Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

I support the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014 and I do so because, amongst other things, I was a member of the parliamentary committee that several years ago was responsible for the inquiry into this very issue, which resulted in the report entitled High wire act: cybersafety and the young. That report was submitted to parliament in 2011 and contained some 30-odd recommendations. Amongst those recommendations was a whole range of things which I think, ultimately, led to the legislation that is before us today.

The central purpose of this legislation is to establish the position of the Children's e-Safety Commissioner. The key functions of the commissioner will be, firstly, to: administer a complaints system for cyberbullying targeted at a child; take responsibility for administering the online content scheme; and, thirdly, arrange for the removal of offending material using a two-tiered system that other members who have contributed to this debate have discussed.

The bill also creates a complaints system for cyberbullying material targeted at an Australian child; creates the two-tiered system, which I just mentioned a moment ago; provides for civil penalties, enforceable undertakings and injunctions should the need arise; and establishes the Children's Online Safety Special Account to fund the commissioner's functions.

The genesis of this position was the Joint Select Committee Inquiry into Cyber-Safety carried out in 2011. It was a fairly extensive inquiry, and I can recall visiting a number of places around the country as well as people coming here to Parliament House to make their submissions. In particular, I can also recall that at the end of the inquiry there was an online survey to which some 33,751 participants responded—mostly from 10 to 15 years of age; I understand that over 80 per cent of them were in that age category. That is a lot of people and, in particular, a lot of young people making their views known about their concerns about bullying.

I might come back to that a little later, but this is an issue that is so widespread in the community and yet, to date, in my view we have not been able to somehow get on top of it. I say that with the full understanding that there have been many, many attempts and efforts by groups to try and get on top of cyberbullying in the community, particularly as it relates to young people. But I am not so sure that the problem no longer exists; I believe in fact that it does quite extensively when you go around your community.

I have been to many of the schools in my own electorate where I am aware, again, that this is a critical issue for them. Again, I commend and compliment all of the initiatives that I have seen by different schools as they too try to grapple with what is a very complex issue.

We know that we live in a rapidly changing world, and much of the change is being driven by innovation in cybertechnology, which continues to change our lives at an ever-increasing pace. Indeed the internet and social media are literally consuming the lives of so many people today—and that concerns me.

In June 2014, a report estimated that, over a 12-month period, around 20 per cent of Australians aged 8 to17 have been victims of cyberbullying—that translates to around 463,000 children in this age group who have been affected. Those figures are only estimates; however, I would not be surprised if they are even higher. One of the problems that was made very, very clear in the course of our inquiry was that young people are very reluctant to talk about cyberbullying when it does occur. They are reluctant because, firstly, they often feel embarrassed about the fact that it is happening to them. Secondly, they feel that there is little that can be done about it anyway, and so they let it ride and, quite often, suffer in silence. Indeed I know some young people who, as a result of cyberbullying, have decided that their best option was to change schools and go somewhere else. That in itself is a problem. It is an even greater problem that the bullying may well continue outside of school hours right into the family home, which would otherwise have been considered a safe haven. Again, we have been unable to manage what is truly a major problem out there in the community.

The issue of cybersystems in the community generally has led to a whole range of problems, from computer hacking right through to child pornography, money scamming, money and identity theft. And then comes bullying. It seems that we have been able to get a better handle on all the others because in most cases we are dealing with adults, and our laws are better structured to deal with offences when they are committed by an adult. When it comes to cyberbullying, it seems that in many instances the perpetrator is a young person, and because they are a young person it is much more difficult to deal with them in the way that we would otherwise do if it were an adult we were dealing with

That is why the joint standing committee's report of 2011 contained 32 different recommendations, all of which addressed different aspects of the problem in the hope that those different actions would collectively make a real difference to how we manage this problem. That report was nearly four years ago, and whilst I accept that there have been considerable changes in the cyberworld with respect to hardware and software and the number of interactive social sites that are now available, I believe the issue of cyberbullying has not changed a lot and is still prevalent out there.

