Mobile Phone Ban

Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (15:26): My question is to the Minister for Education, Training and Skills. Can the minister update the house about the new education initiatives underway in term 1 around the state?

The Hon. B.I. BOYER (Wright—Minister for Education, Training and Skills) (15:26): I thank the member for Davenport for her question and her interest in these topics. It was a great pleasure to join not only the member for Davenport but also the member for Gibson and the Premier at Seaview High School just over a week ago, where we launched our ban on mobile phones in high schools in South Australia.

Just to refresh the memories of those in the house, this was, I believe, the second commitment that was made from the then Malinauskas Labor opposition way back in 2019. In fact, I think it was the second commitment that was made after the Voice, which shows just how important we know this issue is. I am very pleased that very early in the life of this government we have begun the rollout of that commitment into our high schools, in fact all schools in the South Australian public system that have secondary enrolments.

In fact, last week for the start of term 1 of the 2023 school year, we saw about 30 per cent of the schools in the South Australian public system that have secondary enrolments bring the ban into effect. I was joined at Seaview High School not only by the members for Davenport and Gibson, and the Premier of course, but the principal of that school, Penny Tranter, and a Year 12 leader, Jess, who both spoke really passionately, I thought, and earnestly around why this change is needed, why it is necessary and the kind of positive benefits that we can expect to see not just in our classrooms but also in our schoolyards by banning the use of mobile phones in those settings from the first bell in the morning to the last bell in the afternoon.

We are in a privileged position to be furnished with a mountain of data around the negative effects that mobile phones and social media have on our society, particularly on our youngest people. We know that they can be used for bullying. We know that they can be used for harassment through social media platforms—things like TikTok and Snapchat and all those sorts of things—and we know also that they are increasingly being linked to more serious trends in our society like heightened anxiety and depression amongst very young people.

This is one of the things, I must say, that upon becoming the Minister for Education in March last year shocked me—to hear about the number of young people in the upper levels of primary school and the early levels of high school who are suffering from suicidal ideation. I think that it is not good enough. It doesn't meet the pub test, as the minister, to know all this information, to know all these negative effects that mobile phones can have, and access to social media and mobile phones at schools, and then not to anything about it.

We know, of course, and I'm sure current and former ministers in this place would agree with me on this point, that rarely, in these jobs that we do, the biggest and most important changes that have the most positive and beneficial effects for our society and community are the easy ones. They are often the tough and complex ones. No doubt, banning mobile phones in high schools is one of those. There will be bumps on the way.

It will come as no surprise to anyone in this place and it will come as no surprise to the South Australian public who are no doubt hearing about this from kids and grandkids that young people at school don't want to be separated from their mobile phones. There will be bumps along the way here, but I can tell the house, with my hand on my heart, that with every new principal I meet, with every new school I go to, with every classroom teacher I speak to, with every parent, grandparent and carer I meet and speak to, the more certain I am that this is the right thing to do and that we are going to start seeing some of those positive benefits that are already being seen in the first week and a half of this ban right across our public education.