WAYNE HOLDSWORTH, SUICIDE REVENTION ADVOCATE: Our son Mac took his life at 17 partly because he was sexually extorted online. We are the first country in the world to have gone down this track, and now 20 have followed.
JACOB GREBER, POLITICAL EDITOR: Now six months old, Australia’s social media ban is getting fresh scrutiny.
WAYNE HOLDSWORTH: When I was growing up in the ‘70s in Victoria, we were one of the very first states to introduce compulsory seatbelts. They weren’t retractable, they were loose fitting. Now, they’re retractable, and in front and back seats. This legislation will be the same, it will be a moving feast, it will get better, and better.
JACOB GREBER: Since December, some of the world’s biggest social media companies with platforms like TikTok, Facebook and YouTube have been legally required to take ‘reasonable steps’ to block access for under-16-year-olds.
ANIKA WELLS, COMMUNICATIONS MINISTER: Early research shows 30 per cent of kids are playing more sport, 27 per cent of kids are getting better sleep, online bullying is down, and children are receiving access to less inappropriate content online.
JACOB GREBER: That’s the good news.
More concerning – according to a study of young people by the University of Newcastle in the months following the ban – is that there’s still a long way to go.
Some 86 per cent of under-16s reported accessing at least one social media platform.
Up to 19 per cent said they’re using a fake account. While a majority of young people were still using their own accounts.
DR COURTNEY BARNES, UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE: From our findings, I think we can see that the reasonable steps need to be more rigorous in order for adolescents to be prevented from accessing those platforms.
ANIKA WELLS: Just today I heard of a 13-year-old who opened a new social media account and wasn’t even asked her age. It is simply not good enough, it is big tech using classic big tech tactics, doing the bare minimum, and thinking that they are above domestic law.
JACOB GREBER: The government today introduced legislation that would double the fines on big tech companies to as much as $99 million.
And grant the eSafety Commissioner new powers to force tech giants to produce documents, rather than just relying on data provided by those companies.
ANIKA WELLS: These companies want these laws to fail. We are also up against a very determined campaign by big tech to throw as much doubt across this as possible to dissuade other countries.
JANE HUME, DEPUTY OPPOSITION LEADER: The legislation was clearly undercooked in the first place. The eSafety Commissioner wasn’t given the powers to be able to pursue these big tech companies, so of course the social media ban wasn’t working. Let’s face it, it was announced in a rush with a flurry.
JACOB GREBER: The government’s decision to toughen its world-leading laws reflects growing confidence that it’s on the right track.
The original legislation was passed last year at a time when critics were warning Australia might be going too far and could trigger an exodus of tech companies.
There was also concern the Trump administration would retaliate for a regulatory hit on America’s tech darlings.
Not only have those risks failed to eventuate, but Australia is also now at the vanguard of a global movement.
COURTNEY BARNES: What was most surprising for us was just the sheer proportion of adolescents that were still reporting use of those restricted platforms, and that the majority of those were really doing it through their own account, so they weren’t having to really employ complex mechanisms or methods to circumvent or go around those restrictions.
JACOB GREBER: Courtney Barnes is a research fellow at the University of Newcastle. She says young people have had little trouble skirting the ban.
COURTNEY BARNES: Some adolescents did report more, I guess, rigorous methods, such as having to upload a digital ID or using facial recognition software, so those platforms obviously do have that capability, but that wasn’t highly reported from adolescents within our cohort.
JACOB GREBER: The government’s social media push – which has near-universal political support – stands in contrast to its reluctance to meet crossbench demands for more stringent gambling ad bans.
Anika Wells indicated that planned changes to be introduced into parliament this week will be minor.
MONIQUE RYAN, INDEPENDENT MP: The reality is that this is a milksop, and that the government has folded. It listened more to the gambling industry, to sports broadcasters and to the sponsors than it has to what Australians want.
JACOB GREBER: For now, the government is staring down the crossbench, betting that it has regained political momentum after nearly two months of hard-fought debate over the budget.
Two polls on Monday showed Labor is once again the nation’s most popular party, ahead of One Nation.
For the Liberal Party, its decline has only worsened under Angus Taylor’s watch.
JIM CHALMERS, TREASURER: On his watch the Liberal Party is circling the drain.
JACOB GREBER: Support for the party is now as low as 17 per cent – approaching the kind of levels the Greens command which has inevitably produced yet another round of anguished self-reflection.
MELISSA MCINTOSH, LIBERAL FRONTBENCHER: I think it’s time for the Liberal Party to rebrand itself. Some people think that we’re stuck in the past and our policies need to resonate with the Australia of today.
JACOB GREBER: And leadership chatter.
JANE HUME: I think Angus Taylor has prosecuted against this terrible Labor budget exceptionally well. He really has led the charge in that debate, even if others potentially have got some of the credit.
INTERVIEWER: Should he get all the way to the next election?
JANE HUME: Oh, absolutely.
JACOB GREBER: Meanwhile, after months of ever rising poll support One Nation has slipped from its recent peak.
Offering the Liberals the slightest whiff of hope.
ANDREW HASTIE, LIBERAL FRONTBENCHER: I don’t have a bone to pick with One Nation voters. I want them in our column.
JACOB GREBER: Pauline Hanson drawing the ire of Australian movie great Paul Hogan after holding him up as an exemplar of Australian monoculture.
PAULINE HANSON, ONE NATION LEADER: Bring back Paul Hogan and Norman Gunston. These are the essential features of Australian monoculture, and there’s nothing remotely exclusionary about them.
SARAH HANSON-YOUNG, GREENS SENATOR: Paul Hogan was right. Pauline Hanson is a pelican, except that might be a bit offensive to Mr Perceval.
ANDREW HASTIE: She mentioned Norman Gunston and Paul Hogan, well that’s throwing back to the ’80s. Are we going to watch re-runs of Neighbours with Toadfish and Harold Bishop?
