a specific provision that nothing in the bill allows a social media company to compel the provision of digital ID or government issued identity documents such as passports or drivers licences. This is an important addition and further strengthens the privacy provisions in the legislation.

Secondly, the government has agreed to a coalition request to provide the minister with a clear power to specify steps that are not required to be taken by social media companies to comply with the legislation. While the eSafety Commissioner will be responsible for formulating guidelines on what constitutes 'reasonable steps' under the bill, the minister may that direct that specific actions are not required in order for the platforms to satisfy that 'reasonable steps' test. This is also an important addition as it allows the minister to ensure enforcement of the legislation is always appropriate and proportionate. These are both significant, and we look forward to their inclusion in the final bill to be presented to the Senate.

Now, I come to the bill and the issue at its core. It's been my view for a long time that the protection of children from social media is one of the defining issues of our era. Every parent worries about this. We worry about what our kids are seeing. We worry about what they're exposed to on platforms like Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram. And we're right to worry about them. The data is clear: the mental health of Australian children, especially girls, has deteriorated badly in the past decade. For instance, self-harm hospitalisations by girls aged 10 to 14 have increased by more than 300 per cent over the past decade. Leading psychologist Dr Simon Wilksch, a strong supporter of setting an age limit of 16 for social media, said that the 200 per cent increase in 10- to 14-year-olds experiencing an eating disorder over the last 12 years strongly overlaps with the rapid growth in social media use by children. And it was the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, who made the important point that the mental health crisis among young people is an emergency, and social media has emerged as an important contributor.

I want to come back to some of the families that have spoken out passionately on this issue. Some people say that the precise correlation between the rise of social media and the rise of the mental health crisis amongst Australians is just a coincidence. That argument should be treated with the absolute contempt that it deserves. We would expect social media platforms to make that argument, and I'll come back to them. But, in my view, it is shameful some of the so-called experts, lobbyists and other groups make that same argument too. They should have the courage to make that argument to some of the courageous parents that many of us have met, people like Wayne Holdsworth, who lost his son, Mac; people like Mat and Kelly O'Brien, who lost their daughter, Charlotte; people like Robb Evans, who lost his daughter, Liv.

I have been privileged to meet with many parents over the past months, and, when we come together today to vote for this legislation, they're who we are fighting for. We're fighting for every child who has been devastated by social media, we're fighting for the children who are still too young to have experienced these toxic environments and we're fighting for the children who are yet to come.

The key provision in this legislation is a requirement on social media companies to take reasonable steps to identify and remove underage users. I want to say this is a very similar provision to what we see in similar legislation in the United States, in states like Florida and Utah and Louisiana. Those states use terms like 'reasonable steps' or 'reasonable endeavours' and then empower a regulator to oversee the process. It's the right structure. And it's the right structure because it requires social media companies to actually do something to remove underage children from their platforms, as opposed to what most of them do now, which is nothing.

If they don't take reasonable steps under the legislation they can be fined up to $50 million, so this will get their attention and will require them to take action. We know they can do it now. One of the reasons we know is because TikTok has told the Australian parliament that it can do it now and does do it now. TikTok gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry—this is a very important point—of this place saying that in 2023 they removed 76 million underage users from their platforms, including one million in Australia. They did that without requiring any provision of documents by adults or any digital ID or any of these sorts of things that they're seeking to talk about now. They did that by using their technology.

These are the most sophisticated technology companies in the world, except when it comes to protecting children. Meta is worth A$2 trillion. Imagine if they got $1,000 every time they identified an underage child. Do you think they'd get pretty good at it? I do. And we know from TikTok's own testimony that they can do it now and they do do it now. But the industry does not want to be placed under any obligation to do this, and we know why. Because it's going to cost them a lot of money. The reason it will cost them a lot of money is because there are a lot of underage kids who shouldn't be on these platforms and these platforms are able to monetise those underage kids by selling advertising to those accounts.

It's somewhat ironic that I find myself having such a strong view on this and pursuing this issue, as we have for such a long time. I spent my whole career in technology. Before I was elected to parliament, I was head of digital for Nine Entertainment Co. I've worked in many digital businesses over the years. Digital has been overwhelmingly a positive thing for our country. Ninety-nine per cent of the digital revolution has been a good thing. But this one per cent is an evil, dark part of the internet that we have to take on head-on, and this legislation helps move in that direction. The companies are going to say, 'It's all very complicated and it's all very hard,' and of course they would say that, because they're trying to defend their position. But once this law is in place, their incentive is to make this process as smooth as possible, and that's what they'll do. That's what we've seen TikTok has already been doing.

To briefly go back to the amendment, there's a lot of discussion about privacy. On another bill, the misinformation bill, you'd be aware, Deputy Speaker Vasta, the coalition passionately opposed that bill. I think I could fairly say that I led that fight on behalf of the coalition. We were very pleased when that bill was withdrawn. It was an appalling piece of legislation that would have compromised the free speech of Australians. This bill is not that. This bill is about saying, 'We don't want young kids in unsafe environments.'

For decades we've had rules about classifications for movies and TV shows. Presumably nobody is suggesting we should allow children to attend X-rated movies. I don't see anyone putting their hand up and saying, 'It's a terrible restraint on the rights of children that a 10-year-old can't attend an X-rated movie.' We're not saying that, because it would be absurd and ridiculous. In my view, it is equally absurd and ridiculous to say that these digital platforms should have no requirement to identify and remove underage children who should not be in those environments. That's what we have to tackle with this legislation.

