Transcription
Significant penalties: a maximum of 30,000 civil penalty units, currently equivalent to $9.9 million, or $1,150,000 penalty units, currently equivalent to $49.5 million. If the provider is a body corporate, the penalty amounts are intentionally large. This reflects the important privacy implications of the provisions. It also sends a strong signal to social media platforms to treat Australians' privacy seriously.
Now, Australia has consistently paved the way in global online safety. These supplementary amendments will strengthen the already robust and strong privacy arrangements included in the original bill. Thank you, Minister.
Senator Henderson: Thank you very much, Chair. The Coalition supports these amendments. We are pleased to say we have been involved in constructive negotiations with the government to strengthen the bill. One of the major issues we sought changes on related to privacy. This is a very important issue, and we provided the proposed changes to the government, which, of course, have now been incorporated into this amendment. We are very pleased that the government has accepted our changes, which, as I say, are reflected in the government's amendments.
The new provisions make it clear that people cannot be compelled to provide digital ID or government-issued identity documents, such as driver's licenses or passports, under this legislation. This has now, due to the hard work of the Coalition, been explicitly prohibited. There was a second important change as well regarding strengthening ministerial oversight. Following our negotiations with the government, changes will be made so that the Communications Minister will be able to make rules specifying information that social media platforms are not able to collect in order to comply with the legislation.
What this means is that this will enable the minister to make rules to ensure that guidelines issued under the legislation are appropriate and proportionate to the objectives of the law. These are both very significant changes that materially strengthen the bill, and we do, of course, thank the government for agreeing to make these changes. The Coalition has, of course, led the charge on this bill, and we know, of course, what has driven this.
Chair, what has driven this is the very profound mental health concerns that so many young people are suffering as a result of social media. We know there is widespread concern and evidence about the severe mental health impact of social media on children. We've seen very disturbing global trends in youth mental health since the rise of social media, especially for girls. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, there has been a more than three-fold increase in the rate of intentional self-harm hospitalizations for girls under 14 from 2018-19 through to 2022-23.
In recent years, there have also been very large increases in the rate of mental health issues amongst children and young people. As a 2022 independent report on self-harm commissioned by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Association noted, there have been very large increases in all intentional self-poisonings among older children and adolescents worldwide over the recent decade. We know, particularly for the parents of the children who have tragically taken their own lives, that passing this bill right now is absolutely critical.
Order! I want to just... I do have a question for you, Minister, but I just want to reflect on the bravery of parents who've spoken out about the importance of this bill. Parents like Matt and Kelly Howard, the parents of Charlotte O'Brien, with whom I met a couple of weeks ago. When I met with them, all I could say was there are no words after the tragedy that they have suffered. Charlotte took her life in September after suffering systemic bullying, in part caused by social media, and her message to her mom and dad was that she wanted them to raise awareness about what she had endured, and she wanted to see change.
I cannot tell you how humbling it is to meet with parents like Matt and Kelly and listen to their story and listen to their mission. As I say, I think it is absolutely incumbent on this Parliament to do the right thing. I want to particularly also commend both the leader of the opposition, Mr. Dutton, who has led the charge on this. I'm pleased that the government has caught up, but Mr. Dutton and the Shadow Minister for Communications, Mr. Coleman, have really led the charge on behalf of the Coalition.
We have heard the cries of families who are suffering, and we cannot continue to allow this to happen any longer. So, to the Minister: does the government believe this legislation will force the tech giants to actually use their technology to help identify and remove underage kids? We're very cognizant, of course, that TikTok removed 76 million underage children from their platform around the world. One million young Australians are here in Australia, of course. Could you just provide the confirmation in relation to that, please?
Thanks, Minister.
Minister: Thank you, Senator Henderson. I should indicate that the government has been grateful for the willingness of the opposition to constructively engage in some of the ways that we might improve this bill. We have similarly been grateful to those Senators who participated in the Senate inquiry, and many of them are here in the chamber this evening. We're grateful too for the many Australians who have spoken out about this issue, either in the context of the Senate's inquiries or in the broader public debate.
