Fatima Payman (WA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian government are trying to regulate an internet that they do not understand. The most obvious evidence of this was a line from Minister Rowland's speech at the Sydney Institute last week. The minister in a speech no doubt pored over by her sage advisers said, 'In 1985, Bill Gates brought us the Microsoft operating system.' For the benefit of those not as learned as Minister Rowland, Microsoft is the company; Windows is the operating system. The government's proposal to outlaw social media for kids under 16 is the legislative equivalent of this ill-considered speech.

The government has two options when it comes to age verification and assurance. The first option, verification using biometrics like face scanning, will make the ban a joke. The only effect of this version of the ban will be to create a new household phrase: 'Mum, can I scan your face?' The other option is to use ID to verify age. This will require every Australian on almost every social media platform to provide ID, which will need to be stored for an unknown period idea of time. In an age of unceasing data breaches, we need to store less personal information online, not more. Remember Optus and Medibank? How will the government stop kids using VPNs to access social media? If the minister is listening, that stands for 'virtual private network'.

Restricting the internet is an old fascination for Labor. Recall the Rudd government, when that reconstructed grouper, Stephen Conroy, pushed to filter internet content deemed offensive. The idea would have had the government dictate what you could and could not see but was abandoned in 2012. Once the government sees how comprehensively skirted their social media ban is by young Australians, legislation will meet— (Time expired)