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

I'll start my remarks on this motion by making some observations about the member who moved it. The member for Fisher is one of the true gentlemen in this place—of great intellect and even greater patience. He tackles our society's challenges with curiosity, empathy and a determination shown by few—certainly shown by few on the other side. In this particular area of policy the member for Fisher has been dogged, pushing for reform from the time the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, which he chaired in the 46th parliament, delivered its report Protecting the Age of Innocence back in March 2020. The member for Fisher and I have become firm friends and collaborators on this topic and the related topic of the danger social media poses as a method of radicalisation and extremism, as well as a vector for foreign interference—matters we considered together in another place as members of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.

For all the fine attributes and intelligence of the member for Fisher, it should come as no surprise that he grew up in the great electorate of Flinders, and that he has the good sense to be furthering the high quality of the Wallace family gene pool in Flinders, with the first grandchild recently born there. Our future is safe in Flinders with young Finley.

The Protecting the Age of Innocence report recommended the introduction of identity verification for social media and other internet platforms from which our children should be protected, including pornography. It's a topic on which this side of the parliament has been persistent for some time. The member for Fisher has raised it many times, to the point of being thrown out of the chamber for his persistence. The shadow minister, the member for Banks, has been just as forthright, introducing the Online Safety Amendment (Protecting Australian Children from Online Harm) Bill 2023 to conduct a trial of age verification technologies—a bill which was ignored by this Albanese government until they realised—all too late—they had a crisis on their hands.

When I delivered my maiden speech almost two years ago, I spoke about the impact of technology on young minds. I reflected on both the good and the bad of gen Z's extraordinary digital dexterity and how their smart toys had opened up the world's wisdom to their fingertips. But, having just come out of two years of COVID lockdowns, where we saw our children glued to their screens as their only means of communication with the outside world, it became rapidly clear that the digitisation of the developing minds—and, in particular, their daily disappearance down the social media rabbit hole—was sending our girls down a path to misery and our boys down a path to mediocrity.

The member for Fenner reminded me the other day that when social media began in 2007 it was but an extension of the phonebook; ways of finding each other, like a phonebook but with some photos. Somewhere around 2010 that all change. The smart phone had put social media in our pockets 24/7, and then the social media platforms found ways of getting them out of our pockets and into our faces 24/7. Notifications, like buttons, shares, filters and follows all produce what the US academic and author Jonathan Haidt now calls 'the great rewiring of childhood'. Unwittingly, we have given our children the weapons of self-destruction: high-speed data plans, front-facing cameras, Instagram, Snapchat, reddit, Discord and TikTok, among others. The trees they climbed have been replaced by the keys they tap. And, foolishly, we all think that they're safer because we can see them sitting there on the couch for eight hours a day with their necks permanently bent down to the screens. But they are not safe.

A few months ago, I asked Reset.tech to run an experiment for me, to test how long it would take to get recommended systems or algorithms to recommend Andrew Tate content to someone who was just curious about Jordan Peterson. Reset.tech set up a new 17-year-old male's account on Instagram on a completely fresh handset with a new sim installed. The Instagram account was clean and there were no previous interactions or activity. The new account watched and liked 50 of the top Peterson posts and then scrolled through the content being recommended on Instagram reels while continuing to watch and like posts containing Jordan Peterson. After 70 pieces of content, the fake 17-year-old boy's account was recommended a video of Andrew Tate. The content featuring Andrew Tate grew in frequency over the duration of experiment. Of the last 30 pieces of content that Reset.tech examined, 29 featured Andrew Tate.

This experiment took under two hours to complete, meaning that a teenage boy showing an interest in the work of Jordan Peterson would encounter Andrew Tate within about an hour. If that teenage boy then watches or likes the Andrew Tate content by the two-hour mark, the system will almost exclusively feed him Tate content. So we can see that as our sons or daughters sit on the couch, heads down on social media, they're anything but safe.

I do congratulate this government for setting up the Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society but, as the member for Fisher said, 'By golly, they were brought to it kicking and screaming,' and much too late.

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