David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share 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.

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