Imagine if we went back 15 years and said: 'Look, here's what we're going to do. We're going to create this thing called social media and we're basically going to allow any child on Earth to enter into that environment. We're going to have adults in there. It's going to be anonymous if you want it to be. You will be able to provide that child with any information, images or videos in that environment. You will be able to bully that child, harass that child or provide material to that child that is entirely inappropriate for them at that stage of their life development.' Imagine if we went back and said we were going to do that. Imagine if there was a bill in this parliament that said, 'Let's do that.' We would have said: 'That's outrageous. You can't do that.' But that's what's happened. So what we need here is the intellectual clarity and strength to see through that and to act upon it.

This legislation is not perfect. Nothing in this space will be perfect. People can talk about each case and ask, 'Could someone do this?' or 'Could someone do that?' or 'Could it be evaded in this circumstance or that?' Those things will happen. But they happen with every rule or regulation we put in place. We have an alcohol rule for kids under 18, but we don't say, 'Some kids are going to drink under age, so let's just not have a rule.' We don't say, 'Some people are going to speed, so let's just have no speed limits.' It is an argument that, frankly, doesn't make a lot of sense. But the tech platforms are very smart and very sophisticated and they will continue to pursue that.

I want to thank a few people. Until recently, I was just an occasional listener of Nova 96.9. I want to thank Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli, Rob Galluzzo and the whole 36 Months campaign. They have acted with incredible integrity, passion and drive. They have had a significant influence on this national debate, and they can be very proud of what they have achieved. I want to thank Jane Rowan from Eating Disorders Families Australia, a courageous person speaking up for the rights of children in this space.

I also want to thank some courageous academics, Dr Danielle Einstein of Macquarie University and Dr Simon Wilksch of Flinders University, who have spoken with exceptional passion on this issue. Dr Wilksch and Dr Einstein have called a spade a spade. Dr Wilksch organised a letter signed by more than 100 of Australia's top mental health professionals and professionals dealing with eating disorders that basically said: 'Enough. We've got enough research. We've got enough experience. We've got enough of a record of the horrendous data that we're seeing. Enough. It's time to act. Put in place an age limit of 16 for social media. It won't be perfect, but it will be infinitely more perfect than what we've got now.' Dr Simon Wilksch is worthy of immense respect for his work. Equally, Dr Danielle Einstein of Macquarie University has very much lived up to her name. She has shown immense ability to marshal the research in this area, to demonstrate the appalling statistics that we are seeing on the mental health of Australian girls and kids more broadly and to say, 'The time for action is now.' So I want to thank Dr Einstein and Dr Wilksch.

I also want to thank Dany Elachi and the Heads Up Alliance in Sydney. They have done a lot of work in this area, speaking up for parents and saying, 'We need action.' They did something very similar on the mobile phone ban in New South Wales, which has been very successful and the Minns government deserve credit for that. They have also spoken out very clearly on this issue as well. They are concerned that this legislation doesn't go far enough. I respect those concerns. I deeply appreciate all of their work and believe they should be honoured for the efforts that they have made in helping to put in place this national debate and to create this legislation.

I want to thank the government. We have obviously had a lot of discussions about this issue. I am pleased that the Prime Minister has supported this move and that this legislation has come forward. But, most of all, I want to thank the Leader of the Opposition. You might say that I would do that as he is my boss, after all, but this is a leader with guts. This is a leader who says what he believes and takes action. He knows, like I think almost all Australian parents know, that what's going on right now in social media is utterly unacceptable. Small measures and incremental steps are not enough. We need to take a stand and say we're going to impose age limits. Knowing that there will be immense opposition from the digital platforms, that not everyone would agree and that the digital platforms would seek to weaponise this debate, he did it anyway. That is a mark of his leadership, and it's very consistent with everything he's done throughout his career in standing up, fighting for children, protecting them and giving Australian families comfort that this parliament is on their side and is going to work very, very hard to protect them and do everything it can. I thank the Prime Minister for his involvement in putting forward this legislation as well.

In closing, this is a significant piece of legislation. The coalition has negotiated some very important protections on privacy. They strengthen privacy protections. They ensure that no platform can compel the provision of digital ID, drivers' licences, passports or anything like that. That's not what this is about. This is not about political communication in Australia; it's about protecting our kids. It won't be perfect, but it will be infinitely more perfect than what we have now. When this legislation passes, I believe we can all be very satisfied that we've done something meaningful, real and that will help Australian families. It shows us united in standing up against the tech platforms who for too long have shown no regard for the mental health of Australian children. We need to stand up to that and put in place this legislation to help support that effort.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twice I have been interviewed in the ABC studio by Greg Jennett opposite the Assistant Minister for Trade, Senator Tim Ayres, when the topic of child safety and the internet arose. On the first occasion, the South Australian Labor premier, Peter Malinauskas, announced that he was going to put forward a bill similar to this in place in his state. I was asked off the cuff what I thought about it. Sometimes you get blindsided in a media conference about things that have just arisen. Yet, when it's good legislation and good for society, you don't mind backing it in, even though it might come from the other side. I know Mr Malinauskas reasonably well, and I know he was concerned enough to put forward this particular motion at the time for South Australia. I welcomed it and said that, when it is good legislation, it should be supported. I am sure the South Australian Liberals will give it the credit it deserves.

