Well, thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. For several years now, Australians have been increasingly concerned about the impact of the online world on the welfare of children and on the cohesiveness of our society. A movement for change, begun and led by brave parents who saw their children's lives taken by cruel and highly addictive social media, created a remarkable period of bipartisanship that put Australia in the fore...
Well, thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. For several years now, Australians have been increasingly concerned about the impact of the online world on the welfare of children and on the cohesiveness of our society. A movement for change, begun and led by brave parents who saw their children's lives taken by cruel and highly addictive social media, created a remarkable period of bipartisanship that put Australia in the forefront of global movements to bring about online safety. It enabled the government of Malcolm Turnbull to create the world's first online safety watchdog, the Children's Safety Commissioner, whose remit was later extended to adults. Then, in 2024, the parliament came together again and legislated a minimum age for social media. We did it for Rob Evans and Liv, Emma Mason and Tilly, Mia Bannister and Ollie, Wayne Holdsworth and Mac. And for every young person who has lost their life or been damaged by the experience of social media and the online world. And we did it for their parents. So all children and adolescents would be protected from unnecessary harm. And it has had positive impacts on the welfare and happiness of our children and adolescents. Five million underage social media accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted. And surveys have found that many young Australians are now spending more time playing sport, getting more sleep, being less exposed to inappropriate and violent content, and suffering less from bullying. Despite the fact there are still too many under 16s using social media, it was a highly promising start and it attracted global attention, respect and support, which is why it is being replicated right around the world. It demonstrates that Australia can lead the world on truly important issues. Its failure to achieve even greater success can be put down to one overriding cause - non compliance by the online platform, some of whom have evaded their responsibilities under the law. We strengthened the compliance requirements recently through the online safety amendment, strengthening enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2026. And empowered by this, the eSafety Commissioner is currently investigating non compliance by five platforms - Instagram, Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat. Too many children, though, are still at risk and are still being harmed. There is a growing body of research pointing to the reality that as a result of the deliberate design of its algorithmic features, social media is changing our society in harmful ways. Turbocharging anger to the detriment of our social cohesion and our democracy. It is promoting misogyny. Building an aggressive and sometimes frightening manosphere and driving a wedge between men and women, leading to an increase in gender based violence. Algorithms discourage nuance. They deliver increasing levels of anger and angry content into the devices. At its most extreme, this is contributing to the normalisation of aggressive behaviour. The negative consequences are being felt by everyone, not just politicians, but also by nurses, doctors, ambos, teachers, shop workers, hospitality workers, in fact, people from all industries and all walks of life. It is affecting all of us in ways that are becoming increasingly negative and unpleasant. The problem has gone on for far too long. The nation's security and police leaders have warned us that the level of potential danger is increasing. ASIO Chief Mike Burgess warned that, to quote him, ‘social media is promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, exacerbating polarisation and creating a permissive environment for violence’. And AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett has said that the National Security Investigations Team is charging almost one individual every week for targeting Commonwealth Parliamentarians and public officials. The AFP, she said, is recording growing volumes of online abuse, threatening rhetoric and intimidation. This level of harm might must be addressed and must be reduced. The onus is not on children or parents to act, it is on the companies to act to ensure their services are safe. It is doing harm to our kids and to our society and we must call time on it. We have given the tech companies years to address these serious problems caused by their products, but they have failed to do so repeatedly. By not meeting their social responsibility properly, the companies have been undermining their social licence. The time is up. Their social licence must now be expressed through legislation. And these technical companies, run largely outside of Australia, can make a difference. I recently met with Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. The new Apple phone has features on it designed to protect children and designed to empower parents to act more decisively in the interests of their families. So, it is possible for companies to act responsibly. But the truth is that we have a responsibility as well to act. And this is the moment for this Parliament to act to make the social media and the online world safer. To pass the Government's Digital Duty of Care Bill and by doing so, require tech companies to take responsibility for the safety of the products and services they provide that have made them hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars of profit. This bill puts a positive obligation on Big Tech to provide a safe online environment where Australians are protected from