Rowland introduces social media age ban legislation to parliament
The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, is introducing the social media age limit legislation before parliament right now. She has told the chamber:
The Online Safety Amendment Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2024 will amend the Online Safety Act 2021 by introducing a minimum age of 16 to have an account on age restricted social media platforms, protecting young Australians at a critical stage of their development.
The bill puts the onus on social media platforms, not parents or young people to take reasonable steps to ensure fundamental protections are in place.
This is about protecting young people, not punishing or isolating them, and letting parents know we’re in their corner when it comes to supporting their children’s health and wellbeing.
She said this was “one step among many” the government will be taking to keep young people safe online.
Key events
Albanese says ‘no place for antisemitism in Australia’ after vandalism overnight
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has issued a statement after up to a dozen cars have been graffitied with anti-Israel messages in Woollahra, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
I have seen the images of last night’s act of antisemitism in Sydney. These are disturbing scenes and deeply troubling to all Australians.
There is no place for antisemitism in Australia. Conflict overseas cannot be made a platform for prejudice at home.
I have trust in our law enforcement agencies to deal with this.
The prime minister arrived back in Australia this morning, after attending the Apec and G20 summit’s overseas.
Wrapping up her remarks, Michelle Rowland said the government would ensure young Australians “retain access to services that primarily provide education and health services”.
[We will] work constructively with stakeholders to ensure that only services that meet the strict criteria under eSafety’s powers are able to be accessed by children under 16 years.
This bill seeks to set a new normative value in society, that accessing social media is not the defining feature of growing up in Australia.
Continuing to speak in parliament, Michelle Rowland has been speaking about the exclusion of messaging apps and online gaming from the legislation:
We are not saying that risks don’t exist on messenger apps or online gaming. While users can still be exposed to harmful content by other users, they do not face the same algorithmic curation of content and psychological manipulation to encourage near endless engagement.
Further, the inclusion of messaging apps could have wider consequences, such as making communication within families harder.
Rowland said online games are currently regulated under the National Classification Scheme, and “imposing additional age based regulation for online games [would] create unnecessary regulatory overlap”.
This categorical rule making power is expected to deem out-of-scope services such as Facebook Messenger … and WhatsApp. The rule will provide for an out-of-scope status to also be applied to services like … Google Classroom, YouTube and other apps that can be shown to function like social media in their interactivity, but operate with a significant [education tool for] young people.
Rowland introduces social media age ban legislation to parliament
The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, is introducing the social media age limit legislation before parliament right now. She has told the chamber:
The Online Safety Amendment Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2024 will amend the Online Safety Act 2021 by introducing a minimum age of 16 to have an account on age restricted social media platforms, protecting young Australians at a critical stage of their development.
The bill puts the onus on social media platforms, not parents or young people to take reasonable steps to ensure fundamental protections are in place.
This is about protecting young people, not punishing or isolating them, and letting parents know we’re in their corner when it comes to supporting their children’s health and wellbeing.
She said this was “one step among many” the government will be taking to keep young people safe online.
Tanya Plibersek says youth mental health ‘dramatically worsened’ since introduction of social media
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, is speaking to Sky News ahead of legislation on a social media age limit of 16 being introduced today. She told the program:
We’ve seen that youth mental health has dramatically worsened since this online world became the prominent way of [talking to one another].
Plibersek said there is a “very directly observable benefit by seeing kids online less”, and that the government would seek to preserve specific apps for children, such as Kids Helpline and educational, age-appropriate sites.
Josh Butler had the latest details on the legislation earlier in the blog, here.
Just circling back to news that up to a dozen cars have been graffitied with anti-Israel messages in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra (see earlier post).
Images show that the letters “PKK” were also graffitied on several of the vehicles, not far from the Turkish consulate.
The PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ party) has been fighting for autonomy in south-east Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and the country’s western allies.
Pocock welcomes Future Fund announcement
David Pocock welcomed the changes announced to the Future Fund overnight and said “it’s there to invest in our future [and] I think these are assets that are definitely part of the future”.