Senator Henderson, you spoke about some of the harms that you've observed in your interactions with families and with parents, and I think for many of us this is a common experience in our interactions with parents and also with teachers. Parents are deeply distressed about some of the material that their children are exposed to online. They are uncertain about how to navigate the peer pressure that children experience from their friends and peers at school and at sport to be in these social media environments, and they are looking for support from government to help them navigate these questions.
These were not questions... and I think it's safe to betray my age here... these were not questions that were relevant when I was growing up. There were other difficult questions for me to navigate as a young person, but this was not one of them. Parents, I think, are finding it very difficult. In my home state of New South Wales, the ban on mobile phones in schools has made a significant difference to the behavior of children in schools and the way that children socially are interacting at school.
It is clear that while technology has brought really significant benefits, it is also bringing non-trivial harms for children as well. We are confident that there are technological solutions available to us. Senator, you cited the example of TikTok. It's been much canvassed. That platform was able to identify, by their own public statements, a very large number of underage users on their platform and remove them. That did not require access to government documentation; it was based on information already available to that platform.
The amendment that we are presently considering is actually based on that foundational understanding of the state of the technology. It may be that in some instances social media platforms choose to offer an option to users to provide government documentation, but what this amendment ensures is that will not be the only means, the only choice offered to a potential user. What this amendment seeks to do is, in fact, ensure that on every occasion when a person is asked to engage in an age assurance process, they have a choice, and it enlivens the obligations on technology companies to utilize the technology capabilities that they already possess to undertake this work and to make sure these platforms are safe and that people are using them in an appropriate way.
Senator Renck: Sorry, did beat you, Senator Lambi. Senator Renck has the call.
Senator Renck: So, you just said that taking mobile phones off children at school has been very, very successful. The question I have is why can't you take mobile phones off children when they're at home? We take the phones off our children in the bedroom. We take them off the phone during the weekday. They're allowed to have the mobile phone or the devices on the weekend, but that's in between sporting requirements, me forcing them to take the dog for a walk, you know, the mother telling him to get out there on the trampoline, go gardening, whatever. So, I'm confused as to why we can't have some good old-fashioned parental supervision. Whatever happened to the role of the family, the role of the parents in the family?
I've been advocating for years the need to have a parent stay at home while you're raising your children, and I stayed at home for four years. I don't want to turn this into a saying women should stay at home. I've never said that because dads should stay at home more often. Indeed, I was just talking to Senator Hansen-Young yesterday. She's saying how she fought to have children in the chamber and what a great thing that is.
So, yet again, we've got another example whereby the government thinks it can solve a problem. I know Senator Henderson said before there are things like anorexia, and children are subjected to these things on the internet, and that's fair enough; they are. But these things have always been around. Kate Moss, you know, she was being criticized back in the 1990s. I mean, I will remember Karen Carpenter, who died from anorexia, I'm not sure in the late 70s or early 80s. So, we always have to deal with issues with our children, and the important thing is that they have close parental supervision so that you can detect if something's going on.
Now, the other thing is, and I've raised this before, but it's worth raising again, is that you can have software that monitors your children's activity. We do that already; we monitor our children, and it is effective because we do have a middle child that loves to get up at about 3:00 on a Sunday morning, and the only way we can bust him is to actually, you know, he sneaks that iPad into his room. He's terrible.
So, yet again, what guarantees do we have here that this is actually going to be effective? Because I think you'll find that children are very good at getting around laws. What guarantees are we going to have that this is going to stop bullying? We can't stop bullying. This won't stop bullying per se. You know what will stop bullying per se? Again, having a parent keeping a close eye on the children while they're growing up and being in touch with your children so if they are being bullied, you're aware of it.
I'll note the question raised the other day about VPNs. 33% of people in this country use VPNs, and I suspect most of that 33% are probably under 40 because most people over 40 probably wouldn't even know what a VPN is. And that's a virtual private network, and that's where, effectively, you know, the reply from the government was in estimates that, well, we're going to get the social media companies to track the person if they have a VPN through geotracking.
