Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying, Bendigo South East College in my electorate was the first school in Victoria to be accredited as an eSmart school. It demonstrates a whole-of-school approach to tackling the issue of cyber bullying. Ms Fitzgerald of the school said that she hoped that this particular program the school was implementing would help clarify teachers', parents and the students legal responsibilities in dealing with cyber bullying. She said that current laws are struggling to keep up with the improvements in technology and the practices that come with those technologies. Ms Fitzgerald believed that setting in place procedures and practices that were discussed openly with students and parents would allow the whole school community to understand its responsibilities.

It is challenging for schools to be on top of everything that not only happens in the classroom but also in the virtual classroom and that not only happens in the playground but also in the virtual playground. She said that there was definitely a need for students to engage their parents and for parents to engage their students to understand the new eSmart accreditation at the school. This is another demonstration of another school stepping up and saying it understands the complexities of this problem and wants to be proactive in getting on top of tackling cyber bullying within the school community. This came about not because of this legislation but because of state and federal governments previously encouraging schools to take up education programs. A point that we need to make in this debate is that whilst it is good that we are establishing a commissioner, we need to continue to encourage and fund programs in our schools and in our community. The education role cannot be underestimated in tackling this issue of cyber bullying.

The former Labor government, apart from announcing new education programs to help combat cyber bullying also, as a result of a 2011 parliamentary committee report into cyber safety, developed a voluntary non-binding protocol in response to the recommendations. Companies such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Yahoo, Microsoft all signed up to this protocol that committed them to a robust process of looking for and acting upon complaints, establishing clear guidelines to users about acceptable behaviour online as well as providing education and awareness programs. At the time, Prime Minister Gillard called the protocol a step forward by the giants of social media but added there were more steps needed to be taken. This is an issue that we have all been proactive about for quite some time.

At the time, the Prime Minister also said, in words that we many of us will agree with, that we all know what it feels like to be in a room of people, perhaps back your school days, where you felt humiliated in front of the class or in front of your sporting team. At that time, it may have been 20 or 30 people. Many of us live with the feeling of humiliation in front of thousands of people or indeed tens of thousands of people because of the social media environment. Online, there is a fear that it could be tens of thousands witnessing the trauma you are going through. The ongoing impact of cyber bullying we have heard from other speakers here today. Those words of two years ago are as true today. And that is why this bill will continue the good work that has been started by previous governments.

However, there are some concerns with what has been put forward. Industry and community consultation needs to occur with these particular proposals and that is why it is important that this legislation be referred to a Senate committee—to make sure we are bringing community industry with us. This piece of legislation does create a new commissioner. To ensure that it is effective, we need to make sure, just like Bendigo South East College has done, that we engage all elements of the community that will be engaged by this commissioner so that the commissioner and the purpose of the commissioner do actually succeed.

Labor is conscious of concerns that have been raised about some parts of the sector. It must be noted that internet companies like Google and Microsoft have said that existing state and territory laws already prohibit cyberbullying and that they are already engaged to remove offensive material under state laws. As I have already mentioned, there is also a voluntary code that these companies have signed up to, so we need to make sure that, when establishing the commissioner, the role interacts with the framework that we already have in place. That is why it is important that this bill be referred to a Senate committee, to make sure it does exactly that.

To give credit to the parliamentary secretary, these comments have been acknowledged publicly. In the media he said:

We are conscious of not imposing any more additional regulatory burden than is necessary to keep Australian children safe online.

This is an acknowledgement that we need to work together with the other authorities, with the Australian community and with state jurisdictions as well as the companies to make sure we have a commissioner role that works. Nevertheless, when we are talking about protecting our children from online bullying, it is worth giving it a go.

Finally, in this debate I believe that we need to take a moment to stop and look at our own behaviour as the political class. We know that children model adult behaviour, so this is an important time to remember that what we do online, what we do in this place, how we treat one another, needs to be recognised. If we want our children to treat each other with respect and to not bully one another, then we need to be open and transparent about our conversations. And if we are engaged in political debate then we need to debate the issues and not the person. It is important that we remember that.

