Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Reid, who, as an extremely well-qualified and experienced academic and clinical psychologist, has a very good understanding about the importance of online safety and the way online abuse can be very damaging to mental health. This is an area where our government has had a very clear focus since coming to government in 2013. In 2015 we created what was then called the Children's eSafety Commissioner, and that was a world first—a scheme to remove cyberbullying material directed at children. In 2017 we expanded the remit and renamed it the eSafety Commissioner and introduced a scheme to assist victims of the unauthorised sharing of intimate images—again, enormously damaging to its victims, overwhelmingly women. In 2019 we gave the eSafety Commissioner additional powers to deal with abhorrent violent material following the appalling live streaming of the murder of more than 50 people in the dreadful Christchurch mosque attack.

We are continuing this. We took to the 2019 election a commitment that we would introduce a new online safety bill to build on and strengthen those existing safeguards. That legislation is now before the other place, and it includes a new adult cyberabuse take-down scheme. It includes stronger measures to deal with the cyberbullying of children. There's a set of basic online safety expectations where we are saying, on behalf of the Australian people, to online platforms, 'This is what we expect of you.' There is a reduction in the take-down period from 48 hours to 24 hours. There will be mandatory transparency reporting on how platforms are addressing online harms.

Australians spend an enormous amount of time online, but they have the same right to be protected by the rule of law when they're in the digital town square as when they're in the physical town square. That's why we established the eSafety Commissioner. That's why we're giving the eSafety Commissioner stronger powers through this new Online Safety Bill now before the other place and why we're also backing the eSafety Commissioner with record funding of over $120 million over the next four years, including nearly $40 million to deliver on the new protections that are set out in the new Online Safety Bill.

The internet is a wonderful resource educationally, socially and economically. But it also contains dangers, and we are determined to make sure that Australians have practical tools that they can have recourse to. That's what the eSafety Commissioner has been effectively doing over her years of operation. Under this new legislation, we are building on and expanding her powers to keep Australians safe online. (Time expired)

See this speech in context