So here we've got, again, Big Brother surveillance coming in and watching every little thing we do. You know, every breath you take. So, you know, what is it? Every time we're down here, I feel like we're just holding the line, and we're not even doing that when it comes to government overreach and surveillance and command and control.
So, my question to you is, Minister, why is it that parents can't be encouraged to keep the devices from their children? You've just quoted an example of taking mobile phones off children in the schools, which is a good idea. Why can't that same very simple principle be applied in this situation when it comes to children having a social media account and monitoring that way?
Minister: Thanks very much, Chair, and thanks for the question, Senator Renck. Perhaps I can say this, Senator: we've been really clear, and actually many of the people participating in this debate, including the opposition leader, to be fair, have been very clear that this is not the only thing that we would advocate to support families in relation to some of these challenging questions, and nor do we expect this intervention to be a silver bullet.
However, what we do hear from parents is that this is very significant, and they are looking for assistance because they are not receiving the support that they expect should be available to them from the platforms themselves. One of the key features of the design of this bill, Senator, is that it really puts the onus on the platforms, not on the parents and not on the kids. We want platforms to simply take reasonable steps to ensure that users under the minimum age can't create or hold an account.
Now, I think based on the tenor of your questioning in your contribution just now, Senator, that you would accept the harms that are associated with excessive time online, at the very least, and it may be that you accept the harms associated with exposure to some of the more challenging features of social media. You know, in the United States, the Australian Psychological Association, for example, if you look at the evidence, found significant links between excessive social media use and poor sleep quality and poor mental health outcomes.
In particular, they pointed to the use of algorithms and the influence of those algorithms and, frankly, the near-addictive nature of some of those algorithms because they increase the likelihood of exposing young people to content that is inappropriate or negatively influential, such as glorifying eating disorders, glorifying self-harm, or exposing young people to extremist content. I think it would be a matter of agreement across this chamber that those things are not acceptable and are not good for our kids, and it's why this bill is being brought to this place.
I said to you earlier in my contribution that the onus is on the platforms, not on the parents. Just for clarity, there aren't any penalties for Australians who gain access to an age-restricted social platform, and there aren't any penalties for parents or educators who provide that access. It's impossible, and we accept this, for governments to completely stop young people from accessing harmful products or content, but we can help. We can help by asking the social media companies to play their role.
One of the things that we hear, and it was discussed, as I understand it, at the hearing that took place into this bill, is the significance of setting norms because the bill will set clear parameters and norms for our society and assist in ensuring the right outcomes.
Senator C: Sorry, Minister. Senator C is on his feet.
Senator C: The government and the opposition conspired to gag this debate tonight, and the Minister's taken up about half the time, which I think was set aside for other Senators who did not get an opportunity in the second reading debate to put some points of view. The Minister is repeatedly going over points that have been raised already in the second reading debate by government ministers and so on the grounds of repetition, Chair, and with the limited time we have, I would ask if we could be succinct and give all Senators respective opportunities to contribute to this very important debate.
I think the Minister is in order, but I'm sure the Minister is aware of the different views of the chamber.
Senator Henderson: I was going to go to Senator Lambi.
Point of order: Well, I've made a ruling on that, Senator Henderson.
Senator Lambi: Thank you. Minister, I just wanted to know what algorithm changes have you asked the social media companies to make?
Minister: Thanks for the question, Senator Lambi. As I indicated in my response to Senator Renck, we are not asserting that this bill represents all the work that is needed to engage. One of the things that Minister Roland has been very clear about is that she intends to legislate a duty of care, and that goes to some of those questions around safety by design and the way that the algorithms work, not just to affect, frankly, users under 16, but, frankly, to affect all users of platforms of this kind. That's work that she has indicated she intends to undertake.
