Cyber Bullying

Mr GREG PIPER (Lake Macquarie) (17:40): As members, including Temporary Speaker Kemp, would know, adolescence can be a difficult time, to say the least. Teenagers are fragile. It is a time of great change, a time when they leave behind the magical realm of childhood and dip their feet into the harsh realities of the adult world. It is a time when they face the physical and emotional challenges of puberty, with the addition of raging hormones in full swing. Adolescence can also be when schoolyard and online bullying hits the hardest. Unfortunately, today's young people do not have the chance to leave their bullies behind in the playground. They bring them home with them, maintaining constant contact through social media. I have had reports of this exact scenario happening at Lake Macquarie-based high schools.

A 2020 Headspace National Youth Mental Health Survey found that 51 per cent, or one in two young Australians, had experienced cyberbullying. In 2021 a major study by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare found that in 2019, 21 per cent of people aged between 15 and 19 had experienced cyberbullying in the past 12 months, while in 2020, 44 per cent of people aged 12 to 17 had at least one negative online experience in the past six months. This issue affects thousands of Lake Macquarie teens. According to the latest census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, that number amounts to 13,344 young people aged between 10 and 14 years of age, or 6.2 per cent of the local government area's total population; and 12,340 young people aged between 15 and 19 years old, or 5.8 per cent of the local government area's total population.

I believe the threat posed by social media to those 25,600-odd constituents is real, not only in the form of cyberbullying—which is a very real and very serious problem—but also because social media sites can put children in direct contact with adults who have nefarious intentions towards them. Whether it be paedophiles, scammers or people looking to blackmail them, the dark depths of social media are no place for our young people to be swimming. Currently people as young as 13 years old can legitimately create accounts on social media platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. Of course, many children aged under 13 also create profiles by lying about their date of birth.

Yesterday, in my capacity as the Speaker of the House, I received a petition signed by 113,000 people, backing the 36 Months campaign. It was brought to this House by the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Vaucluse. Thirty-six months is the time between the ages of 13 and 16, and the campaign wants the age of access to social media platforms lifted to 16 years of age. As part of that delegation, Robb Evans also visited the New South Wales Parliament yesterday. Carrying a pink urn that held his teenage daughter's ashes, Robb shared his utterly devastating story with us. Robb's daughter, Liv, was just 15 years old when she took her own life after relentless bullying, both in the schoolyard and online. Robb told me Liv wanted to do something about online bullying and, sadly, now this is her only way to do that. It is a tragic and powerful message. The image of that man carrying the ashes of his young daughter in that pink urn into my office at Parliament House is not one I will ever forget.

We need to do more to protect our precious children and grandchildren. I think lifting the age of access to social media to 16 years of age is absolutely appropriate—and certainly an action that we should be exploring fully. To any and all young people who are suffering from online bullying, I extend my greatest sympathies and implore them to switch off from social media. Switch it off, shut it down and walk away from the nonsense. Take away bullies' power. To those guilty of bullying their young peers, I say grow up, cut it out and focus on improving themselves rather than trying to tear someone else down. Making someone else feel small will not make them any bigger. It is cruel, demeaning and unacceptable, and it could haunt them for the rest of their lives.