Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will repurpose the first word from your speech, Member for Fisher—I agree with that. TikTok is indeed, for better or worse, a global phenomenon. It is the fastest-growing app in Australia. It shot up during the pandemic, particularly, as people were sitting home watching videos. More than a billion people worldwide and millions of Australians use it. It's also addictive to some people. Like any social media app, any game, it can be addictive. There are certainly social harms. These things are not black and white with any online activity. It also brings joy to millions of people, particularly young people. That's a first statement. They share information. They share videos. It can be fun. It can be informative. It can be, but I agree with you regarding the concerns about promotion of eating disorders and, particularly, anxiety amongst young people and status envy of other people's glorified, glamorised lives. That's a problem which is common to Instagram, Facebook and all manner of apps—things which I'm not cool enough to know, no doubt, not being a teenager in that bracket, as you rightly pointed out. But it has become especially important in the lives of many Australian young people. There is a generation who simply don't engage in traditional ways in politics, in current affairs and in ideas and, increasingly, have turned to social media, including but not limited to TikTok, to promote their activities. I was down at the Dandenong Mosque on the Islamic Council of Victoria's open day and had a terrific time with the youth group there, who were showing me their new youth group room. The thing they were most proud about was the TikToks which they had created to repurpose, if you like, or refresh the promotion of their values—their community values, community service—to engage a younger generation.

I'll state upfront: yes, the media reports do go out there—I think the Australian doesn't like me; everyone else got a nice photo, but I got a silly photo when they said I was the most popular Australian politician on TikTok, with apparently 147,000 followers. But I do believe you've got to engage Australians where they are, whether that's down the railway station, outside the shops or at the senior citizens centre, and the fact is: millions of Australians are online. This is a dilemma for all of us. It's not black and white. Those forums are where people consume information, and frankly it's where they'll be far more subject to disinformation and misinformation. If we're not there—I mean all of us; you too; you can go on TikTok, Wally!—then the only people who are there are the disinformation, misinformation crowd. So it's a dilemma. I've had hundreds of young people contact me saying, 'Thank you for opening my eyes to this issue,' or that issue. Many parents contact me saying: 'Thank you for getting my young person engaged in politics. I've never been able to, although I wish they'd stop calling me late at night from their university telling me about something you posted!'

But I also take national security seriously, and I hope the mover of the motion would acknowledge this. I am Chair—you're the Deputy Chair—of the Defence Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I've been on TikTok since May 2021. I've never had it on my government phone. I've had it on this phone. This is not a prop. This is the famous red phone, which I referred to. It is not a communist China gag; it's because it actually is bright red. I use it for community engagement, and TikTok lives by itself there. I've had a cautious approach since day one. It confuses the algorithm. On the rare occasion that I hop on and have a bit of a look, I seem to get cat videos and pimple-popping videos. But I had a cautious approach because I was well aware, in 2021, of the questions and concern regarding TikTok and data and cybersecurity. TikTok is not a new social media platform; these concerns have been around since 2016. So I do have to call out the tawdry politicisation of the issue. I'm not saying the views aren't genuinely held, but the government got elected mid last year and, in September 2022, the minister commissioned a Home Affairs review of security risks of social media and the settings governing them, because we take this seriously.

The previous speaker said that the coalition in opposition is doing the job of government. To that I say, lol. it's your special party trick. You don't have any policies. The opposition doesn't have any. The deputy leader said very clearly, 'We don't have policies; we're the opposition.' This is your party trick. You complain about stuff that you didn't do in the decade you were in office. This is my point: the government's review is not focused on just one platform. It's now with the minister. The government is seriously considering it and will take appropriate, considered action. The review is classified, but the action will be public. The scope of the review, though, was broad. It wasn't just one little thing to keep getting yourselves in the newspaper. It was much broader than that. It looked at multiple national security risks across all of social media and online apps. I think it is an important debate, but we could stop the cheap political pointscoring. You did have a decade in office, and we're trying to actually do something about it.

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