But this is also important, Senator, and I just indicate to Senator Canavan, who made a set of points about his desire, I imagine, and his view, his expectation that other Senators wish to contribute. That's perfectly fine, and I'm happy to try and keep my remarks as brief as possible. I was just now seeking to answer the question put to me by Senator Renck. If Senators direct questions to me, I do intend to answer them. I understand that sometimes in committee stage, Senators wish to make a more general contribution, and it's fine as well.
Senator Lambi, and then I'll come to you, Senator Roberts.
Senator Lambi: So, there's no duty of care so far. This doesn't enact until 12 months, so we haven't worked out what the duty of care is. We haven't worked out what the rules are. So, what about the data? Have you told them to destroy our data as soon as they receive it, the social media companies, or you haven't actually made that rule yet either?
I was going to call the Minister.
Senator Canavan: Or do you want... Sorry, would you prefer that I don't answer the questions? I mean, it's challenging, Senator. I've been asked a question.
Minister: Senator Lambi, the bill contains really explicit requirements for the data that is collected in relation to age assurance, what it may be used for, and requirements for it to be destroyed. That is in the legislation.
Senator Lambi: Yes, but all I asked was, are the social media companies destroying that data when they have finished with it? It's a simple yes or no.
Minister: I can't direct the Minister, Senator.
Senator Hansen-Young: Please.
Minister: I can't direct the Minister as to how they can answer the question. I'll make sure the Minister is aware of the question.
I call the Minister.
Senator Lambi: Until the legislation passes, the privacy arrangements that are in the legislation are not in place. Social media companies are subject to some of Australia's privacy provisions, but the legislation actually establishes a higher standard in relation to the uses that may be made of information that is provided to these companies as part of meeting the requirements in this bill, and it also requires for the destruction of such data.
Senator C: I was going to go to Senator Roberts, and then I will go to Senator Canavan, who I did say some time ago I would go to.
Senator Roberts: Then Senator Hansen-Young. I'm just trying to make sure that it gets around the chamber. Are you seeking the call at all in relation to these amendments, or can I come to you after these other two Senators?
Senator Hansen-Young: Well, this is a time-limited debate, I know, so I'm just trying to spread the time. I will want some time.
Senator Roberts: Thank you. My remarks are directed to the Minister, but also to people listening at home and to the Senate and also to researchers and historians who will look back at this vote today in an attempt to understand what the hell the Senate was thinking.
The amendment the government circulated, no doubt with the approval of the Liberal Party, answers that question. The Online Safety Amendment Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2024 can act to force every Australian to be the subject of a digital ID in the name of keeping the children safe, and that's what my question is about, Minister.
The committee accepted widespread public concern. The bill was designed to force everyone to get a digital ID and promised to include an amendment to specifically rule that out. This government amendment SY 115 that you've moved, new provision 63 DB1, excludes the use of government-issued identification or use of a digital ID. Great! Except 63 DB2 provides that if social media platforms can come up with an alternative means of assessing age that does not involve digital ID or government documents, then they can, wait for it, accept a digital ID.
In effect, this amendment specifies a social media platform cannot use digital ID by itself, but it can use digital ID as part of a more comprehensive verification. There's no need to guess what that could be. This bill contains the answer: age assurance software. The company which has been awarded the tender for the age assurance trial is a British company called Age Check Certification Scheme, whose main business is the provision of digital IDs backed by age assurance software. TikTok has used age assurance software to remove 1 million underage accounts from TikTok in Australia.
The software can tell if a person is, for instance, under 12. That's useful. The smaller the gap between the user and the target age, 16 in this case, the less accurate it is. This software can't tell age within six months and has no way of knowing the person turned 16 on the day of their application. You just can't tell that from a face scan. Accessing social media on your 16th birthday and most likely for months afterwards will require a second identifier containing that child's facial scan and their date of birth, which is a digital ID, which this company specializes in.
