Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 is all about supporting parents and protecting children. I want to pay tribute to the Minister for Communications for the work that she has done in bringing forward this landmark legislation. It is about making sure that children have a childhood and parents have peace of mind. It's about this parliament working together to lock this change in. We're doing more than setting a new minimum age of 16 for social media; we are setting a new community standard, making it clear that social media companies have a social responsibility and sending a message to all those mums and dads who are worried about the impact that social media is having on their children's wellbeing, mental health, confidence and sense of self. That message is simple: we are on your side, and we've got your back.

I want young Australians to grow up happy, active and safe, playing outside with their friends—off their phones and on the footy and cricket fields, the tennis and netball courts, at the swimming pool and the beach, or in any sport that grabs their interest or, indeed, just engaging with each other on a face-to-face basis. I want them to learn how to win, how to lose and how to work as a team. I want them to learn about resilience and being part of their community; to discover music and art; to be confident in the classroom and at home; to be confident in themselves and around their peers; and to gain and grow from these real experiences with real people, face to face.

We know from experience that schools banning phones in the classroom has had an uplifting experience, both in an improvement in students' learning but also through kids engaging with each other at play lunch, at lunchtime and after school. It has made a difference. Every parent and every level of government understands the benefits of all of these things to individuals, families and society as a whole. That's why we invest in grassroots sport and community facilities. That's why we invest in infrastructure and the programs that support them because we know that social interaction provides a social benefit.

In contrast, we know social media is causing social harm. The figures are very clear. I was watching Insiders yesterday, and they had a graph of hospitalisations of young people for mental health issues since 2010. That graph is scary, in particular, for young women, but also for young men. There is a clear causal link between the rise of social media and the harm to the mental health of young Australians. And, indeed, it is not just young Australians; this is an issue that governments around the world are grappling with. I was talking with leaders of Europe and North America and countries in our own region as well, including Prime Minister Luxon of New Zealand, last week. They are all looking at what we are doing and they are applauding what we are doing, in showing leadership in this area.

We know that social media can be a weapon for bullies, a platform for peer pressure, a driver of anxiety, a vehicle for scammers and, worst of all, a tool for online predators. Because it is young Australians who are most engaged with this technology, it is young Australians who are most at risk. That's why we want to set the minimum age for social media at 16. As we develop and mature, we're better at spotting the fakes and the dangers. We build up the mental resilience to ignore the worst of the nastiness. We learn the difference between online followers and true and real friends. We learn not to measure ourselves and our lives against impossible standards or a fake image of perfection.

Those of us in public life know not to look at the comments section, but it's even harder for young people to deal with some of what people will say online that they would never say face to face. As we get older, we do learn not to measure ourselves and our lives against impossible standards or a fake image of perfection. If children don't have that chance to learn, if they don't have the grounding of real experiences and real friendships to support them, if they fall into the vortex of thinking what happens online is all that matters, then we know the consequences can be devastating.

I want to recognise some of the strongest advocates for action in this area are parents grieving the loss of a child, mothers and fathers determined to spare other parents the pain and the sadness they have had to endure. I've had the solemn privilege of meeting with some of them. I know other members of this place have as well. Their loss is unimaginable. Their courage and selflessness is extraordinary. To take that personal grieving and channel it into making a difference for others is remarkably courageous. We owe it to those families—indeed, we owe it to every family—to do everything we can to help.

I want to make five points about the specific detail of this legislation and why it is worthy of the unanimous support of this parliament. Firstly, this bill puts the onus on social media companies, not young people, not their parents. We know that every law that applies to teenagers will be tested by teenagers. We're not seeking to penalise young people pushing their luck. The penalties in this legislation apply to social media companies that don't make sufficient effort and allow for systemic breaches. There are fines of nearly $50 million, serious penalties, because we are taking this seriously.

Secondly, there are common sense exemptions. We want to make sure that young people can continue to access health and education related services—Headspace, YouTube, Google Classroom—as well as messaging services and online games.

