David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's nice that the coalition now wants some data on their policy. Let's remember who came up with the social media ban in the first place. It was a Peter Dutton policy, cheered in by News Corp, pushed aggressively by the coalition, picked up like some sort of food pulled out of the microwave reheated by Labor and then rushed through in a God almighty rush without any evidence base. You don't have to be a genius to work out that a smart, online 14-year-old is going to find a way around whatever social media ban comes out of an unplanned rush by Albanese and Dutton. I'd put my money on a smart online 14-year-old over Peter Dutton or Prime Minister Albanese any day of the week.

What we want is the data. Show us what's actually happening. We don't want data that has been recycled out of the platforms. It's nice to hear the coalition in here, all hot under the collar, about the social media ban. It's good they've decided to pay some attention to it. Maybe they got a phone call from News Corp editors to tell them it was time to go again on this stuff. That's good. I'm glad they're finally asking for that, and we're actually supporting them in this to say: 'Let's get the data. Show us what's happened.'

If the government really wants to stand behind their social media ban on kids, why are you refusing to produce these documents? Why are you refusing to produce the evidence? You're left with this absolutely firm conclusion that they knew there was never an evidence base to support it and that they know that the data they've got is showing that kids are smarter than them and are getting around it. My observation of young people is they have one account to show mum and dad, another account for one group of friends and another account for another group of friends. Tell me which of those has been banned. No doubt the mum-and-dad show-and-tell account has been banned, but show us what's happening to the reality on the ground with young people. Again—I'm just going to repeat it—my money's on young people being smarter, cannier, more online native than whatever policy was cooked up by the dregs of Peter Dutton through a News Corp editorial office and then implemented by a follow-the-crowd Albanese government. My money is on young people getting around that any day of the week.

Why won't you show us the data? Why are we having this bizarre push? It's no doubt because the data is crazy embarrassing. It's showing what we all thought—that a half-baked plan that came out of some fettered dream of Peter Dutton was never actually going to be a way of keeping young people safe. You want to know how to keep young people safe? Implement a digital duty of care, an online duty of care. Hold platforms to account. Let people opt of toxic algorithms. That's how you keep young people safe. You make online safe for everybody, and it turns out that is going to make it a hell of a lot safer for young people. That's how you make young people safe online. Don't cut them off, isolate them socially and drive them to parts of the online world where there's even less supervision. That's how you make young people safe. You make online safer for all of us.

But you didn't want to do that job because you didn't want to take on the big platforms. You didn't want to get them to have put an option in so people could opt out of their toxic algorithms. You didn't want to put in place laws that would hold big tech accountable. Why not? It comes back to what we keep seeing with this lot. You're scared of Donald Trump. You're scared that, if you actually put any regulations in place that would hold big tech to account, you're going to get some cranky phone call from Uncle Donald who's going to say: 'How dare you do this. How dare you act in the Australian national interest. You have to give priority access to major online US tech platforms, and, if you don't, I'll come and hunt you down.' That's what this is all about. You are just continuing to surrender any sense of what's right for Australians because you're scared of an attack from Donald Trump and his right wing, aggressive, America first—well I say Australians first, not Trump first. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.