Just yesterday, again I found myself in the studio. I was asked a question about this particular federal legislation before the House today. Put on the spot, I said: 'Don't necessarily ask me this question; ask the parents of those young people who have been bullied to point where they felt it necessary to take their lives. What would they think? What would those families think?' To that end, I have to give credit to the Daily Telegraph and its editor, Ben English. They have been campaigning on this for some time. I know the shadow communications minister, the member for Banks, has just praised the opposition leader, and I share that praise. I know that the member for Dixon announced in June 2024 that a coalition government would implement an age limit of 16 for social media within 100 days of being elected. That's what he said at the time.

I'm in the chamber at the moment opposite the member for Richmond—another Labor member. She served as a police officer on the Gold Coast for seven years. That's not an easy beat. She would know, as we all do—I look around this chamber and every one of us is a parent—that the first order of being a parent is to look after your kids and the first order of being a police officer is to protect your community. That is what this legislation is about. Is it perfect? No. But sometimes you have to let the perfect go to achieve the good, and there is a lot of good in this legislation.

I am not being political, but, to be honest, I am a little surprised and disappointed that the speakers list is full only of coalition and crossbench speakers. I would have liked, expected and hoped that government members would have come in to speak about this, because this is too important to not get up on your feet, go to your microphone and talk about—not just for yourselves and not just for your own families but for the communities you serve. It is important legislation.

I mentioned before the campaign that the Daily Telegraph has been running. In particular, they have been doing a documentary following a campaign called Charlotte's Wish. You can watch the video and read about that poor little girl, Charlotte O'Brien, who, at 12 years young, asked that her story be told to stop bullying and save lives. In a two-month investigation, the Daily Telegraph interviewed eight families who've lost children to suicide in the face of bullying and dozens of other people whose lives have been ripped apart by its devastating impact. So, to all of those people who will contact our offices and say, 'You're siding with Labor,' and that children who are aged 14 or 15 should be able to have social media: think of Charlotte O'Brien. Think of those parents who, particularly this Christmas and every Christmas from now on, will have an empty chair at their table. They will never, ever be able to live their lives as they would otherwise have. They will always have that hole in their heart and that emptiness in their soul because they have lost a child.

In the English language, there is the word 'orphan'. It is a word to describe a child who's lost their parents. There is 'widow' and 'widower' for a spouse who's lost their loved one. There is no word in the English language for a parent who has lost a child. Do you know why that is the case? The reason that is so is that parents should not lose a child. They should not lose a child. It's not nature's way. It's not the normal thing. But the O'Briens and so many other families interviewed by the DailyTelegraph are people who belong in that category of parents who've lost a child. The investigation that the newspaper undertook uncovered a disastrous patchwork of school based policies, skills and enforcement to support families as bullying evolves and a tech driven wave leaves victims with no escape. And there is no escape.

It's been a long, long time since I was at school—more years than I care to remember. But, when I went to school, there were bullies. There were bullies in the schoolyard and in the classroom. We were strapped to within an inch of our lives by the Christian Brothers. I probably deserved every one that I got, but that's by the by. I think I grew up okay. Once we got on the school bus and arrived at the front gate at home, however, the bullying stopped. There was no bullying. These days, a lot of kids have iPads, laptops and computers, and the bullying never stops. It's ceaseless. Whether it's bullying about how you look, what you wear, what your body shape is or just the fact that someone doesn't like you, it continues. I have to say, the member for Forrest has been a champion at having conversations and conferences about bullying. I say to every school group whose classroom I visit or who come into parliament: when you get social media, don't write something you wouldn't like to have said about yourself. Don't do it. It's wrong.

Some kids cope better than others. Some kids are more resilient than others. Sometimes it's more than just friendship issues or exclusion issues, but it's those things and so much more. When we look at little Charlotte O'Brien, we see what a beautiful young girl she was. What a happy soul she seemed to be. Then, of course, Dolly Everett was just 14 when she took her own life. They were so young. Tilly Rosewarne was just 15. Lauren Rafferty took her own life on Mother's Day in 2021 at just 12 years old. The list goes on and on.

The Telegraph came across helpless girls and boys who were told by their tormentors that they should kill themselves. They were told they were fat and ugly. They were called rats and monsters. We sometimes are unkind to one another in this parliament. There has only ever been one parliamentarian who has, sad to say, taken their own life, out of the more than 1,200 who have sat in the House of Representatives. We should be better, but this is a robust chamber of debate. The schoolyard is not. It is a place where kids should be nurtured and loved. They should be kids. I grew up reading Enid Blyton, playing with Matchbox cars and playing cowboys and Indians, and that's how I remember my childhood.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And that was at uni!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't go to uni, thanks very much, member for Fisher. It's probably true to say I played with them for longer than kids would these days, but that's how I remember my life, and it was great. I try to instil that upon my three kids and my soon-to-be two grandchildren. That is what being a parent is about. These days, because of the fast-paced world in which we live, parents can't always monitor everything their kids are doing on their phones and on the internet. There are dreadful predators out there preying on these children. I think 16 is an adequate cut-off point. Yes, kids are very mature—much more mature than I ever was at 14 or 15. I think 16 is a good starting point.

As I said, there is a bit about this legislation that can be improved and, hopefully, will be improved. I appreciate that, once the bill is passed—and, let's be honest, it will be; it may be modified in the Senate, but it will be passed—it could be updated as we go on. Rest assured that whatever we decide in the House of Representatives—or later on in the Senate—is calling these big tech companies to account. They make trillions of dollars off the back of our kids, our young ones and vulnerable people in society. They should be answerable. They should be accountable. As the shadow communications minister quite correctly pointed out, they'll say, 'It's all too hard; identification is all too difficult,' and all these things. But I tell you what: they can do a whole lot of other things with their technology, and I think it's just the right and proper thing to do. Like I say, they'll make all sorts of excuses, but they're making a lot of money.

