Zoe Daniel (Goldstein, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will speak briefly to the government's amendments, in part because of the deep interaction that my office has had with the minister and her staff in recent weeks in trying to resolve some pretty substantive issues of concern in the original bill. The government's amendments go, in part, to several of those concerns, particularly around transparency and data rights access for researchers. Having taken substantial expert advice in recent months—indeed, since last year when the exposure draft of the bill was originally given to the parliament to assess and attracted tens of thousands of submissions—I've been working with experts to try to get to the core of enabling researchers to look under the hood of these platforms.

I understand the reservations that have been raised by many in the opposition and within the Australian community around this bill. But I think that, on balance, at the moment we have zero guardrails around the behaviour of these platforms as it relates to misinformation and disinformation, and, currently, the misinformation and disinformation that is being somewhat managed by the platforms is being done so under the rules of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. In this instance, this parliament, on behalf of the Australian community, is trying to take some level of control back in order to be clear on exactly what risk mitigation measures the platforms have in place so that we can see that, in areas of risk, the platforms are taking the appropriate action.

I note that experts say that the addition of these amendments does add robustness and is consistent with international best practice on data rights access, and it's likely to be a more powerful mechanism for countering misinformation and disinformation than just ACMA alone.

I also note the concerns that have been raised by the Human Rights Commissioner around this bill, and I will reassure members of my community that others have different views. The Human Rights Law Centre, for example, believes that, with the changes that have been made, this bill should be passed in its current form.

I thank the minister for the interaction and, indeed, the minister's staff, who have done an enormous amount of work with my office on this.

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