Thirdly, there will be very strong and strict privacy requirements to protect people's personal information, including an obligation to destroy information provided once age has been verified. We'll fund the Information Commissioner to oversee this work.

Fourthly, this bill is realistic about how fast technology moves and how quickly new platforms can appear on the landscape. That's why there is a balance of decision-making power between the minister, the eSafety Commissioner and the parliament, recognising that we all have a part to play in making sure this legislation keeps up with evolving challenges.

The fifth and final point is about effectiveness. I've seen people point out that nowhere else in the world has this been done yet. That's true, but I also know that every serious government in the world is grappling with this issue and looking to take action. When it comes to the wellbeing of our young people, I don't want Australia to wait around on the rest of the world; I want Australia to be one of the leading nations in the world. Equally, I've seen people say the law won't fix everything, and it won't work in every situation. That's correct. You can't have perfect law in an area like this, relating to technology, that will work 100 per cent perfectly 100 per cent of the time. But we can't make perfection a barrier to action.

In many ways, one of the great values of this law is the message that it sends and the backup it provides to parents across Australia who feel out of their depth and worried about where all this will end. It's for the parents of a young boy or girl coming home and saying, 'My friend I sit next to in the classroom has access to all this; why don't I?' This is a tool for parents to work with their sons or daughters. This will provide an important tool for parents who worry about their children, as we all do, from the very day that they're born. It never stops.

What's different about this issue compared to the conversations we have with our children about drinking or other activities is that parents don't have their own childhoods to look back to as a frame of reference. It is different, and, until now, not only have they not had that; they haven't had the law to support them, either. Of course, parents already have the option of banning phones or particular social media platforms for their children, but that does mean going up against the power of peer pressure. It means making their child the odd one out.

This bill is about taking the pressure off parents and teachers. It lets them point to the authority of government and the law and say: 'This is the way it is. This is the same standard for everyone.' We have a drinking age of 18 because, as a society, we recognise that alcohol carries risks that are more severe for young people. Now, underage drinking does occur, but it's much less common than it would be if there were no legal limit. It's a lot easier for parents, teachers and older siblings to engage with young Australians on the topic of drinking responsibly when there is that community standard to back them up.

There has been considerable engagement with the opposition on this legislation. I'm grateful for the bipartisan way in which we've been able to work together. Many of us on both sides come to this issue drawing on our experience as parents, and that's important. But we're also parliamentarians. We have the privilege and indeed the responsibility of being able to do more than sympathise with those who have seen the very worst harm social media can cause. We can do more than worry about what all this will mean for young Australians today and future generations. We can do something about it. We can change the law. We can help drive a change in attitude, culture and behaviour across our country. We can drive a change in the schoolyards and around kitchen tables, and that's the opportunity before us.

When the communications minister and I did a press conference in the Prime Minister's courtyard a couple of weeks ago, one of the questions from the media was, 'How will young people engage if they can't do it online and set up a Facebook group to campaign,' and everything else. I spoke about my own experience as a very young man with my first political campaign on the Sydney City Council, whose housing my mum was born in; she died in the same house 65 years later. Conservatives got control and wanted to flog it off because they didn't believe in social housing. It's something that's still there, apparently. We ran a campaign. We didn't do it online; we went and talked to people. We knocked on doors, we collected petitions and we engaged to mobilise the community. That's what you can do. That's what people can do in the whole sphere of public space: engage with each other, learn to communicate, learn to engage in a positive and constructive way, convince people about your point of view, or just chat about what you did on the weekend.

I remember watching a Modern Family episode where they were all sitting around the kitchen table and texting each other instead of talking. This is an issue for our society. As public officeholders we need to speak about the public space and the impact that these things have. When it comes to young people we've got a particular responsibility, and that's the opportunity before us. Let's seize it. Let's give children back their childhood and let's give parents new peace of mind. Let's work together to pass this legislation through the House of Representatives and the Senate this week. It will be something that we can be very proud of.

Debate adjourned.