Going back to little Charlotte, she sent a photograph of herself crying to a friend and she wrote, 'I'm sorry.' Her friend, who knew Charlotte was distressed and being bullied at school, was frantic. 'Sorry for what?' she messaged before calling her repeatedly. 'Answer, please. Are you all right? Please tell me you're all right.' But Charlotte wasn't all right, and she ended her life that night. Many photographs of Charlotte have been published with her parents' consent, and, when you look at the photos of her, you just wonder why that life has been extinguished. Kelly O'Brien said her daughter will be with us wherever we go. Her parents have set up an online fundraiser for Kids Helpline, and that is a very good charity. If you can donate to it, please do. Her parents said they would never want us to be broken, in the wake of her 12-year-old daughter's suicide. At her funeral service, she was remembered as beautiful and kind. Of course she was. Every kid is. Even kids who are doing the tormenting and the bullying just need to be put on the straight and narrow. They need love like anybody else, but they also don't need to be subjected to what the internet often offers, and that is predators—people who would seek to do harm to them and who will groom them—and all sorts of nefarious websites and the like.

I know that, even on some of those gaming sites, there is a messaging service. We need to look at all of these aspects of the legislation. It's pleasing too that Snapchat will be included, as it should be, because, in the wrong hands, all of these social media platforms can lead to tragedy, be it Instagram, Facebook, X—formerly known as Twitter—or whatever the case might be. We do not want to see the sorts of tragic circumstances that the Daily Telegraph has so profoundly and alarmingly published in recent weeks and months.

I say again that this is important legislation. Not everybody will agree with it. People say that governments shouldn't be parenting our kids, and, in some aspects of that, I understand fully those parents' concerns, but our first priority as parents is to look after our kids and to provide a safe and healthy environment in which they can grow up. The first order of business for government is to protect Australian people per se and make sure they have the best possible society in which to live. This legislation helps to provide both.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 with a mix of relief and frustration. I'm relieved that this Labor government has finally legislated what the coalition, the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Flinders and I have been fighting for over a very long time, and I include in that the member for Banks, the shadow communications minister. I'm relieved on behalf of the desperate parents who have called for the government to step up on this issue, but I'm frustrated that it has taken so long, I'm frustrated with the lack of conviction from this government and I'm frustrated with the way that ill-informed proponents are seeking to conflate this legislation with other issues, such as parents' rights and privacy, which are, of course, very important.

The member for Flinders and I, along with others, have just concluded an historic inquiry into social media through the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society. Over the course of almost a year, the committee heard testimony from over 200 families, experts, some so-called experts and victims-survivors, the majority of whom support age assurance as one tool to help keep kids safe online. The fact is that children should not be required to keep themselves safe on platforms which are inherently dangerous and which they lack the developmental capacity to navigate safely.

We know that parents are the best judges of how their children should be raised. But what parents told us throughout the course of the inquiry is that they are at a loss as to what to do and how to navigate their parenting through this journey. It is plain to see from the evidence provided to the committee that big tech cannot be trusted to self-regulate in the interests of Australian users, particularly Australian children. The eSafety Commissioner said: 'Harder edged regulation is what's necessary. I don't know that there's anyone that can credibly say self-regulation has worked.' Reset Tech Australia warned that harm happens as governments wait for self-regulation and co-regulation to fail. The simple fact of the matter is that what we have been doing is not working. We need change, we needed change and we needed it yesterday.

Now, those that would say that the status quo should continue are either living in a delusion or they are complicit. Research highlighted in the roadmap for age verification showed that nearly half of all 16-to-18-year-olds first encountered pornography before the age of 16, over a third of them through social media feeds, ads, messages and group chats. This is not the pornography of yesteryear; this is hardcore, violent, misogynistic pornography which is impacting upon what young people consider constitutes a normal sexual relationship. Early exposure to pornography can significantly harm a young person's sexual development and their mental health.

In a public hearing on 28 June 2024, Tiktok representative Ms Woods-Joyce claimed that there is no pornography on Tiktok. On the same day, Ms Antigone Davis appeared on behalf of Meta as its vice president and global head of safety. She said, 'We don't have pornography on our site.' Let me just correct that statement. It is not just pornography. Paedophiles, predators, criminal gangs are using social media to sexually exploit and abuse young Australians, especially our young boys.

In the 2022-23 financial year, the ACCCE, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, received over 40,000—40,000!—reports of child sexual exploitation. The AFP charged 186 offenders with 925 child exploitation related offences. In the first six months of 2024 alone, the ACCCE received 560 reports of sextortion. These are just the reported cases. What about the thousands of cases where young men, young Australians and families who were too embarrassed to report them to authorities? The AFP shut down over 1,800 bank accounts linked to offshore organisation sextortion gangs. Evidence supplied to the committee named Meta, Snapchat, Tiktok, WhatsApp, Skype, Discord, telegram and so many other social media and digital platforms as facilitating abuse by predators. When asked how many child sexual abuse material reports were made by Australian end-users, platforms redirected their answers, proving adept at the politicians' pivot. The obfuscation and opaque responses to questions from this parliament showed that you cannot trust big tech to keep kids safe from sexual harm.