You're setting them up. I have criticized this bill as an opportunistic attempt to capitalize on the public desire for better regulation of social media to force all Australians to get a digital ID. I'll say that again: I've criticized this bill repeatedly, as have others, as an opportunistic attempt to capitalize on the public desire for better regulation of social media to force all Australians to get a digital ID.
This amendment requires a change in my language, which is now this bill is an opportunistic attempt to require every child, once they turn 16, to get a digital ID if they want to access social media. What age does the government's digital ID start from? 16. What a coincidence! This wasn't the intention all along. That's misinformation. This amendment actually exposes the original intention of the bill. Your amendment exposes the original intention of the bill, which was hidden in what looked like a poorly drafted bill. It wasn't poorly drafted; it was deliberately dishonest.
The short committee referral, which the government fought against, has exposed the deceit. The truth is now out there, and the decision before the Senate is a simple one: a vote for this bill is a vote to require every child to get a digital ID on their 16th birthday. Compulsory digital IDs aside, there are many other reasons to not pass this bill. I will now share with the Senate and with posterity the words of Australia's Human Rights Commission on the bill. One Nation fully supports the Commission's position, which deserves to be included in the Hansard record of the debate.
I'll quote: "Social media is a vital platform for young children and young people to share their ideas and opinions, engage in dialogue, and participate in social and cultural activities. It can be a valuable educational tool by providing access to diverse perspectives, new learning opportunities, as well as vital information about health, well-being, and safety. A blanket ban risks unjustly curtailing these freedoms. Social media is integral to modern communication and socialization. Excluding young people from these platforms may isolate them from their peers and limit their ability to access much-needed information and support.
The social media ban will rely on effective age assurance processes. This is their words: the social media ban will rely on effective age assurance processes being adopted, which means that all Australians may be required to prove their identity in order to access social media. This may potentially require all Australians to provide social media companies with sensitive identity information, which poses a risk to their privacy rights in light of recent examples of data breaches and personal information being stolen.
Technical workarounds, such as VPNs and false age declarations, may undermine the effectiveness of the ban. Additionally, a ban will not address the root cause of online risk or make the platform safer for everyone." End of quote.
The workarounds to this measure have not received enough debate. The bill carves out gaming sites, many of which have a chat feature. Children will move over to chat rooms and gaming sites, which are not supervised. Onion routing will provide another avenue for communication, which is designed to make supervision exponentially harder than mainstream social media platforms. I have advice from a leading internet security company that peer-to-peer social media is making a comeback, which again is harder for parents to supervise than current social media platforms.
As a result of this legislation, children will be exposed to more harm, not less. I had a call from a constituent. It's not often Senator Hansen-Young tells me I'm right. I had a call from a constituent a moment ago who called their local Liberal Member of Parliament about this bill and was told, "Oh, it's okay. You can just sign up for your children with age assurance software." That will not work with digital ID connected to age assurance software. The social media platform will know what you're doing. Don't be telling people it's nothing. You can defeat it. You can still talk to Granddad on Facebook. You won't be able to. Children may be able to use VPNs, virtual private networks, and the new PPN, personal private networks, to appear to be in another country. That really won't work either.
The keystroke logging that accompanies the age assurance software will assume someone pretending to be in Canada but interacting with Australian accounts is probably using a VPN. Minister, why did you say that this won't lead to digital ID, but your amendment says exactly that?
Minister: Thanks, Chair. I appreciate the many pieces of advice I've had about how I might answer questions, but I'll answer the questions in the way that I think is most appropriate to give Australians the information that I think is necessary in relation to the bill. So, thanks for all of the free advice, but I'll just answer the questions.
Senator Roberts, I think foundationally misunderstands the amendment that's before him. The amendment specifically seeks to set up the circumstances where a platform may not require a person to provide a government form of identification, including identification within the meaning of section 9 of the Digital ID Act, as the only means of assuring age. The platforms must provide another opportunity, and it's to deal with the concern you raised and others have raised, Senator, which is that you do not believe that it ought to be compulsory for such material to be provided for the purposes of age assurance. That is precisely what the amendment before you seeks to do.
