Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Emergency Management) Share this | Hansard source

No. I suppose I could sit down; perhaps I'll just say: no, that is not accurate. We are obviously engaged in an important policy reform process to protect children from some of the harms that they are exposed to on social media. I would be really surprised, Senator Roberts, if you hadn't heard about this amongst the people that you talk to in your constituency. I think every senator in this place has had a conversation with a parent or perhaps with a teacher who was concerned about the kind of information that children are seeing online and accessing online and the inability of parents to actually engage and protect their children from some of those harms.

We want Australian parents to know that we've got their backs. That is the underlying motivation for embarking on the reform. It's, of course, about protecting kids. We still want them to be connected. We don't want to punish children. We don't want to isolate them. But we do want them to operate in an environment that is safe, and that's the reason that we have committed to bringing forward legislation for a minimum age limit for social media this fortnight. We have worked with a pretty wide range of stakeholders, and we're very grateful for the support that we've received in doing this work. Obviously, the National Cabinet has taken a very strong interest in this, and first ministers in that forum have agreed that the Commonwealth will legislate a minimum age of 16.

I think one of the implications of your question and the way that you framed it was a concern around privacy, and that's a legitimate question to ask. We will not put at risk the personal information of Australians, and the regulations will include robust privacy protections for personal information with significant penalties for platforms that breach— (Time expired)