At the same time, the use of algorithms is driving mental and physical ill-health. These social media companies advertise alcohol and vapes with targeted advertising. They exacerbate eating disorders and body image issues through fitspo and fad diets. They market gambling products, promote radicalisation and extremism, and facilitate foreign interference and antisemitism. We heard from the parents of eating disorder survivors and victims. We heard from recovered alcoholics and from the loved ones of those who had simply drunk themselves to death. And we heard from our intelligence agencies about the role of social media in amplifying and enabling foreign interference and social discord

Heartbreakingly, we heard from the loved ones of those young Australians who took their own lives as a result of cyberbullying. We heard from Ali Halkic, whose son Allem tragically took his life after relentless cyberbullying by an adult perpetrator. Mr Halkic felt that, had he known more about the online danger his son was facing, he would have behaved differently in how he allowed his son access to a phone and to social media.

We heard from brave mum Emma Mason, whose daughter Tilly Rosewarne took her own life at just 15 years of age, following a relentless campaign of bullying which catastrophically escalated on social media. I spoke about Tilly during the course of the inquiry into social media, highlighting her case as an example of avoidable harm.

We've all heard the story of Dolly Everett. After a chilling and tormenting campaign of cyberbullying and physical violence, this promising 14-year-old student, who had the world at her feet, tragically took her own life. Dolly's brave parents, Tick and Kate, have worked hard through the Do it for Dolly initiative to raise awareness around cyberbullying.

After Dolly's death, I convened a meeting of the Digital Industry Group, or DIGI, the peak body for these online platforms. I left that meeting feeling like I'd just met with big tobacco last century. The platforms have consistently refused to acknowledge their role in the harm perpetrated against young Australians. I promised then that I would be a thorn in their side. Since then, I've pushed for age assurance, restrictions, transparency and liability for these big tech companies. Australians can depend on one thing, and that is that the Leader of the Opposition and this opposition's shadow communications minister, I and the member for Flinders and all members on this side of the House will hold big tech to account.

The question many have asked is: will age assurance fix these problems? Australians should be under no illusion: there is no silver bullet; there is no panacea. Keeping kids safe online will require a multipronged approach. However, we know that age restrictions and age assurance will slow down and deter some users who would otherwise have a free pass to inappropriate content and contact.

There are elected parliamentarians, corporate shills and misinformed public spokespeople who continue to spout untruths about this issue. Let me remind Australians: just because you see something on social media—even from a trusted source—doesn't mean it's true. You have been misled by vested interests at the big end of town. Age assurance is not identity assurance. It is not new. It is a tool for parents; it is not a substitute for parenting. When you prove your age to purchase alcohol, access a discount or enter an adult store, your data is not stored. You are age-verified, not ID-verified.

I want to send a huge shout-out to the member for Banks, the shadow opposition minister for communications, who secured an incredibly important amendment to this bill which means that no government can, under this bill—and nor can any social media platform, under law—require a user of a social media platform to provide digital ID or provide government ID in the form of a passport or a drivers licence. That will be expressly prohibited under this bill, and the member for Banks should receive a huge bouquet for securing that amendment to this bill. In her statement to the US Congress, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen said that social media companies want you to 'believe that the problems we're talking about are unsolvable'. She said:

They want you to believe in false choices. They want you to believe you must choose between connecting with those you love online and your personal privacy.

The age-assurance trial should examine all options available to address privacy concerns and protect kids online. It is a balance which can be struck without Labor's dangerous digital ID proposals. The member for Banks, who has just walked into the chamber, has done just that. He's secured that amendment, and he should be applauded.

The degree of self-interest from social media platforms that want us to think this is all too hard, the degree of self-interest from mental health groups that have been receiving money from social media platforms and that came into the social media inquiry, saying, 'It's all too hard; there's nothing to see here' is unbelievable. It's unbelievable that mental health groups who purport to look after the welfare of Australians could be bought with 50 pieces of silver. It's an absolute disgrace. Shame on you.

Frances Haugen also said:

When we realized tobacco companies were hiding the harms it caused, the government took action. When we figured out cars were safer with seat belts, the government took action.

We know the harm caused by social media companies as a facility for foreign interference, as a platform for predators and as an amplifier for extremism and psychological distress. It is time for government to intervene, because industry has proven to be complicit, complicit in perpetrating and perpetuating harm upon our most vulnerable. As Collective Shout put so well:

We cannot allow large-scale reform to be scuttled by disagreements about the technical aspects.

I congratulate the shadow minister and I congratulate the Leader of the Opposition for their leadership on this issue. And I commend the bill to the House.

Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I got to my feet in this place for the first time two years ago I talked about the trauma my electorate, my community and, indeed, my family had just come through. Between 2020-22 Melbourne endured 262 days of lockdown and 36 weeks of homeschooling. In my maiden speech here I said:

My kids' generation is intrinsically digital.

…   …   …

Their access to information is limitless.

…   …   …

The 262 days of lockdown in metro Melbourne … embedded their generation's relationship with screens, social media and other online content. Whatever systems our households had in place to balance online time with offline time in the form of study, sports, sleep or social activity collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Worse still, the school system became the dealer of the digital drug, putting laptops and tablets into every lounge or bedroom.

