Editorial: Elon Musk doesn’t care about Aussie kids, just his bottom line

What Elon Musk is really saying is that he does not care about Australia’s children, writes the editor.

Elon Musk has accused the Australian government of trying to control internet access.

The irony is extraordinary: Some of our federal parliamentarians are now apparently wavering on their world-leading and lifesaving plans to impose mandatory age limits for social media use because they are being bullied by Elon Musk.

Mr Musk took to the X platform that he owns – and that would be included in the ban – to retweet a statement from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese posted when the legislation was introduced last week. Mr Musk added: “Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians.”

What absolute codswallop. This is about saving kids’ lives, nothing more and nothing less. Our young teens are enduring an epidemic of suicides being fuelled by unlimited access to a tool that makes bullying easy to broadcast, and that our kids cannot escape.

The national bullying framework that the government has agreed to pursue needs to be part of the response to this emergency. But without the social media ban, it is like telling 12-year-old kids they can drive a car all they like, so long as they have done a defensive driving course. They are not old enough!

Making it illegal for kids under 16 to use social media arms parents and teachers with a big stick. It also means kids will know that using social media is wrong. It is like having an age limit for drinking. You can’t realistically stop teens sneaking some booze before they turn 18, but they sure as heck know they are breaking the law.

Imagine a world where there was no age limit for drinking alcohol. Parents would have no way of ever stopping it happening. It is the same now for social media – something that society has now learned is not an appropriate thing for under-16s, as they are not mature enough for it.

Mr Musk has further claimed the only way to enforce the ban would be for all Australians, including adults, to have to pass an identity or age verification process.

It will be up to the platforms to figure out how to make it work, but the deputy secretary of the federal communications department James Chisholm confirmed in a Senate estimates hearing this month that, indeed, “everybody (would) have to go through an age-verification process” – and the federal government has separately conceded the changes “may require the collection, use and disclosure of additional personal information”.

This is, of course, a reasonably significant change. But it will not apply to usage of the internet per se, just if you want to use one of those platforms captured by the change – and at this point that is Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. All already require you to sign up to use them. And the Prime Minister said yesterday there would be an obligation built in that any personal information was destroyed once age was verified.

But even if you back Mr Musk’s position, the alternative is that our kids will continue to suffer – and some will tragically take their own lives as they think it is the only way they can escape the bullying that now follows them everywhere.

And so what Mr Musk is really saying is that he does not care about Australia’s children. He is fighting to keep them armed with a tool that they are too young to be trusted with, and that is ruining lives.

Any parliamentarians pushing for this ban to not be imposed are taking the same position. They are prioritising the profits of billionaires over the lives of our kids. That is the logical extension of not acting here. We simply must stay the course.

TEST MATCH LIVES UP TO NAME

There is still nothing better in cricket than the challenges a Test match produces, and the game in Perth proved that, despite it not being the result Australia wanted.

The term “test match” was coined in 1861 to designate which were the most important games to be played in Australia by a visiting team of Englishmen – in that those matches should be the greatest tests for the tourists of their “strength and competency”.

And so it was 163 years on in Perth – where an unheralded Indian side led from the front by their fire-breathing, pace-bowling captain Jasprit Bumrah dismantled a heavily favoured Australian side packed with this generation’s batting superstars, after which the homeside’s bowling megastars were picked apart by newly arrived batting prodigy Yashasvi Jaiswal and ageing legend Virat Kohli.

The Indians thoroughly deserved their record victory. The Aussie team will have to regroup, and the selectors could be forgiven for contemplating whether this is the time for generational change.

But the other great thing about Test cricket is that the tables could well turn in Adelaide at the end of next week. Bumrah under lights is the stuff of nightmares, but the same could be said for Australia’s Mitchell Starc if he finds form.

An Australian victory in Adelaide would be the perfect scene-setter for Brisbane’s Test from Saturday, December 14. And knowing the curveballs that Tests can so often produce, it shouldn’t be discounted.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here