Social Media Ban is an Attack on Parents' Rights

The Labor-Liberal Uniparty has been advancing this bill based on a case where bullying on social media led to a tragic suicide.

In submissions on this bill, it became apparent that banning children from social media would cause as much harm as good. The best response to these tragic cases would be to empower parents to better manage their children's use of social media. This can be achieved by enhancing parental lock technology, making it more powerful, easier to use, and free (the best Apps available are commercial).

The Government ignored concerns raised by experts in their submissions and testimony, and pushed ahead with a bill that introduced a blanket ban for under 16.

Let's be clear - this is a 'world-first' because the rest of the world knows such a ban is counterproductive.

Tech-savvy kids will get around the ban, and that’s where the real harm begins. The ban does not cover chat rooms in video games, which lacks the supervision present on social media platforms. Peer-to-peer chat apps are making a comeback, and some children may even turn to TOR, which is not supervised at all and by it's design, is almost impossible to supervise. This bill will have the outcome of exposing kids to even worse forms of bullying.

One Nation and the Greens united to stop Labor’s guillotine. We forced the government to remove the bill banning under 16's on social media and extend scrutiny until February. Then, incredibly, the Liberal Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, moved to get the bill back in the guillotine process. Barely hours later, Simon Birmingham informed the Senate that he was leaving. It’s clear he knew he was leaving and this was his parting gift.

I want to thank Senators Alex Antic and Matt Canavan for crossing the floor to vote against the Liberal-Nationals-Labor guillotine.

One Nation will continue to fight against the social media ban, returning power to parents and families.

Included are comments around Digital ID, which—despite claims to the contrary—will inevitably become part of this outrageous power grab.