Senator Canavan: Thank you very much, Chair. Well, look, I think from the debate, it's very clear that we are not sure yet whether this hasty, blunt attempt will do anything to reduce the social harms to children of social media. But what we do know for sure is that we have successfully disillusioned a whole generation of Australians with Australian politics. A whole generation of Australians have watched this saga, this sordid saga, over the past week play out and be completely disillusioned with their democratic process that they should have an involvement in, that we've completely denied them their voice.
I mean, maybe we've scheduled the debate for 10:30 p.m. on the last day of school because we know that all the people in that will be impacted by this ban will be in bed. It's past their bedtime; they can't even watch it. They haven't been able to have a process through the Senate inquiry. We had 15,000 submissions in 24 hours, and we had an inquiry of three hours the day after, and nobody, of course, could read anything but a fraction of those submissions. Only a few of them were published on the website before the report. This is an absolute outrage and a stitch-up of grand proportions, and I don't think it's going to work.
I don't have time tonight because I want to let other Senators speak. I don't think it is going to work. I know that this stitch-up is in, so I am going to try and make the bill better. I am going to try and fix the issue that Senator Roberts logically pointed out: why are we letting digital ID be a means of identification at all? It's not used at the moment at all, really. It's not in widespread use. So why don't we just rule that out right now? If it's something that comes into use in years to come, we can always change the law. There's a review built into this law in two years' time; we can do it then.
If we were serious about responding to the concerns about digital ID, let's just get rid of it, and my amendment would do that. I also think, why is it that we've got this bill that seeks to... we think we say the Minister says to help parents, and the word "parent" is not mentioned at all in the bill? There's not a single mention of the word "parent" in this bill. Why? Why aren't we helping parents rather than trying to replace them? That's what this bill tries to do. It tries to set up a nanny state where we think here in Canberra that we can pass this law and, "Oh, look how great we are! Pat ourselves on the back; we've saved the world," when it won't do that, and it won't help at all.
Parents use their own agency, their own interaction with their children, to use social media responsibly. So I have an amendment which would allow some children to continue to use social media with parental approval. It's based on the law in Florida that's just gone through. Our inquiry barely looked at that law. It went through after an actual process. It got vetoed by the governor in the first instance; it went back to the Congress in Florida, and they've improved it. That's the way a democracy should work. But we've just completely rode roughshod over that through this hasty process, this truncated process this week.
I have another amendment that would seek to narrow the definition here. There's a ridiculous definition in this bill which captures basically any app that enables interaction between two or more people, which is basically everything you do on the internet. It's going to cover apps like Strava, you know, for bike riding. It's going to cover apps like Deputy that are used for people who work. 14-year-olds can get a job, but they can't have social media, apparently.
Now, I know the Minister's going to say that, "Oh, we'll exempt them, and we'll do all this," but why create this uncertainty when, again, the Florida law has a much more targeted definition which focuses the law on apps which cause social harm? That's what we should be focused on here.
Now, I don't have the time to go through the others in detail. I want to let other Senators have their turn, but I do come back to the point that a whole generation has been activated by this process. There is a silver lining here, perhaps. Right now, a guy called Mr. Anthony Kouf is running a live stream of our broadcast here. He has 38,000 people watching. The official YouTube channel of Parliament has 800. He's got 38,000 young people who are absolutely pissed off with this Parliament right now watching. They are totally angry, and those people are going to grow up, and they're going to keep voting. I think there's going to be a lot of change coming to our Parliament in the years to come if we keep ignoring those people like we are tonight.
Senator Hansen-Young: What a sham this is! This is a piece of legislation that does not do what the government or the opposition propose that it does. It doesn't make social media safer; it doesn't make children and young people safer online. It's a sham. But the whole process has been a sham: rushed through, limited inquiry, three hours of inquiry, no ability for the bureaucrats to actually answer questions properly, all under the guise that this was urgent and needed to be done. But it doesn't even take place for another 12 months.