The $230bn sovereign wealth fund will be retooled to help build houses, improve infrastructure and combat global heating under a new investment mandate, as Paul Karp reports:
Pocock told the program that “providing guidance about what they invest in is a good thing.”
I don’t think the Future Fund should be investing in things like fossil fuels, we know that we have to transition away from fossil fuels. Despite that, we’ve got a few big companies here in Australia – Woodside, Santos – that are betting on inaction, and the Future Fund has been investing in them and I don’t think that aligns with what Australians want for our future.
We know that we have to get serious about things like climate change and that takes a government saying, these are the parameters for your investments, these are the things that are important.
Pocock weighs in on social media ban for under-16s as legislation set to be introduced today
Independent senator David Pocock was on ABC News Breakfast earlier, asked about the proposed ban for under-16s from social media, set to go before parliament today.
He said he hasn’t seen the details of the legislation but, in principle, supports the need to do something – but is “very concerned that this approach is not going to work unless we have a much broader ecosystem approach to how we are dealing with social media.”
Very worryingly, I’m hearing the major parties will potentially try and get this through parliament in the next week. We’ve got to be looking at the details of how is this going to work, what will it mean?
My broader concern is that we’re not seeing [plans] from the government to actually ensure that social media companies are showing us, what are they doing with their algorithm? Why are they making products that are so addictive … that’s clearly harming young people’s mental health?
Pocock said he would wait to see the details of the legislation and “then engage in good faith”.
Cars and unit complex vandalised with anti-Israel graffiti in Sydney
Politicians have reacted with outrage after up to a dozen cars have been graffitied with anti-Israel messages in Woollahra, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
NSW police said they were called to reports of a car on fire before 1am, and in the aftermath discovered multiple cars had been graffitied, and a door of a unit complex.
Police said there were no reports of injuries and officers had established crime scenes which are being examined by specialist police.
The local MP Allegra Spender said she was “deeply concerned” by the reports of “appalling antisemitic graffiti” and “completely unacceptable damage to cars and a local business.”
This sort of violence has no place in our country or our community. Antisemitism and racial hate has no place in our society.
Greens senator David Shoebridge also said he was deeply concerned, and wrote on X:
Attacking the cars of ordinary people like this is frightening and unacceptable.
The shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson, said the incidents appeared to be “a shocking act of political violence” that “must be met with the full force of the law”.
Sydney Trains chief executive speaks before expected shutdown tomorrow
The chief executive of Sydney Trains, Matthew Longland, spoke with ABC News Breakfast earlier about tomorrow’s planned shutdown of the network as the union and state government continue negotiations over pay.
He said Sydney Trains was “planning for a normal rail timetable on Friday, and again on Saturday”.
But that obviously won’t be possible if this industrial action goes ahead. We’re asking passengers across Sydney to plan for the worst if trains aren’t operating tomorrow. Avoid any unnecessary travel, roads will be very busy, other public transport modes will be busy. It will be a very difficult period for commuters.
Longland said he was “hopeful of a breakthrough” as talks continue today, saying it is a “rapidly moving situation”.
Are they closer than yesterday in coming to some form of common ground? Longland replied it was a “complex process”.
The negotiations have been under way for a number of months across five different unions. It’s a complex agreement. We are obviously approaching it in good faith. We’re hoping that we can avoid the industrial action because we know the consequences. A million people each day rely on our services cross Sydney and industrial action of this scale would be very, very inconvenient.
Daniel urges government to enact ban on gambling ads
Zoe Daniel was asked if the government has given her any indication we will see gambling reform? The independent said: “I have absolutely no idea.”
I ask all the time. ‘It’s coming, we’re working on it, we’re doing our due diligence, we’re trying to do it properly.’
My community wants a gambling advertising ban in its entirety. That’s very simple, and all the surveys show that roughly three-quarters of Australians want that.
She argued a complete ban on gambling ads would “play very well in the electorate” and urged the government to “stop worrying” about the broadcasters and the sporting codes, and “think about communities”.
