Zoe McKenzie MP
Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Early Learning
Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health
Federal Member for Flinders
TRANSCRIPT
SKY NEWS BREAKFAST INTERVIEW WITH JAYNIE SEAL
Wednesday, 30 July 2025
Topics: YouTube Ban; NAPLAN results
JAYNIE SEAL: What do you make of these [YouTube] bans?
ZOE MCKENZIE: So, it’s an interesting development. Obviously, spurred on by Julie Inman Grant’s advice to the Government some weeks ago now. Interestingly, through the social media inquiry last year we did take a lot of evidence particularly from parents’ groups who were concerned about the addictive quality of YouTube. However, it was left out of the recommendations of the report and, indeed, the Coalition’s comments, because of its important educational use. To give you an example, even here in this Parliament, we used to broadcast our own proceedings on the APH website, and it is now all done through YouTube. It has become a source of public discourse and information, and for that reason it was treated differently. However, subsequently, you’ve seen developments on YouTube, and may I say, there are developments in all these platforms all the time, which has made it more TikTok-like, so, the possibility for infinite scrolling and addiction. This is one that’s harder to judge than the other platforms, in part because if you still allow kids to go onto the platform without accounts, who knows what rabbit-hole they will end up in going to the full-access of YouTube content. This will be a trickier one for the Government to manage and obviously we will be watching very carefully. But obviously, I support what Anika Wells said, which is that it’s a dynamic environment, you know, you’ve even seen WhatsApp move to be more ‘Snapchat-like’ in the last couple of weeks as well. So, the Government needs to keep a watching brief, and we keep a watching brief on Government to make sure they get it right.
JAYNIE SEAL: Yeah, you make some really good points there, indeed. And also, as we just heard there with Reuben Spargo in terms of children being able to activate accounts, I mean they’re pretty tech-savvy, aren’t they? So, they’re going to find those loopholes, no doubt.
ZOE MCKENZIE: Yes, if you ever try and change your child’s YouTube age on the television, the smart-enabled TV that they’ve set up at home, I can tell you it’s very hard. I once rang Google, and I said ‘Right, talk me through how to make my 14-year-old not 24 anymore’, and it was virtually impossible without the kid’s support. So, it’s a constant challenge for parents, it’s always worth checking the age of your children on your Smart TV, may I say, to make sure that they’re getting age-appropriate content, because the platforms have also gotten much better at determining age. I had TikTok in my office a couple of days ago, and they told me that they had removed 800,000 ‘under 13-year-old’s’ from the Australian platform last year. They do know how to detect age without the need for proving ID documents. They can tell from the way you engage on the platforms. So, that work, to some extent, has already started, and, obviously, it will continue when the legislation comes into effect at the end of the year.
JAYNIE SEAL: Alright, let’s talk about NAPLAN, Zoe, because the results are in for this year’s NAPLAN tests, and it’s suggesting that there is a greater divide between the top and bottom performing students. So, what did you make of these results?
ZOE MCKENZIE: The really significant finding in today’s NAPLAN results is that one-third of our students are vastly below where they should be. One in three. We are going backwards at each and every turn. We get PISA results next year; I’ll be very interested to see how we are comparing on an international level as well. But what this does tell you is that even though governments have vastly increased their spending, they are not seeing the return on that investment. The two jurisdictions that are doing well, New South Wales and Victoria, have moved to more direct instruction, have prioritised phonics, frankly something that the Coalition has been going on about for decades now. So, you are seeing the dividend from a more phonics-based approach in New South Wales and Victoria, and other states and territories need to follow. But we must demand, expect, better performance, better outcomes from the money that’s being spent. There has been a vast increase in funding, but I would suggest based on these results, it’s not going to the most effective measures.
JAYNIE SEAL: Alright, Zoe McKenzie, thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate it.
ENDS.
