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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-09-17 Daily Xml
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National Social Media Ban

The Hon. C. BONAROS (14:43): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Attorney questions regarding not algal bloom, but the enforcement of the national social media ban.

Leave granted.

The Hon. C. BONAROS: There was a media release—I think it was yesterday—attributed to the Premier, on the eSafety Commissioner's guidance and expectations for platforms to comply with the federal ban on under 16s accessing social media. The release makes note that this is an initiative of our own state government's design, quoting:

Last year, the Malinauskas Labor Government released a report outlining its plans to implement a social media ban for children in South Australia—and made the case for nationally consistent legislation.

That is something which I supported, for the record. ABC News reports that under these rules, social media companies will be required to take reasonable steps to prevent under 16s from having accounts, and it will be left to the platforms to verify age and manage compliance. As highlighted in the ABC's analysis, there are serious questions about whether relying on the companies themselves is sufficient, particularly given their past record on safety, privacy and enforcement. As such, my questions to the Attorney are:

1. What oversight or enforcement powers is the government intending to exercise to ensure they actually comply with the new minimum age rules?

2. If penalties fail to prevent underage users from gaining access, what penalties or consequences will apply, and which authority will actually be responsible for holding them to account?

3. Should South Australian parents and young people hold confidence that this law can actually genuinely protect children online, as opposed to simply outsource that responsibility to multinational platforms which, for the record, have patchy records on compliance?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:46): I thank the honourable member for her question, and it is indeed a good question. I might take a little bit of time going through the history of this and South Australia's involvement, and then talk a bit more about my understanding—and I am happy to bring back further information if I need to add to it—of how the federal ban will work and, in particular, the reason why, the platform's involvement and the duty of care that's created for them.

Certainly, it's something that we led in South Australia. The Premier announced that we were interested in looking at restricting young people's access to social media. I think it was rightly pointed out that our current generation of young people are having an unprecedented experiment upon them in terms of what social media does, how it's used, how the algorithms keep feeding addictions or a continued use of social media, and some of the very harmful effects social media has on young people.

As a government, we were very honoured that former Chief Justice of the High Court, Robert French, now at the University of Western Australia, agreed to provide a report on how a ban might look and the law around regulation of social media in jurisdictions in other places around the world. From memory, the report was a couple of hundred pages long. The former Chief Justice had finished the report and I had the opportunity at the time to have a meeting with him to go through what was being suggested in the report. It is an exceptionally thorough piece of work. It is probably one of the best texts and references on the law in relation to social media produced in Australia.

What the Chief Justice looked at was how such regulation might be enforced. One option is to have government mandate how you restrict access to social media. I don't think governments have always had the best track record at trying to stay ahead of technological developments in these rapidly developing areas. What was suggested by the former Chief Justice was the creation of a duty of care to these platforms not to have children use them, to put it on them to find the ways, the technologies, and the means to stop children using them, and then have very significant penalties if those outlets breached that duty of care.

South Australia having commissioned the report, the Premier was very keen to see if it's something that wanted to be taken up federally, and we are very pleased that this is a suggestion that has been taken up by the federal government in a pretty similar way, as I understand the working of the legislation. I think, from memory, it comes into effect maybe 10 December in Australia. As had been suggested by the former Chief Justice, it creates that duty of care.

It is not a government mandating: this is how you have to stop young people accessing social media. You create that duty of care for the platforms to make sure that they don't and, if they breach it, there are very significant penalties. I don't have in front of me what the penalties are, but they can run into very large amounts, multimillion-dollar penalties, I think, if I am remembering correctly the report we had done in South Australia.

Off the top of my head, but I am happy to go back and check, I think it is the national eSafety Commissioner who regulates this. Really importantly, one of the things that the Chief Justice's report pointed out is that it is not only the potential fines and the obligation on the platforms to make sure children are not using them but it empowers parents in a way they have never been empowered before in relation to telling their children that, no, they can't use these things.

I am really pleased that what we started in South Australia, the report that we commissioned, is being picked up nationally. I have no doubt this will make a positive change for the next generations who are coming through, who are exposed to things that I do not think anyone properly understands the effects of. This is coupled in South Australia with other developments, like our restriction on mobile phone use in schools. It is something that we have led in South Australia, and I think it will have positive effects for generations to come.

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