Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications. How will the Albanese Labor government's legislation for social media age limits support families and promote healthier outcomes for young Australians?

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Today, the Albanese government introduced world-leading legislation that sets a minimum age of 16 years for social media. We understand the deep concern of many parents about the harmful impacts of social media, including screen addiction, on their children. Parents have told us that they want help managing their children's use of social media, and the Albanese government is taking action.

The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 will deliver greater protections for young Australians during critical stages of their development. This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society—that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia. It creates a new definition of 'age-restricted social media platform' to capture those services where a significant purpose of the service is to enable social interaction between two or more users. At a minimum, this will capture TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram and X, amongst others.

The law places the onus on social media platforms, not parents or young people, to take reasonable steps to ensure these protections are in place. The bill and the associated rules I intend to make will ensure continued access to messaging and online gaming and continued access to services which are health and education related, such as headspace, Kids Helpline, Google Classroom and YouTube. The bill also contains robust privacy provisions over and above what is set out in existing privacy laws. Under the proposed legislation, platforms will be required to destroy data collected for age assurance purposes when the age assurance process is complete. Not destroying data would be a breach of the Privacy Act, with penalties also of up to $50 million. The government will also provide funding for the e-safety and information commissioners to support strong oversight.

I also want to be open with the parliament that this bill is complex and the approach we are taking is novel. Age assurance technology is not going to be 100 per cent childproof, but we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The legislation brought forward by the Albanese government is in the most fundamental sense about helping families when they're sitting around the kitchen table to have that hard conversation about accessing social media. Our laws will enable parents to say no. This normative value is immense because it will reduce the peer pressure that children feel to be on social media just because their friends are.

I thank the many parents, experts and young Australians who have participated in our consultations. The government looks forward to the parliament's examination of the bill, and we will continue to engage constructively to see it progressed.

David Coleman (Banks, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgenceI rise in support of the remarks of the Minister for Communications. This issue of the safety of Australian children online on social media is one of the defining issues of our era. It is of titanic significance to our community. What we have seen in recent years, in the impacts on the mental health of Australian children of social media, has been absolutely appalling. The social media companies for too long have abrogated their responsibility to care about Australian children. When we look at the data on the mental health of Australian children, especially girls, we see devastating impacts.

We welcome this legislation being put forward.

The Leader of the Opposition committed the coalition to a very similar policy back in June, and we look forward to working constructively on this legislation, with a view to seeing it pass through the parliament next week.