I said:

… data shows us that today's adolescents—24/7 connected to devices, addled by algorithms and autoplay—are showing signs of stress and, indeed, in some cases, distress. Self-control difficulties, impulsivity, family conflict, sleep disturbance, inactivity, concentration impairment and poor language development are often observed among those children whose technology use is above the recommended two hours a day. Of highest concern is the well-documented epidemic of anxiety and depression in teenage girls, which we know correlates with high use of social media.

When I gave this speech in this place in 2022 I admit there were few fellow travellers on this topic. Now, there are so many—the Leader of the Opposition, who has been so clear, so determined and so persistent in relation to this issue; my friend the member for Fisher, who has carried his determination to see proper age verification for online gaming and pornography into age verification for social media, which we know, of course, is a means for sharing so much pornography and child sexual abuse material; and, finally, in the last month, the Prime Minister, who has met our demand to act to address the harm that social media is doing to young people.

We know Australian children consume nine hours of leisure based screen time every day. That is the figure that the Australian Gaming and Screen Alliance will shortly publish—nine hours a day! Based on US studies, we estimate that half of that is dedicated to social media. That should come as no surprise because social media is designed for addiction, a feature which no-one has made much of an effort to hide. Indeed, Facebook's first president, Sean Parker, said in an interview with Axios in 2017:

"The thought process that went into building these applications, Facebook being the first of them, … was all about: 'How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?'" "And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you … more likes and comments." "It's a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."

Earlier in his interview, he said:

"God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."

University professors and researchers started studying the effects of social media on our children in the early 2010s, shortly after this dopamine loop was embedded into the platforms. In their 2015 Atlantic essay 'The coddling of the American mind' Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff started to identify the behavioural, societal and cultural changes of the generation which had grown up with a smartphone in their back pocket. Chief amongst them was an obsession with safety—that is, physical and emotional safety, which included safety from people who disagreed with you.

In their later book of the same name, they referred to the work by Jean Twenge—iGENwhich connected 'safetyism' to two attributes: the extension of childhood and the delayed transition into adulthood manifested in young people not getting their drivers licence or a job or a first boyfriend or a first girlfriend, not even drinking alcohol or having sex until well into their 20s. She also remarked an explosion in rates of depression and anxiety, which were first identified in 2012, especially for girls and young women. Jean Twenge's book iGEN, published in 2017, served as the first real scientific study of the impact of technology and specifically smartphones and social media and what it was doing to young people worldwide.

Jean Twenge has visited Australia twice this year, the first to talk at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, where I spent a couple of hours with her talking through her work, and the second to talk at the Social Media Summit, hosted by the governments of South Australia and New South Wales last month. At these events she explained that psychological distress more than doubled in young Australian women aged between 16 and 24 between 2013 and 2020, and the percentage of Australian girls who feel lonely at school has almost quadrupled between 2003 and 2022. Similarly, boys have increased markedly from around seven per cent to a high of 17 per cent in 2018.

In her presentation to the Social Media Summit, which you can watch on YouTube, she goes through the evidence proving that this plummet in wellbeing is directly related to social media and harm online. Her data was brought to life in the hearings of Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society. We heard testimony of parent after parent of how their confident, sensible, sporty, popular, hardworking, balanced, wise kids had gone down the social media slide into misery as a result of scamming, sextortion, bullying, ostracism and abuse. These were not inattentive parents. They had talked to their children about social media, tried to engage schools and other parents in addressing its worst effects, but no meaningful measures were taken to address it and these parents and the hundreds of thousands of silent parents that stand behind them are begging us for a solution.

The question is: is this bill the right solution? Let's look at what the bill does. It refers to age-restricted social media platforms, social media platforms being one to facilitate social interactions online between two or more users, but with scope to reduce or expand the scope through legislative rules. At a minimum it will capture TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter.

These services will now be obliged to take reasonable steps not prescribed by government to prevent persons under 16 years of age from creating or holding an account on the platform. The government has announced it will use rule-making powers to carve out messaging services, online games and services that support the health and education of users. And while I strongly support the latter, I'm not yet convinced about the former, but in the interests of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, this is a sensible starting point. It sends a clear message to the market that if you want to find a way to reach teenagers, you'd better find a better design for safer platforms with which to do it.

Other platforms that will be exempted include Facebook Messenger Kids, WhatsApp, ReachOut PeerChat, Kids Helpline, My Circle, Google Classroom and YouTube. We will all need to keep a keener eye on the extent to which some of the most harmful behaviour on social media moves to these exempted platforms. For that reason, as well as others, it is sensible for there to be a two-year review of the whole scheme.

The coalition's additional comments to the joint select committee report released on Monday recommended the establishment of a Joint Standing Committee on Online Safety, Artificial Intelligence and Technology, tasked with investigating the strengths and weaknesses in Australia's regulatory framework, legislative tools, industrial base and technological capabilities. This regulation cannot be set and forget, and the advent of generative AI will create new risks. In February of this year, a 14-year-old boy took his life after forming a deep emotional attachment with an artificial intelligence chatbot created on the character.ai website. Sewell knew that the chatbot wasn't a real person and that he was interacting with a large language model, but over months that LLM had become his best friend. 'Please come home to me as soon as possible, my love,' the chatbot, called Dany, wrote to Sewell. 'What if I told you I could come home right now?' Sewell replied. He picked up his father's handgun and pulled the trigger. From here it just gets worse. Today this parliament sends a big signal to big tech that it will not accept reckless damage being done to our young people.