In researching for this speech, I did pull together very various quotes and tweets that were put out during the previous government. We all acknowledge that former Prime Minister Gillard was subject to what can only be described as some pretty intense cyberbullying. They are not appropriate to read out in this House, but I did want to make the point that if we want to ensure our children treat each other with respect then we need to treat each other with respect. Quite often when schoolchildren come to see me in this place and speak about what they would like to see from their political leaders, the first comment that many of them make is, 'Be nicer to one another; don't be so mean'. It is a demonstration that children are picking up on our day-to-day behaviour that we have modelled. So we as a community, we as a society, we as a government and we as parliamentarians all play a role in ensuring that cyberbullying is not something that children continue to be subjected to. If we want to ensure this commissioner role works, then we need to make sure it is engaging with the key stakeholders to make it successful.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014. The advent of the internet has seen our world change, and not always for the better. While the dissemination of information is indeed far easier and quicker, the internet has always had a darker side. We have seen sites like Silk Road become an online market place for illegal drugs. There are literally thousands of websites promoting get rich quick schemes that fleece the unwary. There is the ever present threat of child pornography being peddled across the world, not to mention hackers who will stop at nothing to gain access to government and individual records.

Worryingly, we now see the trend of cyberbullying. This is where the social media pages of certain individuals are flooded with often contemptible comments that attack the individual. While bullying is still more common face-to-face according to the research paper The prevalence of cyberbullying in Australia, this does not mean the government should not act. Bullying in all its forms must be addressed. The state governments have all enacted bullying strategies in their schools and this is to be commended. Now it is the turn of the federal government to look after the area of its responsibility, the online environment.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority—ACMA—already has the Cybersmart website aimed at children of all ages, parents and schools and it has many great ideas and hints for staying safe online. I urge anyone who feels worried about their online safety to visit Cybersmart and use the tips to stay safe. However, bullying is far more insidious than the Nigerian oil scam. Time was that if you were bullied at school, that bullying ended at three o'clock when the last bell rang; however, with the advent of social media that bullying can now continue around the clock, 24/7. The previously mentioned study also reported that seven per cent of students encountered bullying at school and online and the offender was usually the same person. This gives the victim no chance to escape the bully, as was possible in the past. That is why the measures contained in this bill are so important. Cyberbullying can lead to death. This issue is that serious, with many cases of young people who have taken their own lives because of relentless bullying.

The Commission for Children and Young People and the Child Guardian say 13 of the 63 child suicides in Queensland between 2010 and 2013 are directly attributable to cyberbullying, and they say that number is likely conservative. This bill will establish the statutory office of the Children's e-Safety Commissioner within ACMA. This commissioner will take national leadership in online safety for children, with two sets of powers at their disposal for responding to complaints. The commissioner will have the power to direct a large social media service to remove bullying material. These organisations have the option of voluntary participation in the program, and such notices to remove material will not be legally binding as they have already volunteered to take part in the scheme. These will be known as tier 1. Those social media outlets that choose not to participate in a voluntary capacity and those tier 1 organisations who fail to abide by notices issued will be classed as tier 2 and any notices to remove materials served to them will be legally binding. These systems gives social media outlets the opportunity to do the right thing in the first instance.

I do not believe people like Mark Zuckerberg ever intended their social media sites to be used to bully and intimidate a person to the point they take their own life. I would hope that all social media organisations would agree to act on this matter in a voluntary way and in the best interests of their consumers.

The commissioner will also have the power to issue a notice to the person who posted the material, which requires them to remove the material, refrain from posting the material or issue an apology. The commissioner will have the power to seek a Federal Court injunction against any person who fails to comply with such a notice.

While it is true no new offence labelled 'cyberbullying' will be created, there remain laws available under which people may be prosecuted if they fail to comply with a direction from the commissioner. Sections 474.15 and 474.17 deal with using a carriage service to make threats, menace, harass or cause offence, punishable by three years imprisonment. Failure to comply with an injunction notice issued by the Federal Court is treated as contempt of court and could lead to a fine or imprisonment until the offender has purged their contempt by complying with the order.

The functions of the commissioner will not be strictly punitive and reactionary. The aim is to stop cyberbullying occurring in the first place, so the commissioner will take responsibility for: promoting online safety; coordinating the relevant activities of Commonwealth departments, agencies and authorities; conducting, accrediting and evaluating educational and community awareness campaigns; making grants; and advising the minister.

As you can see, education around the issues of online safety in a broader sense will also be a vital part of the commissioner's role. Having the ability to ask for offensive material to be removed is not as powerful as stopping it being posted in the first place by a strong education campaign. Targeting the problem at its source will hopefully be a way of teaching what acceptable and unacceptable behaviour is in the online community.

These bills are the result of extensive public consultation that began while the government was in opposition in November 2012. The public were invited to comment and a full public consultation began in January 2014. There were over 80 submissions. A draft of the bill was also shared with 30 stakeholders. The bill was adjusted to reflect a number of comments.

These bills do not replace the government's commitment to providing a software tool for computers and mobile devices. We continue to work with industry to ensure the best software will be made available to protect our children, but this software can only be installed at the discretion of parents whereas a Children's e-Safety Commissioner will have statutory authority to act on offensive material.

