THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH LAURA JAYES
THURSDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2024
SUBJECTS: SYDNEY CAR VANDALISM, SOCIAL MEDIA BANS FOR CHILDREN, SEXUAL ASSAULT CONVICTIONS.
LAURA JAYES, HOST: The Environment Minister, Tanya Plibersek, joins me. She's also a Sydney MP. Tanya, thanks so much for your time. This news has just come through about this antisemitic attack in Woollahra. I just thought it’d be worth getting your response to this because we have seen over the last year or so increasing antisemitic attacks in places like Sydney's eastern suburbs. But I feel like this is by far the worst that we've seen.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Oh, it's absolutely disgusting Laura. And I don't know what the perpetrators of these sorts of crimes think they are achieving. If anything, this reduces support and sympathy for their views. I'm so shocked and disappointed that people think that this is an appropriate response to what's going on in the Middle East.
JAYES: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. Let's talk about what's going on in Canberra. The social media age ban, or age limit, will be introduced in about 10 minutes time in the House. I mean, are we going to get- essentially, there seems to be a fair bit of bipartisanship here, but it's just about what technology is used to actually enforce this. Are there still concerns around that?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. Look, of course we know that the big tech companies are very good at solving problems, so the government's not mandating a particular type of technology. We're saying that the big tech companies need to take reasonable steps to ensure that kids under the age of 16 aren't accessing their platforms. We've set aside $6.5 million for an age assurance trial. We know that there'll be different types of technologies. We're testing a number of those types of technologies. But I'm very confident that if the big tech companies see it as in their commercial interests to put a bit of money behind finding a solution, they'll find a solution. They've got a lot of clever people working on how to get our kids addicted to technology. Maybe they could put some of those clever people to work on protecting our kids.
JAYES: But that's exactly the point, isn't it, Tanya, that they don't see a commercial interest in limiting social media to those over 16 because they'd like to get these kids addicted as early as possible.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. And that's why we've had to put very significant fines into the legislation. And we've said that we will fine companies up to $50 million if they are deliberately flouting these laws.
JAYES: I mean, I've got children. The terrifying prospect of them being teenagers and being on social media is something that's a few years off for me. But more seriously, when I speak to many parents with kids of teenage years and just heading into high school, I mean, this could seriously change lives, couldn't it? Because the pervasive nature of social media, I mean, you’ve just got to look at the data, it has changed the way that teenagers think about themselves, bullying. It's changed a whole range of things about what it's like to be growing up in 2024 and beyond.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, Laura, in the worst cases, it doesn't just change lives, it ends lives. We have heard too many tragic stories of teenagers taking their own lives because of the online bullying that they've experienced. So, in the worst cases, it ends lives. But even, you know, even if you're thinking about less extreme examples, you've got kids developing eating disorders, social exclusion, anxiety. We've seen that youth mental health has dramatically worsened since this online world has become their predominant way of talking to each other. And what we see with the school device bans is kids talking to each other again, playing more sports at lunchtime, interacting. So, there is a very directly observable benefit by seeing kids online less. There are some benefits as well, and we need to be careful to preserve those. You've got great apps like the Kids Helpline app that we want to make sure kids are still able to access. There's some great educational sites, but it needs to be age appropriate, and it needs to be, you know, in a way that kids aren't just diving into social media for hours at a time and neglecting their other interests and neglecting their other relationships. And I think we can get that balance right.
JAYES: Yeah, I think so, too. I think it's critical that we do that as well. It doesn't absolve parents like myself who, you know, have got to lead by example when it comes to phone addiction as well. And I think that's certainly been part of the conversation. And it's really hard because your whole life is dictated by your phone these days. You can do everything through it.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, and I think that's the reason it's really important that we're making the companies responsible for providing age assurance and appropriate sort of materials online rather than trying to get parents to do it. Parents have enough on their plates. The idea that parents would now have to be policing their kids being online, that doesn't help anybody. That's just adding to family stress. We need the big companies that are making the big profits to take some responsibility here.
JAYES: Yeah, they certainly do. Let me ask you about Nina Funnell's story on NEWS.com.au. I had her on the programme earlier this week. And this is a really important series of stories, really. It's about judges who are lenient time and time again on sex offenders.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, I saw the story that Nina wrote today, and I was shocked, but not surprised. As you know, Laura, about 2 per cent of rapes end up actually achieving a conviction. And what Nina's detailed is that of those 2 per cent that actually achieve a conviction, only about half ever do any jail time. So, we know the person's guilty, they've been found against all the odds and blocks in the system, they've been found guilty in a court and then a judge says that they don't need to do a day or a night in a jail cell. I think it continues to show how little understanding the courts have of the experience of sexual assault. That's the reason our Attorney-General has committed $15 million to projects including a very substantial Australian Law Reform Commission review of the experience of sexual assault victims and how we make the justice system better for them. We know that there are too many rapists walking the street who never see the consequences of their actions and they should.
JAYES: Yeah, absolutely. I think there are notable exceptions, like Justice Michael Lee, for example, if anyone listened to his judgement in the Bruce Lehrmann case, how he delicately pointed out the lived experience, the research and what we now know in 2024 about, you know, the typical response of a victim. I thought that was a really important turning point. Did you?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Absolutely. I watched every word of that judgement when he read it out. And I think it was a really important understanding to say, but what is consent? That someone being unconscious is not giving consent. And how people respond differently after a crime like this has been committed against them? And that you can't make judgments about victims’ responses in the way that some people would like to.
JAYES: Tanya Plibersek, always good to talk to you. We are out of time because Michelle Rowland is on her feet in the House. She is introducing that very legislation we were just talking about.
END
