Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the member for Forrest for bringing what I think is a really important motion before the House this afternoon. One of the driving passions of my life has been the welfare of Australian children. I believe, and the Australian Labor Party believes, that there is no higher duty of parliamentarians than keeping Australian children safe. The sixth of February is Safer Internet Day, a day when we can come together to create a safer and better internet where everyone is empowered to use technology safely and respectfully. I am very pleased to be speaking today on this motion, which recognises the critical importance of educating and protecting our children as they make a life online.

The growth of the internet represents extraordinary opportunity for our children. It provides a treasure trove of information, culture and stories for children to access. It helps our teachers and educators access the very best resources for their students. It allows families to keep in touch no matter where they are in world. All of these things are worth celebrating. But as a parent of two boys—who are one and four and who I know are going to be growing up in a world that I couldn't have imagined as a child—and as a parliamentarian I am keenly aware of the threats that exist to children online; they are very real, they are very common, they are very present.

In my role as the shadow minister for justice I have the great privilege of working with some of the organisations that spend their daily lives trying to protect Australian children. One of them is the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, which, the chamber will be aware, was created by Walter Mikac in the aftermath of the tragic death of his two girls. That organisation is fond of saying that protecting children online is the child protection issue of our era. I don't think there's a parent in this country that doesn't agree with this. In my role as shadow minister for justice I am exposed to what is the very worst end of this—the criminal end of this. There are children right around this country who are exposed to cyberbullying. I saw one terrifying statistic which said that of children aged eight to 12 about half have experienced cyberbullying online. In my work I have to deal with, at the worst end of the spectrum, online child abuse and child exploitation materials. As I said, these threats are real. It's not a figment of the imagination to try to keep people afraid; they're real, they're there and we do have to manage them as a parliament.

There is growing acknowledgement of the devastating effect of cyberbullying on the wellbeing of children in this country. Previous speakers have spoken to the tragic death of Dolly Everett last month, which I know shocked all Australians. It was a painful and heartbreaking reminder that online threats to children can be fatal. When we hear about the prevalence of these threats, I think we see the need for this parliament to act. Some of the previous speakers have talked about some of the legislative issues. I want to speak specifically about the education of Australian children to try to help them protect themselves against these threats. We can pass all the laws we want in this parliament, but there are specific issues which relate to the internet that make protecting children really hard. One of the really obvious ones is that a lot of the worst offenders who are facilitating this type of conduct are companies which are incorporated and registered overseas. We can try to send them notices to take things down from the internet, but it's not always effective, so we do need to come back to this point about empowering children.

Labor was very proud to put in place the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and it echoed the importance of providing kids with education and the tools to try to protect themselves on the internet. That commission recommended increased online safety education for children. That report was handed down a while ago, and I am keenly awaiting the government's response to it. This is the most profound, fundamental, sweeping review of child protection that has ever been conducted in Australia, and I am very much looking forward to a constructive debate with the government to talk about how we can make sure that the recommendations of that commission become Australian law.

In the remaining seconds, I want to note some of the people who are working in this space who I think deserve particular acknowledgement. One of those is Sonya Ryan, whose daughter Carly was tragically taken from her in circumstances that really are my worst nightmare for my own children. Sonya Ryan has used the tragic death of her daughter to protect other Australian children through the creation of the Carly Ryan Foundation. I want to acknowledge the work of that foundation and also the Australian Federal Police officers who are doing so much in their daily lives to try to protect the children that we are all so much responsible for.

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