Could the bill be better? It is no doubt the case that the bill could be better. We on this side have been calling for this legislation for over six months, and at five minutes to midnight, two or three months from an election, the government brings in a bill with great haste and expects us to improve it. But, thanks to the deep industry knowledge and engagement of our shadow minister for communications, we will indeed improve it, removing concerns that this is a backdoor for the ubiquitous use of Digital ID, which the coalition opposed when it came through the parliament earlier this year. Equally, our shadow minister has ensured that no government issued identification, whether passports or drivers licenses, can be demanded. Furthermore, through that vigorous discussion, it has been confirmed that reasonable steps to ensure under-16s do not have accounts on platforms will not be targeted at 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, 50-year-olds, 60-year-olds or 70-year-olds.

Do not think the platforms do not know your age. By golly, they do. TikTok admitted this year it had removed 78 million accounts for under-13-year-olds, of which a million were in Australia. Instagram launched Instagram Teen Accounts overnight. Mind you, they didn't mention that they were going to do that at any time during the inquiry's hearings, but overnight they moved Australian teens under 16 to their teens platform. You see, it can be done. Additional privacy measures include preventing any material used for age verification being retained by the entity that does the verifying.

Finally, I want to address what I feel has been the best argued point among those who have raised concerns about this bill and one with which I have enormous empathy: the question of whether this bill usurps parental authority. To this point, I have received many sensible contributions. One was from a constituent in my electorate of Flinders with whom I've been corresponding all weekend. I found her approach to this issue inspiring. I have edited her comments to protect her identity and for brevity, but she describes with such care the efforts she has made to protect her child from the perils of social media. She wrote to me:

One of the rules for having this phone is she is not to join any social media groups like Facebook, TikTok or Instagram and I have taken the time to sit down with my daughter to explain my reasoning behind it.

My daughter very eloquently had relayed back to me why it is not the time for her to access it and understands that she is not yet ready to be exposed to it. When it is the right time for her will (CURRENTLY) be my decision!

The right time for her will NOT be the same time as the right time for my younger son.

Right now, I do however sit with her and go through my own social media pages with her and discuss with her the elements of my feed. This has been enormously beneficial because it has shown her what she needs to look out for, the pitfalls, but also the benefits.

The key is learning how to navigate it, what the pitfalls are and what to watch out for. This cannot be achieved without the conversations and without the access.

Remove social media from their hands and they will get it anyway! But without the guidance from the parents, without the support, without the teachers from school teaching them how to properly navigate it. They will be ON THEIR OWN and will be prone to all the pitfalls, they won't have anyone to discuss this and very unlikely to seek help out of fear of getting into trouble.

It is my responsibility to ready my child for this world.

I have unbridled admiration for this mother, her patience, her diligence and her kind exploration of these issues, not to mention the remarkable presence of mind of her 12-year-old daughter. I recognise that parents who have made real and enduring efforts to control technology and guide the use of social media have a reason to feel frustrated with us.

But this experience from my Flinders mum is the exception and far from the rule. The experience of most parents was beautifully put in a post by Heads Up Alliance, one of the many organisations and people, including News Corp's Let Them Be Kids and Melanie Pilling from the Courier-Mail, who have expressed so beautifully what parents have demanded of us. Heads Up Alliance said in a post:

As a general principle, except in cases of neglect or abuse, it isn't the role of government to interfere in everyday parenting decisions.

…    …   …

Isn't allowing your 14-year-old access to Instagram just another of those parenting decisions that families should be free to make without government interference?

This question sounds fair enough, but it rests on two significant assumptions …

Firstly, it assumes that parents allow their tween and early teen children on social media of their own free will. In reality, most parents have serious reservations about social media use for their children. They feel pressured to allow it too early …

…   …   …

Case in point: a recent survey of over 20,000 parents conducted by the NSW government revealed that parents believe social media should only be given to children at 16.2 years of age. And yet, how many parents are able to actually follow through with that? This law won't take away parental autonomy. It would strengthen it because it aligns with what most parents already feel is right but find almost impossible to enforce.

Secondly, the question assumes that social media is a healthy or at least benign activity, like playing piano or basketball. It isn't. Whereas music and sport nurture growth and development, social media is inherently harmful for the vast majority of children for the vast majority of the time. It disrupts brain development, interferes with sleep patterns and negatively impacts psychological well-being. It is addictive by design, exploiting vulnerabilities in young minds, pitting them against some of the most cunning and manipulative corporations the world has ever known.

That survey surveyed 21,000 people, and 87 per cent supported implementing age restrictions for social media use, but that rose to 91 per cent when you limited respondents to parents of children aged five to 17. This week, in this place, we give parents what they have been asking for—something, anything, to strengthen their arm around the dining room table, a judgement call, a line in the sand, a clear signal that at 15 and below you do not have the mental wherewithal to resist the addictive qualities of the platforms and that the impact of social media harms can be so great and so resistant to reversal or a fix that, on balance, a ban until age 16 is the most reasonable option to mitigate its detrimental effects and to help build peer and cohort support among the parent community to disconnect from social media at this most pivotable time for brain and social development. I commend this bill to the House.

Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the 2½ years I've been in this place I have learned good government policy is created collaboratively, while poor policy is developed 'for others' through a top-down approach that does not involve those who stand to be most affected. Policy developed this way is frequently a recipe for disaster as unintended consequences swamp a good intention. I fear that's exactly what we are seeing in this Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, a piece of legislation that may be well intentioned but ultimately fails to deliver on its promise.

