Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

In coming to this debate on the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014 and related bill a lot of people would appreciate—and I suppose I reinforce my commitment to this—the value that a lot of the technology that underpins social media has. It has had a very important part to play in allowing people to express their opinions and views, regardless of the value we attach to those views—we may think they are trivial or not important. Anyone who discounts social media as unimportant should then question why so many of us in this place participate in it. We participate in it because it provides us with a much better way of connecting with people and getting a sense of the mood of people on various issues.

Clearly there is something to be said about not being overtaken by that and something to be said about recognising that in some cases social media can act like an echo chamber, reinforcing pre-existing views amongst people who share those views. So you always have to be very mindful of that. I have often said we should not be awed by the technology itself; we should be more interested in what it does in changing human relationships, making things easier between people and changing processes. That has certainly been the case.

Having said that, there are clearly downsides and we have seen those downsides. Those downsides in part have brought these bills to the House. Those opposite had fixed themselves on basically walking down a particular legislative path that would bring them here. When we on our side of politics were in government we set in place a number of mechanisms to help deal with cyberbullying. In fact we had, as has been indicated by other speakers, introduced and maintained joint committees within this parliament that looked to support the efforts of others to address the scourge of bullying and to address the downsides that exist when the negative elements of social media go unchecked.

Both sides of parliament are very cognisant of the impact that this has and the psychological toll that it has particularly on younger minds and want to act on it, and this has manifested itself in a number of ways. This primary bill will establish a children's e-safety commissioner and it sets out a range of functions and powers which relate to a defined prohibition against cyberbullying material targeted at an Australian child. On the face of it, it is a very specific mechanism and a very specific pathway to deal with a very specific problem. A targeted Australian child, or their representative, can complain to the commissioner that they are or have been the subject of cyberbullying material and the commissioner may investigate such complaints. The bill sets out an expectation of the parliament that each social media service will comply with a set of what are known as basic online safety requirements, which includes minimum standards in a service provider's terms and conditions of use, that there is a complaints system in place and that there is a dedicated contact person.

The bill also seeks to establish two tiers of social media services. For tier 1 social media services, the provider of a social media service can apply to the commissioner to be declared that way. The advantage of this declaration is, in many respects, reputational. Social media service providers within this tier can be requested by the commissioner to remove materials that have been the subject of a complaint as cyberbullying material targeted at an Australian child. In contrast, tier 2 media service providers can be issued with a social media service notice by the commissioner which requires the removal of such material. The commissioner has the power to issue notices to end users who post cyberbullying material, which can include a requirement for them to remove the material, and the remedy for noncompliance would be injunctive relief. That, in a sense, gives you an idea of the breadth of this proposed legislation and its intention.

The member for Greenway and shadow minister has outlined that to get to this point has taken a considerable period of time. The government had an intention as to when it wanted to bring this in. That intention has not necessarily been met, partly for the reasons that we anticipated: that this is a vexed area that does not lend itself to easy solutions and you cannot necessarily, with the flourish of a pen, determine legislation that will be able to deal with this in a way that you think is productive. It has taken a bit of time to get here.

There are probably a lot of people—and I have seen some of the commentary on social media—who are concerned about the way in which this is being managed, particularly people who think that the internet should be allowed to be a place where there is a free flow of ideas that can be expressed and shared. I certainly understand that and certainly appreciate it, but I think there is a common-sense proposition. The common sense of the Australian public is, 'Yeah, we get that; we want people to be able to express their ideas on social media, but you have got to be able to draw a line somewhere and you have got to be able to draw a line when it affects young minds'—and there is an effect. You need only look, as I have, at some of the cases to see what cyberbullying does. And the rate at which it is occurring is quite phenomenal. According to one article from news.com.au from a few years ago, January 2012, Australia back then rated No. 1 in the world for bullying on social networks like Facebook. That is a pretty serious statistic. While we ranked fifth for cyberbullying overall, nine out of 10 parents said when the harassment occurred it was on these types of sites. So it is pretty serious. There are also a number of concerns from other jurisdictions. For example, in the UK there are concerns about the rate at which that is happening and concerns that there is not enough being done.

In the short time I have before we go onto other items on the agenda for today, I want make the point that, when you look at the stats and see how often this occurs and you recognise how worried parents are about this, you wonder whether or not the social media services themselves would be responsive enough to deal with it. I have to say, as much as I am supportive of them, they do not have a good track record in this regard. Social media services can do a lot more and have often been urged to do a lot more and have often been found wanting to achieve this. While I might be supportive of them in many instances, I am concerned that they fail to be responsive. It is not just me saying it; it is also the social media services themselves. For instance, the CEO of Twitter acknowledged that they do a pretty substandard job—I am not going to use the specific term that he has used—at dealing with bullying and trolling. And we have seen some devastating impacts of that.

Regardless of our differences of approach and much as we might have differing views on this issue, I think both sides of politics are pretty united in that we would much rather have the social media services deal with these problems themselves than have legislation imposed upon them. We would much rather the social media services do what they have done. They have emerged by themselves without any regard or need for government and we would much rather that. In acknowledging the way that they blossom, the way that they grew, the way that they took hold and the way that they got support, we would much rather that that organic process continued and that those services also respond in an adequate and timely way to what the public is expecting. When Australia is ranking in the way that it does on online bullying and when you see the concern that exists for parents—a lot of whom do not know the extent to which bullying is occurring and impacting on their children—you would think that that would prompt the social media services, Facebook, Twitter and the like, to act and act quickly. But they have not. They have failed to act, and they have set up hurdles in the process.

So while we may think that there are aspects of what the government is proposing that are inelegant, it is a fact that both sides of politics recognise this is an issue and that something is going to have to be done. Again, we would rather that those services do this of themselves. We would rather that they not have to have legislation being debated on the floor like it is here. But it is clear that, through their inability to do so, legislators are having to act. We are seeing this in other jurisdictions. In other parts of the world they are saying, 'We respect the way the internet has opened things up but you have to take control of these things and, if you don't, we will act.'

I think that this legislation is a reflection of a failure by services to act and, as a result of that, we are having to do this. Having said that, there are some concerns about the legislation which I would probably come back to at a later point.

See this speech in context