Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the government whip for the opportunity to speak on this adjournment tonight. In rising to speak somewhat unexpectedly this evening, I want to make reference to a serious issue that was raised at the National Day of Thanksgiving, which was conducted on Saturday, 26 May. This was a day that was held and auspiced by the Berwick Church of Christ. Its purpose was to acknowledge community leaders and community servants and their contribution to the community. It was a day that was conducted by the Reverend Barry Cutchie, who is the reverend at the Berwick Church of Christ—a person who is passionately committed to social justice and equity and someone who is an enormous contributor in his own right and to the benefit of those who live in my community.

One of the issues that was raised in this discussion on the National Day of Thanksgiving was internet filtering of pornography. It is an issue that I have been raising in this House for some period of time. What I note and what I hear is that families across Australia are concerned about their children seeing pornography and violence on the internet. We would all share that concern. They want governments to do more to protect children from this material.

It is interesting to note that a Newspoll survey commissioned by the Australia Institute in 2003 surveyed parents with children between 12 and 17. It found that 85 per cent were concerned with their children seeing pornography on the internet, 75 per cent said that the federal government should be doing more, and 93 per cent expressed support for mandatory filtering of internet pornography.

The Labor Party policy basically says that mandatory filtering should actually occur at source—that is, at what is called ISP level. It is the strongest action that we can take to protect our children. Even those who believe that adults should have the right to access and view legal content in their homes would not accept taxpayer funded facilities such as public libraries or schools being used for the purpose of accessing pornographic material at those facilities, especially when in a public facility like a library or a school children can be easily exposed to the most horrific sort of material. That situation can occur.

Last year 62 members of the federal coalition signed a letter to the Prime Minister calling for a ban on access to pornographic, violent and other inappropriate material via the internet. That is certainly something that I support. The senator involved—the Minister for Telecommunications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator Helen Coonan—dismissed those views as being not well informed. There is one person who is not well informed with respect to this issue and that is the minister for telecommunications. However, the people whose signatures I collected with respect to internet pornography, who wanted it prohibited from public libraries and actually wanted federal government funding tied to the mandatory installation of internet pornography filters, disagreed with the minister for telecommunications. In fact, I attracted 4,936 people to sign this particular petition.

The government’s response, after pressure from Labor and the coalition backbench, it must be said, was the National Filter Scheme. This scheme offers free filters to families and public libraries. It was announced in June 2006 but has not been implemented, nor has an implementation date been set some 10 months later. The Filter Scheme will be backed, as I understand it, by an $18.3 million national public awareness campaign to educate parents about online dangers. The government said that information would be provided on online and printed advertisements as well as through a telephone helpline.

There are several flaws in this policy. For example, public libraries that I have dealt with have been openly hostile to the concept of mandatory filtering. In fact, they will not take up this offer. This means that children can walk into a public library and access pornographic material. No-one in this place can say that that is acceptable. The capacity to give these people choice in this matter should not occur. There should be mandatory filtering. The problem is that, in offering a voluntary filter, we have seen that libraries will not take this up.

As a parent and as a legislator in this place, I feel that it is our responsibility to protect our most precious resources—our children. Therefore, it is my belief that this House and those in the government should accept the fact that mandatory filtering should occur at source—at ISP level—rather than allowing some librarian to allow persons to access pornography in a library and perhaps in a school as well. This is a policy that does have the support of 62 backbenchers of the government. It is a Labor Party policy. It is a policy whose time has come. I call upon the House to adopt this policy.