Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are now just 14 days until the social media ban. That world-leading reform is due to hit our screens. On bus stops and online, we're seeing a big advertising spend on this policy in the lead-up to the big holiday season. And what a summer break it'll be. The kids will be outside kicking a footy like the good old days. They definitely won't be moving from sites that they can't access, like Snapchat and TikTok, to sites that aren't captured by the ban or that do not recognise Australian law!

It was revealed at estimates last month that, alarmingly, one of the websites that is not part of the ban is 4chan. 4chan is one of the most disturbing places on the internet, where a lot of the content, including content that would be considered class 1 and class 2 material under the Online Safety Act, you don't even need an account for. Just look it up and traumatise yourself. It's that easy. I asked why 4chan wasn't considered a social media service, and the eSafety Commissioner said that, rather than being classified as social media, it is really an image board. An image board? In questions on notice, I asked: 'What is an image board? Is Instagram an image board? Is Tumblr an image board? Is Pinterest an image board? Is Reddit an image board?' It will be interesting to see the responses to those. The social media ban is only a ban on kids under 16 having accounts.

I asked whether the government had considered websites, like 4chan, that do not use an account system. The eSafety Commissioner answered, 'Not to my knowledge.' This is really the core of the problem with this policy. It has been conceived in haste, and the government is trying, very poorly, to cover up that it has been conceived in haste. It is trying to pretend that it did not rush this through the parliament at the end of 2024 in the expectation that the 47th Parliament would not sit in the new year before the election was called. It is trying to pretend that there is a reason for documents related to the ban to be withheld or redacted for reasons of commercial sensitivity. When the Senate asked, quite fairly, for an explanation of what these sensitivities were, the government froze up. A bead of sweat formed on its temple, and it adjusted its collar: 'It's commercially sensitive because—it just is, okay?' No further information is available, as per the public interest immunity claim cited under order 37. It's a joke.

This isn't about tenders for a government project. This isn't about national security or anything like that. It's about keeping young people off of social media. It's also about keeping as much information about the government's deliberations out of the public arena as possible for legal reasons. The government knows that at least one organisation, not including the mega corporations that are subject to this ban, is contemplating challenging the constitutional validity of the social media ban. Whether the government wins or loses such a case, there is no doubt that such a trial would embarrass the government by revealing the utter want of policy merit that bedevils the social media ban.

Let's be honest. Since the government's election victory, it has become arrogant. Transparency and accountability are beneath it. We heard yesterday the same speech from Senator Walsh 14 times in a row about the number of OPDs the Senate has moved. Perhaps, if the government spent more time producing documents that the representatives of the Australian people have asked for and less time carrying on about it in the Senate and wasting the Senate's time, there would be less need for all the compliance and attendance motions that are inevitably moved. The Prime Minister, in times gone by, spoke frequently in the other place of the born-to-rule attitude of the coalition parties. He has become that which he sought to destroy. It is from the top down that this attitude of superiority passes through this government, and it shows in things like this—a simple order for the production of documents that have no good reason to be withheld from the Senate and yet are. Australians want answers about how the government developed the social media ban. The flaws of this policy are plain to see, and it hasn't even begun yet. So good luck, people.