Is it better to do something difficult and risk falling on your face, go backwards or do nothing at all? That’s a question for everyone, including our political leaders.
The under-16 social media ban has been widely criticised for being unworkable, or imperfect. Even federal Communications Minister Anika Wells has conceded that the new laws are ‘a bit untidy’. However it’s worth remembering that this ban is a political response to a real problem.
Recent research suggests that 96 per cent of Australian children between 10-15 have used social media, and 70 per cent of those have been exposed to harmful content, including violent and misogynistic material, as well as content promoting eating disorders and suicide. More than half of the young people surveyed said they’d been victims of cyberbullying.
Parents, in many cases, are unable to protect their children from systems designed by the most powerful people in the world to be highly addictive and to promote damaging and divisive content, as long as it generates eyeballs and clicks.
Have a go
While it may be flawed, the Albanese government’s attempt to do something about this situation should be applauded, and stands in stark contrast to their gutless response to calls from within their own ranks and elsewhere to tackle the scourge of gambling advertising, or fossil fuel expansion, to take two obvious examples.
Like it or hate it, John Howard’s goods and services tax back in 2000 was another attempt to do something practical about a real problem, namely the shrinking national revenue base. Howard’s movement on gun reform was also a necessary response to the Port Arthur tragedy, although large loopholes remained, and there are now more guns in Australia than ever.
Too often, governments respond to one problem by creating another. AUKUS is the perfect example; less about defence and replacing ageing submarines than about paying tribute and following a foolish platoon leader deeper into the Big Muddy, as Pete Seeger once put it.
The referendum on a Voice to parliament was a political response to a real problem – that of ongoing Indigenous disadvantage – but in that case the Albanese government lacked the courage of its convictions, losing any real desire to drive the reform through and sell the idea to the Australian public as soon as Peter Dutton made it plain he was going to use the issue as a wedge.
Even now, there’s no sign of any momentum on the accompanying issues of Truth and Treaty at a federal level.
Snake oil merchants
If governments fail to offer real solutions to real problems, such as cost of living, rising inequality, and more frequent climate-related disasters, then people will turn to imaginary solutions, and blame imaginary scapegoats, such as those currently being offered by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and her fellow political snake oil merchants.
It’s no longer enough to manage inflation, spending and employment levels, if it ever was. Governments must be brave, and have an inspiring story to tell.
Most importantly, they need to try difficult things, and risk failure. Without meaningful follow up, though, grand political gestures risk becoming short term, and meaningless.
Historians continue to argue about whether Gough Whitlam fell on his face, or was pushed, but no one could dispute that his government sought to change Australia through a series of real reforms designed to confront real problems, across a panoply of issues.
Many of these reforms remain in place, although the government itself was short-lived.
Anthony Albanese may be hard-wired to be risk averse, but his under-16 social media ban shows there’s a desire somewhere in there to take on powerful interests for the good of ordinary people, which is the role of a true Australian leader.
Hopefully this won’t be the last meaningful, risky reform we’ll see from this government.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