I tell you what this is about: this is about the pretense that parents over the summer holidays can tell their kids, "It's illegal to be on your phone. It's illegal to be on social media. Get off it." The Prime Minister says it; the Leader of the Opposition says it; the Parliament says it: "It's illegal, kids. Not my fault. I'll take it away." It doesn't actually make social media safer for young people, and that's the devastating thing about this because we know that there are families who are struggling with this. We know there are young people who are struggling with their body image, their connection with their community, their peers, young people who are finding themselves addicted to these dangerous algorithms.
But this bill doesn't do any of that. This bill does none of that. All this bill does is give the government and Peter Dutton the illusion, the fig leaf, to pretend that they've given parents some certainty that they can say, "Look, kids, it's illegal." This is a rubbish bill. It has no substance, and it doesn't even take place for another 12 months. This bill is so weak; it's such a veneer. It's to make old people, oldies, adults feel like they've done something. It's a false sense of security.
It's also obvious that the people who have drafted and fought for the particular elements of this bill actually have no idea how young people engage with the internet. Absolutely no idea. I mean, it's almost embarrassing. I mean, this is Boomers trying to tell young people how the internet should work. That's what this bill is: Boomers trying to tell teenagers and young people how the internet should work to make themselves feel better.
We've got Australian artists in this country who have only been discovered because young people have found them on YouTube, have engaged with their music, their creativity. This is going to put an axe through Australian creatives. The government hasn't even thought about that. The opposition leader hasn't even thought about that. The consequences of this bill are going to reach far further than this government and this Parliament has been able to uncover. It is being rushed through; it hasn't been considered properly; it's not even going to take place for 12 months.
There is no excuse for doing it in this way except for the desperation that the Prime Minister had to match the dare that the Leader of the Opposition put, which was to get it in place before Christmas. That's pathetic. It's a headline. It doesn't do what they say it will do. It creates a more unsafe culture and platform environment and will have unintended consequences.
I can't fathom who in either the Leader of the Opposition's office, who's advising him, and who is advising the government to understand that this was a good idea to rush through. The Leader of the Opposition called the Prime Minister's bluff, and he blinked. Silly, silly, silly. This is a piece of legislation that says Boomers want to control what young people access online. They don't even know how it works. It's pathetic.
Senator Antic: We are running out of time, which is the most regrettable part of this entire situation. I mean, we all of us here had a lot to say about this bill because it's so complicated. One of the issues we've got is that this required a deep form look, and we actually got this bill introduced into the House, I think, this time last week, Thursday of last week. It was then put through to a committee hearing on the Monday, and then the report was delivered two days ago, and here we are, which is an extraordinary sequence of events for something that is highly complicated.
We've just heard Senator Hansen-Young quite rightly say that we don't know what the long-term effect of all of these on various platforms is. We don't know because it keeps evolving. This time last week, we were told Snapchat was in, was out, and YouTube was in in terms of the ban. So, I mean, how far we've come in a week. You know, it's extraordinary.
And I mean, look, we all hear the stories about bullying. We all hear and have a lot of concern about those. We don't want to discount those concerns by any stretch, but we are in the process in this chamber today, tonight, of throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater because we've heard the Human Rights Commission; we've heard commentators and others from across the country tell us about the thing that we're not talking about, which is the value of social media to kids.
Commissioner Finlay from the Human Rights Commission wrote an article in the paper this week stating very clearly and very correctly that, in fact, there are lots of instances where children benefit greatly from social media, including but not limited to instances of social isolation, the tyranny of distance, and sometimes even with learning difficulties and so forth. So this just has not been considered enough, and the fact that we're standing here now rushing with 10 minutes to go when we couldn't, many of us couldn't even make proper contributions to a second reading debate is a disgrace.
So we cannot... and Senator Canavan's absolutely right with what does this message say to the children of this country when we have spent all day talking about ourselves in this building, by the way, as we do all the time, and we've crammed this critical legislation into making Senators juggle between ministerial answers, which are being filibustered? I mean, this is just not the way to conduct a democracy, and I think we're much the poorer for it.
