Politics with Michelle Grattan: Sarah Hanson-Young on the social media ban as a risky ‘fake silver bullet’

The Greens have suffered a year of significant setbacks. The election saw their numbers go backwards, losing three of their four lower house seats, then one of their senators, Dorinda Cox, defected to Labor.

But the year ended on a positive note, with the Greens doing the deal with the government to reform Australia’s key environment legislation, winning more protections for the environment in exchange for their support.

The chief negotiator for the Greens on that deal was veteran senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who has been in parliament for nearly two decades.

As the Greens’ spokeswoman for both the environment and communications, her end-of-year has been remarkably busy. She joins us to talk about the biggest news of this week.

On the social media ban, coming into force this week, Hanson-Young calls it “a fake silver bullet” that risks ending up “with kids in more unsafe spaces”.

I have very little hope that the ban as it is right now is going to make young people safer. I think parents are going to be frustrated over the next few months that it’s not the silver bullet that it’s been promised to be.

[…] I’m actually really worried that there’s going to be a lot of kids who fall through the cracks, [who] will find their way back onto social media or find themselves into other online spaces that are even darker and more dangerous.

Hanson-Young says Australia should do more to push big tech companies to provide safe platforms for everybody.

One of the key things that we should be doing, and can do if the government wanted to, would be to allow users – young people in particular – to opt out of those dangerous algorithms. So the technology that pushes dangerous and harmful content in front of them, even when they haven’t searched for it […] If you could turn those algorithms off for young people in particular, that would be a huge step forward to making people safer.

[…] The next thing the government should do, and they should announce it this week, that they’re going to regulate algorithms, they’re gonna regulate the advertising of these big companies, and they’re going to put in place a legislated legal duty of care on these companies. If you had all those things working in sync, we’d be in a much better situation.

Read more: 'Make the platforms safer': what young people really think about the social media ban

On the Greens’ successful negotiation of reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which passed the parliament last month, Hanson-Young says it showed “we’re the true opposition […] while the Coalition are in total disarray”.

This was one of the the toughest negotiations I’ve had in my political career. It took a long time and not once did I think we had it in the can until right at the end when […] the deal was finalised right before it passed the Senate. There was there was a lot of back and forth.

But you’ve got to know when to hold them, when to fold them and when to get the deal done. And I made the decision, along with my parliamentary colleagues, that getting an outcome – that protected Australian bushland, new protections for native forests to restrictions on land clearing and stopping fossil fuel companies being fast- tracked and getting their mines approved within 30 days – these were all important things that we couldn’t let pass us by.

Read more: Grattan on Friday: when the music stopped, Greens had out-stepped flat-footed Liberals on environment deal

Speaking just hours after former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce finally confirmed he was moving to One Nation, Hanson-Young questions how long it will last.

Look at [former Labor leader] Mark Latham in New South Wales, look at what’s happened every time Pauline Hanson’s tried to recruit a new person to a party, it never lasts long.

I don’t know how long the Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson union’s going to last, but you know, it reminds me of kind of what happens over in Trump land; they’re friends until they’re not, and it doesn’t seem to last very long. But of course, we can’t be complacent about it either.

Read more: Barnaby Joyce joins One Nation to run as NSW Senate candidate in 2028

On the details of Communications Minister Anika Wells’ use of taxpayer money on various travel expenses and events, Hanson-Young says it’s important politicians have the resources to do their job, but that shouldn’t be abused.

It’s a hard area, because you need to be able to to do this job well, you need to spend almost all of your time doing it […] So there’s a balance, because I think […] to be able to do it well, you do need access to resources.

What I don’t think has been handled very well by Anika Wells is […] you do need to acknowledge that there is a privilege that comes with this position. And with that privilege, particularly at a time when regular people in the community are finding it really tough […] you’ve got to be a bit more sensitive to that […] And I just don’t think the minister’s really understood how it looks to the community.

Despite the Greens’ confidence being “knocked” by the loss of former leader Adam Bandt’s seat at the last election, Hanson-Young says she’s optimistic about the party’s future.

We lost those three lower house seats, including our leader’s seat, and that really knocks your confidence around. It really does. But I think in the midst of all of this and in the desperation of our political opponents […to] dance on the grave of Adam Bandt’s loss […] it masked the fact that actually we had a near record high of Green vote across the country. And that the depth and breadth of that vote is very strong. And of course in South Australia we had a record high in the election.

[…] I would say: the recent environment law reform negotiations, getting that done, having the backing of the community, getting A$50 million dollars extra for the ABC – the Greens are back. We’ve got our confidence back and we’re feeling really good.