As the previous speaker said, cyberbullying could be described—and I cannot recall his precise definition—as the posting of menacing, harassing, offensive or intimidating material online. Obviously, it is done for a particular purpose by the perpetrator. Depending on the actual language used and the way it is sent it is it very difficult to manage. But what is clear is that it is widespread amongst young people. Indeed, we know that in some cases young people have been driven to suicide. There have been reports of several cases of suicide which have been attributed to cyberbullying—I guess no-one will know precisely whether there were other factors in there—but if it leads to that kind of consequence then it is clearly time that we take action, and action that might provide the kinds of support services that will prevent that from happening in the future.

This is not a problem which is unique to Australia. It is a problem that you will find around the world. I note that many other countries have, like Australia, grappled with it to try to deal with it and have implemented their own laws in a similar way to what we are doing here in this parliament today.

I also note that one of the most effective strategies is to have a better education process in place, that educates not only the young person but the young person's friends, their acquaintances, their family members and, where the school is involved, the broader school community. Quite often it is as the result of the intervention of those close friends, family members or other members of the school community that the cyberbullying comes to an end.

It is also very much the case that at times the perpetrator remains anonymous, and that makes the issue more difficult to deal with. We heard in the course of the inquiry from many young people who received different text messages and the like, about the grief it caused them and their inability to respond either because, as I said earlier, they did not know who was sending the messages or because they felt there was nobody to turn to.

There have been a number of other community-wide programs with which I am familiar, and I commend the people who have got involved in putting those programs together. I also want to mention that in the course of the inquiry I held a forum in my own electorate with the member for Gorton, who at the time was the Australian minister for police. We also had the AFP and South Australia Police on hand, as well as educators in the area and many of the families and children who live in my electorate. It was interesting to note from that forum that the issues raised, the comments made and the concerns brought to our attention were entirely consistent with the kind of feedback we had received in the course of the inquiry that the parliamentary committee had carried out. It just confirmed to me that we were on the right track with respect to the recommendations that arose from that inquiry.

I do note that the government has allocated $7.5 million for the online safety education and that one of the roles of the commissioner is to accredit online safety education programs. Bearing in mind that education is fundamental to resolving this issue, I believe this is a worthwhile initiative. It will be interesting to how it plays out and whether it makes a difference. I know that the federal government has already got cyberbullying online safety education programs in place and they have been taken up by schools in my area—and I imagine around the country—with some beneficial effect. But clearly more needs to be done.

The real problem with all of this is that we deal with a problem that quite often arises amongst young people who are under adult-age; therefore, it is difficult to bring them before the courts in a way which is going to responsibly resolve the matter. This is unlike when we are dealing with adults; it is much more complex dealing with young people. Indeed we have right now in this country several laws that could be applied with respect to cyberbullying if the authorities chose to use them. It has always been an offence to use a carriage service to threaten to kill or cause serious harm to anybody.

Each state has its own anti-stalking laws. Complaints could be made to the Australian Human Rights Commission. The Australian Broadcasting Services Act 1992 regulates online content and, in particular, illegal and offensive content. Each one of those actions could be used as a remedy. But the truth is that none of them would seem to be appropriate when you are dealing with a perpetrator who may be a young person.

In most cases the best solution is to get the perpetrator, the victim, the parents and school counsellors together to talk the issue through and resolve it in a satisfactory way, bearing in mind that we are dealing with young people. That is the aim of this process, as I understand; the commissioner has the ability to talk to the police and the education authorities and try to bring those parties together. The commissioner also has the role of trying to oversee the government's policies more broadly; managing this whole process of cyberbullying, and ensuring that the remedies we currently have in place are indeed effective; and, if they are not, then perhaps recommending to the government other alternative actions.

Finally—and this is where I see the real importance of this position—again, it was clear to me in the course of our inquiry that the young people felt they had no-one to turn to who would truly listen to them and take their complaints and concerns seriously. This position creates an office for them to be able to do that. It gives them someone to turn to, even if it is someone they do not personally confront; they can pass the information on, through the online system that will be available for them. And at least they will know that someone at the end of the line will take their concerns seriously and then take the appropriate action. With those comments, I reiterate that we support this legislation.

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