Rather than you taking my word for it, I want to share with you the words of one of my youth forum participants. He compared this ban to a mayor of a city who, in response to high rate of car crashes, decides to simply ban cars rather than fix the potholes, make seatbelt laws or provide more driver education. In his exact words, he said:

While that probably sounds silly, to young people like me, the government's plan to ban social media for under 16's applies the same logic—it doesn't fix anything and fails to recognize the benefits of social media for my generation.

With those words ringing in my ears, then, I stand today to put forward a contention that the policy that the government is moving appears to be more about quick political wins than doing something meaningful for our kids. They are not fixing the potholes; they are just telling our kids there won't be any cars. In pushing this legislation, the government has shown it's not prepared to listen to the voices of countless human rights groups and mental health experts who are concerned that a social media ban will not only be ineffective but will be harmful to many young people. They are also indicating that they do not care that this reform threatens to stop young people accessing much-needed mental health services and information and to isolate them from social community, all while driving them to less-regulated services. Perhaps even more galling, the legislation relies on the promise of an age assurance that would be unenforceable and could require all users, including adults, to share highly confidential and private information with platforms. While this legislation claims to be about protecting young Australians, it doesn't hold platforms to account to make their systems or their content safer for younger people.

It is not just the contents of this bill that is problematic, however; my community of North Sydney is equally frustrated by the government's determination to rush this legislation through parliament without proper scrutiny, particularly as this idea of a social media ban for under 16s was originally a thought bubble offered by the Prime Minister during a press conference where he was being peppered with criticism on why we are seeing inaction around the legislation for a ban on gambling advertising. While this legislation was rushed into the House last Thursday, was referred to a one-day Senate inquiry and will be pushed through the Senate this week, the gambling reform legislation is still nowhere to be seen.

Insultingly, those who wished to make a submission to the inquiry were given just 24 hours and a two-page limit. Despite this, media reports today suggest over 15,000 submissions were received. But with just three hours to hear the evidence, even if just one per cent of the people who submitted were invited to give their evidence, they would have just two minutes to speak. That's not a proper inquiry; it's a tick and flick.

The whole process around this legislation is disrespectful to the community and the experts in this space, and with more Australians than ever saying they do not trust our government, processes like this will not help. Trust is restored when you earn it by enabling transparency, deliberation and due process—all ideals from which the basis of a healthy democracy stems.

I turn to the bill itself. This bill sets a minimum age of 16 for social media users. It defines an 'age-restricted social media platform' as one where a significant purpose of the service is to enable online social interaction between two or more users, where users can link to or interact with other users, and where the service allows users to post material. The bill gives the minister the power to create additional conditions that could narrow the definition of an 'age-restricted social media platform', and the government has proposed using this power to exclude services such as WhatsApp, YouTube, certain educational and mental health services, and online gambling services, yet the reasons these platforms are exempt are opaque.

The bill establishes an obligation for providers to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from holding an account, with platforms expected to introduce systems and processes to meet that standard, while the eSafety Commissioner will be given powers to obtain information about compliance, with penalties of up to $49½ million for noncompliance. The ban will commence no sooner than 12 months from royal assent, while the government continues to fund an age-assurance technologies trial. The bill aims to prohibit platforms from using information collected for age assurance for any other purpose. Finally, it will be subject to an independent review within two years of the ban taking effect to consider necessary changes.

As the mum of three young adults, I'm very aware of the negative impacts of social media and the challenges of parenting in this digital world. However, I also recognise my children are digital natives and are very literate about how these platforms work. For this reason, I encourage everyone involved in this debate to ensure they are listening to the voices of young Australians when it comes to this decision-making process, rather than assuming that the grown-ups in the room know best.

Prevention United's recent news survey found that young Australians rated fears about the future and cost of living as the largest negative influences on their mental health, while social media was ranked only 12th out of 20 factors evaluated. For this reason, I fear we are grabbing at this as the simple answer to a challenge that is far more complicated. After all, young people understand the good and the bad of social media better than anyone.

Surely the issue here is not that social media as a whole is harmful but that these tools are designed to be addictive and that young people can be exposed to inappropriate content. If we want to solve that issue, then we need to do more than just impose an age ban. Ultimately, the addictive nature of social media platforms, coupled with the fact that there's no regulation governing their content, means that inappropriate content, harmful body images and mis- and disinformation will still be dished up, whether someone accesses that platform when they're 14 or 17.

We also can't ignore the fact that social media is being used by young people in positive ways, including to help them find community around shared interests or problems in fostering belonging. In fact, a recent study by the Black Dog Institute found these platforms offer adolescents opportunities to enhance wellbeing by strengthening existing relationships and reducing loneliness.

Crucially, social media is also increasingly being used as a gateway to access mental health services and information, with research conducted by ReachOut finding that nearly half of their youth service users access their services via social media, while the same number of young people use social media as a substitute for professional support. In this context, I can understand why many from the mental health sector are alarmed by the proposed ban.

The truth is that the demand for these types of services already far outstrips supply, and closing an important substitute pathway could be disastrous. As the bill's own explanatory memorandum says, young people 'vary substantially in how they use social media'. I ask, then: why is the government introducing such a blunt instrument that fails to differentiate between positive or problematic uses of social media? It's difficult to see this bill as doing anything other than avoiding dealing with the problems of social media head on, as it ultimately fails to hold platforms accountable for their online environments.

Separately, the government has announced plans to develop a duty-of-care framework to keep users safe, prevent online harm and hold platforms accountable.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The member will be granted leave to resume speaking when the debate is resumed.