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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-10-15 Daily Xml
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Social Media Summit

Ms HOOD (Adelaide) (14:28): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier update the house on the Malinauskas and Minns governments' Social Media Summit held in Sydney and Adelaide last week?

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier) (14:28): I am very happy to, and I thank the member for Adelaide for her question. The member for Adelaide knows, as basically everyone in this place knows, that social media is a challenge for young people. We had a Social Media Summit held across Sydney and Adelaide across two days. It was the state government hosting it along with the New South Wales government, and it was compelling.

There were a range of guest speakers from a variety of fields—academics; parents; young people; legal officers; we had Mike Burgess, who of course is the director of ASIO in Australia—all giving speeches about the challenges that social media is presenting, given the fact that it is entirely unregulated. Every other major form of mass communication in this country has a form of regulation. That regulation necessarily should be light touch in many respects in terms of the content that is disseminated, but there is a form of regulation to protect the public, and particularly young people.

Even movies are classified. Even movies that are MA or R-rated can't be seen by people under the age of 15 or 18, but on social media all of that content is disseminated in a way that is completely unregulated. It is quite astonishing when you think about it that we as a society have allowed that just to transpire. But we have now got to an end game where we know that something has to happen, and this state government, in conjunction with the federal government and also other state governments around the country, are determined to act.

The evidence that was brought forward across those two days—and I know there were a lot of people in this chamber present for the summit, particularly for the first session, and I want to thank all those who were there. I understand people are busy here so not everyone was able to stay for the second half of the day, but the second half of the summit day was probably far more compelling than the first half, with no disrespect to the presenters, including myself. The second half was absolutely compelling and I think it really speaks to the need for action.

One of the things I am heartened by is that there is a degree of bipartisanship here. At a federal level, we have seen the Prime Minister show leadership here and Peter Dutton back it in, and that is something that we certainly welcome. I was, however, slightly alarmed when it was drawn to my attention around the time of the summit that there is a voice who is agitating against these reforms. There is a bloke who I hadn't heard of until just recently by the name of Avi Yemini, who is a far right political activist in—

The Hon. S.E. Close: Yemini.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: How do you say his name?

The Hon. S.E. Close: Yemini.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: Yemini. He is a far right political activist. A couple of years ago he was denied entry into New Zealand because of a 2019 criminal conviction for assaulting his wife. He is on the record as saying he believes Islam is a barbaric ideology, Muslim countries are Islamic (swear words). He is obviously an anti-vaxxer—blah, blah, blah. We know these types. He was hosting a podcast the other day with none other than Senator Antic, who then went on the record to espouse why he is opposed to this type of social media regulation, which then undermines the bipartisanship. The problem with Mr Antic, of course, is that he is the patron now of so many of those opposite—

The SPEAKER: Premier, your time has expired.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS: —which begs the question it's now time for: who—someone in the Liberal Party—will show some leadership?

The SPEAKER: Premier, your time has expired.

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