Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the break I was reflecting on the point that social media was causing a lot of concern for a number of people, particularly its use as a tool to inflict bullying behaviour. Some of those stats are quite extraordinary. The University of New South Wales Social Policy Research Centre says that one in five of our nation's children between the years of 10 and 17 experience cyberbullying. Evidence shows that cyberbullying experienced by some young people leads to lower levels of connectedness, higher levels of loneliness and a feeling of less security at school. So it does have a big impact.

I earlier noted that Australia does not rank well in world standings when it comes to the degree to which young people and people generally are bullied via social media. There has been an admission—and I reflected very briefly on this—by some social media that they are not doing a good job. In fact, the CEO of Twitter—if I can use his rather florid and colourful terms—admitted that 'Twitter sucks at dealing with trolls' and agreed it is their fault. He said that in a memo to his staff. Dick Costolo, the CEO, to his great credit accepts responsibility for the problems and promises to change it on the way. The issue for us is that the continual promises do not seem to eventuate.

The shadow minister, the member for Greenway, indicated that some of the social media services in Australia have committed themselves to improving the way they work. She detailed some of the things that they do. In fact, under voluntary agreements that exist—and we had this detailed elsewhere—they were undertaking a number of things to actually improve their track record on this issue. In some cases Facebook even undertakes programs to promote antibullying but, as I said before, people often experience difficulty in trying to remove material that might cause them some grief.

The government has committed to this mechanism. We have indicated support for their legislation and there will be interest to see how effective it is. We have highlighted what we are concerned about—some practical problems. For instance, technology is evolving. The social medial that we have experienced previously has a degree of, if I can call it, permanence. Whereas, there are some platforms that are emerging, be it Snapchat or other avenues where the messages that are communicated are not around for a long period of time, so it is hard to capture the evidence and then hard to act on it. There are also some practical impediments. Again, the shadow minister has outlined this. For instance, with end-user notices—how do you deliver it, in some cases to anonymous users? How are you able to track those end users down if they hide and use anonymity to protect themselves but still undertake bullying? The speed at which those notices can be issued can potentially be an issue as well—and this has been raised with the government.

We have said that there may be some issues there that need to be followed up. For instance, what happens when the end user is a child or a minor? How will that actually be given effect? These things do happen and have been experienced. I imagine this is something that the government has been trying to work through as well. This degree of complexity has meant that there has been a delay in bringing this to the parliament. I do not say that as a criticism. I think it reflects the fact that this is a wretchedly complex area to try and move very surely in, but it is something that is of concern.

The best thing is that there is going to be a statutory review period put in place. There is a statutory review mechanism which is, as has been reflected, highly appropriate and certainly welcomed. Ultimately, however, the best thing is—and I am a firm believer in this—that if the market is able, if the companies, if the industry itself, if the sector itself is able to deal with this, it is way more preferable than government intervening. The problem has been they have not been able to do so in an effective way and that has triggered responses on both sides of the House in one shape or form. But, the better they get at this, then hopefully after a statutory review period, there may even be the prospect of us being able to remove these types of regulations down the track. In the meantime, I reiterate the opposition's commitment to work with the government on this. I thank the House for the opportunity to speak to the bill.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014. Before I get to the detail of the bill, I would like to quote a section from my maiden speech. I quote:

Social media will be the great challenge of this generation. While it presents incredible opportunity, it is complex, far reaching and constant. It can envelop every waking minute, preventing victims of bullying and abuse from getting any respite. Social media's greatest threat is to our children, not because of the medium itself but because you can never be sure who is on the other end. Our challenge as elected members of parliament will be to find the delicate balance between free speech, the right to information and protecting the vulnerable.

This bill is about trying to strike that balance. It is about providing opportunity for parents. As a parent of a 14-year-old young son and two young daughters, one of 12 and one of seven, I can tell you that this is an issue which is of incredible interest to me, my family and my wife. It is a challenge we deal with on an almost daily or weekly basis.

Certainly, the ability for a e-safety commissioner, which gets enacted under this bill, gives a single point of contact. As a member of the Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications, I have had the unique opportunity, along with my colleagues of course, to be briefed by the Australian Federal Police and other services around just how difficult these things for police. The main point of contact before this bill was around was the Telecommunications Act and the use of a carriage service. It is fairly difficult to get our enforcement agents interested in victims of bullying on Facebook. They do take action and there are other opportunities but this is good step forward.

We will also provide $7½ million under the National Safe Schools Framework to allow schools to access the online safety program. This really is a big issue. As was stated by the previous member, of Australians aged between eight and 17 around 20 per cent of those people are receiving online bullying and discrimination. It is incredibly difficult to monitor. As I said before, as a parent it is something of great concern to me—great concern indeed. The bill also provides for a 2-tier rapid removal process. But as I said, the best part of this bill is there is a position for a parent to go to when they have concerns.

The debate in my house on the weekend was about passwords and access to iPads and iPhones and everything else, including iPods. My young son of 14 considered it more important that he have his privacy than mum and dad have access to his devices. I would suggest to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that that was an argument which he has lost. However, it did take some considerable motivation in order for that to happen. I am sure that his sister is enjoying her new iPhone. It is a difficult thing to get across.

From a personal viewpoint, in my day—and this is certainly not something I would advocate, and it is not something I have ever done—if a young gentlemen was outside throwing rocks on the window of your daughter's room trying to attract some attention, it was quite easy to go outside and have a discussion and a suggestion about other opportunities for them to take up elsewhere. Unfortunately, with social media that opportunity just does not exist. Certainly in terms of harassment it can be very difficult. As a young gentlemen, at school I was probably fifty-fifty—50 per cent of the time I was the protagonist and 50 per cent of the time I was the recipient. So I think it is a bit of a balance. However, you could actually get away from that. You could literally get on your pushbike and go home and do something else.

With social media there is no opportunity for escape. It is a text message, it is Facebook, it is Twitter, it is all the other activities which run constantly. I do not need to tell the other members of the House just how difficult it is to deal with those things, which we deal with regularly and constantly. If I look at some of our members right now I am sure they are on social media sending text messages and all those other things. But for a child, someone who is only young, who is susceptible, who perhaps has some difficulty making the right decisions, this is an incredibly serious issue.

I would like to speak about a young lady who I met yesterday, Britteny Hunter. Britteny is one of the winners of the Heywire competition from my hometown of Bundaberg and is very social media savvy, I must say. It was an absolute pleasure to meet Britteny. She is a graduate of Shalom Catholic College in Bundaberg. I took her on a behind the scenes tour of Parliament House. She met the Minister for Agriculture, Barnaby Joyce, and at the time she informed us that her flooded home was one which we gave a helping hand to during the flood. The now Prime Minister, the Minister for Agriculture and I actually lifted some pianos.