JAYNIE SEAL, HOST: Joining us live now is Labor Senator Tim Ayres and Nationals Senator Matt Canavan. Thank you both so much for joining us. Matt, let us start with you because we just saw you there with a bit of an announcement that you made yesterday in Parliament. You are not agreeing with this Bill, this law. Tell us a bit more why.

SENATOR MATT CANAVAN: Well, look, I think it is blunt, it is rushed, and I do not think it is going to work. There was no need for us to rush this through in just a week's worth of scrutiny. The legislation was only first seen by any of us and the public on Thursday last week. And here we are just a week later, rushing it through after 15,000 submissions from concerned Australians. They have been completely ignored. Of course, none of us could properly review their sentiments in this truncated time frame. And as you just heard from the government minister, from Minister Watt, the Bill does not come into effect for 12 months. So, why the rush to pass it before this Christmas when it is not even going to be into effect by next Christmas? We could have taken a proper time here to consider this and get this right. I absolutely agree that there are problems with social media use for kids under 16, for anyone really. But to do that properly, to get this working, we should have taken a proper time. And as I say, a whole lot of young Australians are completely disillusioned with their democracy this morning because of our behaviour over the past week to try and big-note ourselves to get something through in a rushed fashion before Christmas rather than properly do our job and get this done properly.

SEAL: Senator Tim Ayres, do you think the Parliament was big-noting themselves? Do you think it is too rushed and you know, we have got that year, as Matt just mentioned. What do you think?

SENATOR TIM AYRES, ASSITANT MINISTER FOR A FUTURE MADE IN AUSTRALIA AND ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE: G’day, Jaynie. Good to be with you and to be with Matt here in the studio in Parliament House. It is legislation that is important. It backs parents, it backs kids. It is all about dealing with this massive social harm that every family sees. It is world leading legislation that puts the onus back on the social media platforms. Some of the arguments that are run here by the opponents of this legislation, by Matt and others, remind me of the arguments that were made about tobacco and public regulation of smoking and smoking advertising, plain packaging, about dealing with challenges like asbestos. Now, Australia has traditionally had a world leading approach here to back workers, to back consumers, in this case to support little kids, young people and families who are dealing with the evils of social media use for them. For young people who are ill equipped to deal with these challenges with social media platforms, with algorithms that drive them towards sometimes some very unhealthy content, very unhealthy for their mental health positions. This is good legislation we have got started. Good to get it through the Parliament to give the government a clear run at making sure we implement this in a way that works for schoolkids and works for their parents.

SEAL: So, why not, if it is so serious, as we all would agree that this is a serious situation, why is it not implemented now? I know that you are going to talk about a year, and do you know the finer points? But Matt, let me ask you, why does it have to be? Why can't we do it now and actually implement it now?

SENATOR CANAVAN: Well, it is kind of a question for the people who passed it. I mean, I think we need to take more time to get it right. As Tim just mentioned, it is world leading. The government has said that. Well, if it is world leading, why take just a week to scrutinise it? I mean, that's even more reason to just take a breath and take the time to get this right. I mean, you know, we are knocking off today. It is like November; it is not even December. We could have come back next week. I proposed that yesterday. Well, if people really want to get done before Christmas, why don't we take a few more weeks and have a proper inquiry process? Because I am not opposed to legislation and Tim's metaphor is all wrong with smoking because obviously there are no benefits of a 14-year-old having a cigarette. There are clearly some instances of beneficial use of social media for young children. Clearly there is a kid called Leo Puglisi, which we all know in this place. He has done an excellent job with a thing called 6 News. He is a competitor to [Sky News]. Sorry, but he is a young kid who set up a political news broadcast on Twitter. He interviewed the Prime Minister when he was 14 and now the Prime Minister is ironically trying to stop future 14-year-olds doing the same thing that Leo Puglisi does now. I wanted to get Leo Puglisi in front of the Senate inquiry. I reached out to him and said, are you interested? He was interested. Unfortunately, he had school the next day. We had that rushed Senate Inquiry. He had an exam. He could not get out of it because we only gave him 24-hours’ notice to appear. We have treated young people, like Leo, who is doing a remarkable job with his life, with absolute contempt this week. We have completely ignored his views. We gave him no opportunity to contribute to his democracy because we all want to go on our Christmas break. We want to knock off and we do not come back until February. I mean what other workplace operates like this in this country? That is why people are disillusioned with their democracy and they are very, very upset this morning, a lot of young people, because they just have not had an opportunity to contribute to the government that we are meant to represent them for.

SENATOR AYRES: Well, Jaynie, I won't be knocking off, I can tell you that. And members of the government will not be knocking off. If Matt and his colleagues want to hit the beach, that is fine with me. But members of the Albanese government—

SENATOR CANAVAN: Then why don't we come back.

SENATOR AYRES: Will be out there in factories right Around Australia, in regional economies—

SEAL: There you go. Will you go back like Matt said?

SENATOR AYRES: We will be out in communities talking to people about issues like Future Made in Australia, doing the hard work of government. Now the numbers were there in the parliament to deal with social media this week. The position that Matt is advocating for is a very isolated position in the parliament. The extreme right and the extreme left in the parliament. The Greens political party and Matt and a couple his colleagues, a very small group, because it is an extreme position and all these arguments that Matt is making are the sort of quisling arguments for doing nothing and leaving.

SEAL: Sorry to interrupt. We are getting the wind up. Sorry. I want to just quickly ask you because one of the big aspects here, Tim, if I can ask you is on digital ID. What is happening in this space because that is a major issue that many people are talking about with these laws?

SENATOR AYRES: It is just not going to happen. The Minister said that repeatedly in the debate that Matt was engaged in last night the Minister representing there made it clear that's not going to happen. It is part of the sort of divisive conspiracy theory stuff that is driven out there in opposition to doing anything. See, the other side of this argument is do nothing. There is never the right time to move on these social media harms. There will not be privacy concerns with this legislation. There will not be digital IDs or whatever the sort of latest formulation of the conspiracy theory is. There will just be responsible legislation that allows parents and kids to get on with their lives, to grow up properly and puts the onus back on social media platforms.

SEAL: Would you say it is conspiracy, Matt? Sorry, I just got to quickly wrap this up, but is it conspiracy?

SENATOR CANAVAN: I don't try and label the voters in the way Tim has done. I just want to get the facts right. The government, the Labor Party, voted against my amendment to remove any opportunity for social media platforms to ask for a digital ID. What they have done is said they cannot compel you to use a digital ID. They have to offer alternative means as well. My concern is, well, what are those alternative means? There were no restrictions around them being reasonable or as equally accessible for people. And there are legitimate concerns about obviously people's data being hacked. We have seen high profile hacking in recent years. I just think it's really unfortunate, Tim, to just label thousands of Australians with legitimate concerns as conspiracy theory. It is ridiculous. Why don't we deal with their issues properly?

SENATOR AYRES: It is certainly not labelling Australians that way. There are a few politicians in parliament with very extreme views.

SEAL: We have got to wrap this up. Gentlemen, I would love to bring you back on again and discuss this because it is certainly a big topic, but really appreciate both of you joining us today. Thank you so much.

SENATOR AYRES: Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Matt.

SENATOR CANAVAN: Thank you.

ENDS.