So I'm going to cut to the chase because I think we still do have other Senators. I think we do. Look, let's be very clear about this: we don't know if this is going to work, and we don't know if it will have any impact on the problem they're trying to solve here. If you want to see some of the most egregious abuse you'll ever see online, go online to a Call of Duty game and listen to the kids going at each other, talking about people. It's exempt, quite right; it's exempt.
So who's thought of that one, Minister? Who's taken that into account, and who ultimately is going to take responsibility when this goes the way of the Hindenburg, which it will, because it is a disaster waiting to happen? The Prime Minister and the Minister of Communications have boasted that the passing of this bill will make Australia a world leader in online safety. Well, they're wrong because if this bill passes, we won't be leading the world in online safety; we'll be leading ourselves and those naive enough to follow us down the road to further digital authoritarianism, as outlined by Senator Roberts today.
My fear is that when we finish tonight, we will have put another brick in the wall of a social credit-style system in this country, and let everybody look back on tonight as a night of shame.
Senator B: You have the call. Please put the microphone on.
Senator B: Thank you. At the end of the day, like I was saying, the most important thing that we should all be thinking about and talking about in here is to affirm that parental responsibility rests in the hands of parents, not in the federal government. I would have thought that was a very simple statement, but apparently it's not. Apparently, the government has to be our daddy now, and I think it's absolutely ridiculous.
The fact that the Labor Party, along with the Liberal Party, have come together to take away parental rights and responsibility, in my opinion, is shameful. It's shameful. The fact that we are now in a position in this country where the government is so big, so unwieldy, so, in my opinion, authoritarian-leaning, that it's making decisions for parents is just wrong.
We didn't even get a chance to properly debate this bill. We didn't even get a chance. Not even a chance. Look, moms and dads are the best people to raise their children as they see fit. It's their right; it's their responsibility. The government's determination to do the job of parents by this blanket ban of under-16s undermines the primacy of these parents.
Like I said before, it's not the state's role to go around telling 16-year-olds and under what they can and can't do. Can you have friends on TikTok? No, the government's going to decide for you. Can you see your family photos on Instagram? The government's going to decide that for you. Can you get the news off Elon Musk's X platform? The government's going to decide that for you. It's wrong. It's wrong. Decisions are for parents.
It's an intrusion of the state. For that reason, obviously, I'm not going to support this bill. I don't agree with it at all, at all. And like Senator Antic mentioned before, it is another brick in the wall of an authoritarian digital tyranny that most people can't even see is being built around them right now.
In my opinion, this bill's got nothing to do with kids. Like Senator Canavan said, "Parent" doesn't even appear in the bill at all, at all. It's about building that digital prison. It's about age verification for everybody, for everybody in the country. Now, we all know, whether the Minister will admit it or not, that digital ID is the foundation of a coming social credit-type system combined with digital currency in the future.
You are enabling a system right now where the government will be able to control every single facet of your life and what you do online. We are slowly, slowly creeping towards this totalitarian state, very, very slowly creeping towards it, but it is happening. It is happening.
At the end of the day, you know, this bill is obviously ill-conceived. We're spending money on this; we're going to spend time on this. It is going to be a failure of a bill. If you really wanted to protect kids, if you wanted to protect them, what you would say is, "Let's put some programs together where we can help parents, where we can teach parents, empower parents to make better decisions for their own children."
Because at the end of the day, parental responsibility rests with parents, not with the government. Even though you've all come together, or most of you have come together to rush this bill through, I want the record to show, I want history to show that Senator Ralph Bied from the United Australia Party was against this bill, and he'll vote against it.
Senator C: Can I have some order, please?
Senator C: Thank you, Deputy President. I seek leave to move a motion to vary the membership of committees. Is leave granted?
Leave is granted.
Senator C: Thank you. I move that Senators be discharged from and appointed to committees as set out in the document available in the chamber and listed on the dynamic red. I put the question.