Daniel says under-16s ban on social media not right ‘pathway to go down’
On the government’s push to ban under-16s from social media, Zoe Daniel said she doesn’t love the idea and believes it is “on the fringe of what we need to be doing”.
My biggest concern about it really is that it doesn’t substantively change what the platforms need to be doing on their platforms, and there may be an unintended consequence that the platforms actually become less safe.
If you were to create a system where the platforms have to take responsibility, mitigate risk and be transparent about how they’re doing that and what tools they’re using, then that sort of provides – potentially – an environment where everyone can be in a safe space. What we’re doing is saying, ‘Well, we’re going to lock everyone under 16 out, and then everyone else can do whatever they want in there.’ And also, we know that some people under 16 will get in. I don’t think that that’s really a good pathway to go down.
Zoe Daniel says electoral reform likely to pass Senate
The independent MP for Goldstein, Zoe Daniel, is also speaking with ABC RN this morning – first up, on the government’s proposed electoral reforms.
She repeats criticism the crossbench has been making in recent days – that it doesn’t keep big money out of politics and entrenches the power of the major parties, and incumbency.
Daniel said she accepts this will probably pass the Senate, and she believes this is “not only incredibly inappropriate, but really disrespectful to democracy to do that”.
Asked if she believes the Liberals are more concerned about independents than Labor, she responded:
Look, maybe, but I think, to be honest, it’s a little bit like the game of Whac-a-Mole … just put a hammer down on anything that’s going to threaten you.
And look, it’s self-evident that the most recent independents took blue-ribbon Liberal seats but, at the end of the day, Labor’s in government, and so I think it demonstrates a level of concern from the ALP as well about fragmentation of the two-party system.
Bill Shorten says cap on international students ‘makes sense’
Asked if he agrees with the proposed cap on international students, Bill Shorten said he does.
I think that makes sense … The other thing is that … higher education policy is something which I’ll work on when I’m in higher education, and when I go and work at the University of Canberra I absolutely must make clear to people, including my colleagues, I’ll be working for the university, not for the government. That’s the team I’ll be backing then.
Shorten was also asked if international students have been scapegoated for the housing crisis? He responded:
I think you find that international students put some pressure, in some parts, on rental markets. We also do need international students. It’s an important export industry. I think what the Liberals should have done is sit down with Labor and just worked it through it. But instead, in the shadow of an election where they can sniff the fumes of conflict, they’ve decided to … just oppose.
Bill Shorten says society ‘fracturing’ when asked about Labor disconnect with working class
Bill Shorten was asked about an apparent disconnect between the Labor party and working-class voters, and a trend that people who earn more are voting Labor – does that concern him? He responded:
You always want more people voting for you, so if people aren’t voting for you, that’s always a focus. But the way you get people to vote for is you focus on them, not yourself. I think there’s [disillusionment] with the major parties but there is … a range of factors for that.
He said part of this was where people chose to get their information from, and said:
I think we’re seeing, in parts, the fracturing of society into silos, into people who talk to people who agree with them and yell at everyone else.
Bill Shorten to deliver valedictory speech today
The NDIS minister and former Labor leader, Bill Shorten, is set to deliver his valedictory speech to parliament today, before he leaves politics to take up the role of vice-chancellor at the University of Canberra next year.
He said his speech would include a lot of thank yous, and reflections on the “privilege” to serve in three public institutions: the Australian Workers’ Union, Labor party and the parliament itself.
I’m excited, though I have mixed feelings about going. I love my job [and my] portfolios, working with people with disability and [working with] people [who] need Centrelink and Medicare and child support, but I’m excited about moving to education.
Asked if it was a deliberate decision to move into the public sector rather than the private sphere, he said it was:
I don’t want to be a lobbyist … There’s completely nothing wrong with politicians going to work in the private sphere, the private economy is what generates Australian economic growth. For myself, I like serving people. I want to help people, and I think I’m going to want to do that for the rest of my life.