seriously harmful and illegal content, adults are given a meaningful choice about what they see on their feeds, and under 18s are protected from content and features harmful to young people. It will set safety standards for the digital services we use every day, just like we do for motor cars and food and children's toys. If we can do it for all of those products, why is it hard for us to do it for something that has a much greater and regular impact on families? It will require companies to undertake risk assessments of their services, put systems in place to address their risky features from doing harm, and provide people over 16 with empowerment tools that give them choice about what they see in their feed. Crucially, online services like social media, online games and AI chatbots must protect under 18s from harmful content that promotes eating disorders and hostile ideas towards women and gender equality, pornography, material that glorifies crime or dangerous stunts, content that causes serious distress, including abuse and bullying. The bill will also protect under 18 from addictive features that cause kids to stay up late and lose sleep. It will ban nudify apps which cause so much distress and harm to young people. Our children simply should not have to live in this poisonous and unhealthy environment. They deserve better. Their childhood should not be spent glued to a device. They should be playing outside with their friends. Off their phones and on the footy fields and cricket fields, the tennis and netball courts, in the swimming pool, trying any sport that grabs their interest. Reading books, engaging with human interaction with real people. The stories we hear about people identifying a chatbot, a non person as their best friend should be a huge wake up call for every member of this Parliament to be prepared to act. Young people need to be able to figure out who they are free from the pressure of the entire world to act in a certain way. The bill will also protect all Australians, including adults, from material that promotes child sexual exploitation or child sex abuse, grooming, sexual violence, extreme violence or cruelty, the menacing or harassing of individuals and the encouragement of terrorist acts. Importantly, it will halve the length of time that digital service providers have to respond to cyberbullying complaints from 48 to 24 hours. And it will empower eSafety to go undercover to make sure that companies are complying with the law. Failure to comply with this Digital Duty of Care will result in a fine of up to $109.2 million, which is in line with other Australian penalties designed to protect Australian consumers. Speaker let me be clear. Under the Digital Duty of Care, online services will be required to have systems in place to protect all Australians, including Commonwealth officials, from death threats, threats of rape, threats of violence, terrorism and material conduct that can cause serious harm by menacing or harassing an individual. Now, some have suggested this is about censorship. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is not about preventing mean comments or political debate. It is about preventing serious harm. It is not about controlling what adults do online, it's about giving people back power and choice. Rather than someone in the United States deciding what they see, they get to decide themselves. That is what this legislation is about. It is about increasing choice because it will require platforms to give us more choice over the content and the features that we use, including the feeds that we choose. I urge the Parliament to support this bill. This bill, if we carry it, will be replicated around the world just like the bill banning under 16s from social media has done. This is an opportunity for our country to lead and lead we should. At its core, the legislation brings together 17 existing industry made codes into a single overarching legislative framework in a way that makes them easy to understand and enforce. The complex and contradictory nature of these codes has made them difficult to enforce and easy to evade. It makes them a lawyer's picnic. Put the power back in the hands of our constituents and away from the multinational companies and the tech giants - that is what this is about. The evasion has gone on too long. This bill will put an end to this subterfuge and will help to keep our people safe. The bill, in essence, is a much needed but moderate and common sense response to a problem that is becoming more serious with every passing day. A response to a rising chorus of concern across society about what social media is doing to our children, to our relationships and to our social cohesion and community behaviour. It's backed by academic experts and by our intelligence and police leaders. It's endorsed by important organisations that support the rights and welfare of children, young people and young adults. Headspace, Project Rocket, the Butterfly Foundation, Smack Talk and Teach us Consent, whose impressive young leader Chanel Contos, I met with to discuss this issue yesterday. I want to thank all of them for their advocacy. I want to thank the parents who have taken personal grief and channelled that into not wanting other parents to go through what they have gone through with the loss of their son or daughter. Ultimately, this bill is, of course, in the interest of the digital media platforms themselves and social media companies themselves, because it is the best way for them to actually retain their social licence, which is fast losing public support and avoid a potential backlash. Australian parents and the Australian people want the measures in this bill passed. And I say to everyone in the House and the Senate, please examine your conscience. Please examine what is in this bill. Please do not be distracted by what is not in this bill as well. This is sensible reform. And I commend it to the House.
Speech Brief