This is not a knee-jerk reaction but carefully considered and thought out bills, taking into account the concerns and needs of the public. These bills seek to remove content that is harmful to Australian children as quickly and efficiently as possible once a complaint has been made. I wish to congratulate the Minister for Communications on these bills. I feel they strike the correct balance and are a testament to this government's ability to consult with the community to draft laws that the Australian people want. I support these bills and commend them to the House.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome this opportunity to speak on the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014 and related bill. Obviously they deal with the issue of bullying that perhaps has always been endemic in our society, particularly amongst young people. It is obviously something I spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with in my work in schools. I suggest that the bills have captured some of the learning that has been going on in the education sector over the last decade in some of their content. Labor supports these bills and the introduction of an e-safety commissioner to put into place some of the ideas that are already in place in schools within our communities.

We have all read the headlines and can all relay the high-profile stories where bullying and its modern iteration cyberbullying have led to tragic results. In the real world, in our schools and communities, the impact of bullying, real or cyber, have no celebrity status—and when I say 'real' I mean of course in real time rather than on the Internet. This is happening every day in schools, in workplaces, in the community and, tragically for some, in the home.

As a teacher and principal I was trained to deal with real-time bullying. As a profession we had to adapt quickly however as cyberbullying emerged. I received training many years ago as a student at university studying teaching, but it is true to say that teachers learn on the job most of the strategies around protecting children and working with children to create preventative and protective behaviours. That was true in my case and for most of the teachers I worked with. We do that collectively and collegiately, supporting one another to come up with creative and sensitive ways of dealing with issues that can result in tragic consequences, as we have seen in recent times.

Like most in the chamber, we have been swept up, so to speak, by the disruption that is digital technologies coming quickly down the line and into our lives. As a mother I had three teenagers using MySpace. Does anyone remember MySpace? It was only eight years ago but it is the dim dark past now as it has been overtaken by other platforms. Like parents across the country, I had to establish acceptable practices in my home around my children's use of the Internet and at the time the dreaded MySpace. I dare say, like parents and teachers across the country, I had times when I was counselling the victim and other times when I was dealing with the bully. I hope in the process I was educating both in protective and preventative behaviours, creating awareness and making sure people understood the hurt and damage that bullying causes.

At the schools I was working in, we too began to have those conversations with students as issues emerged—firstly, from students interacting with social media from their homes and later with the wide use of smartphones whilst at school. We were dealing with new forms of interaction. The rude message was no longer left on the locker or scrawled in an alley on the way to school for all to see but posted and available for the world to see. We were dealing with this on the ground as the technologies emerged. Responsive schools and communities were educating families about the dangers of online use and about monitoring online behaviour, but the pace of change increased incredibly rapidly. In schools, in the space of six months, we went from debating whether to ban mobile phones in classrooms—in response to the concerns students would be distracted by making and taking calls and text messages in class—to managing something so much bigger.

Upon returning after a Christmas break, we found completely new issues for us to deal with. Those lovely new smartphone Christmas presents meant we were now faced with the proliferation of social media being used during school hours. The new protocols we had put in place the year prior were quickly out of date—digital disruption happens at a rapid pace. The best plans were disrupted by emerging technologies in nanoseconds. In the debate back then about mobile phones there were two schools of thought: some people wanted to ban them outright and others wanted to accommodate the new technology and apply standards and protocols to their use. These were intense debates around mobile phones. So you can only imagine the debates increasing in energy as we moved to smartphones.

My personal view was that we could use the school-wide debate about mobile phones as a vehicle for renewed discussion about good manners. As that became a debate about social media and it being used in negative ways, my personal view was that we could use the debate around the use of smartphones and the use of social media platforms for a conversation about bullying. I think it is fair to say that that is what occurred across our nation. It was important that as a country, as schools, as families and as communities we saw it as an opportunity, not just as a challenge.

The new debate emerged of course and change agents in education were publishing useful ways to harness smartphones for learning. Cutting-edge schools were introducing social media into classrooms to stay ahead of that curve and, in doing so, implemented programs to ensure responsible use of the internet. The education sector generally responded with positive plans for educating their communities on the value and the potential of the new platforms, as well as the dangers and what was acceptable behaviour from the keyboard.

Like all change, new challenges and opportunities emerged. The challenges around the 24/7 nature of social media are real, but as a society we have responded and we are here today as a federal government responding. In schools it was certainly a blessing that the laws, referenced by the member for Ryan in her contribution, already existed. It was a blessing that laws regarding the use of telecommunications for bullying and for harassment were already in place. In my experience, they were incredibly useful in working through issues with parents and students, because the knowledge that things were illegal certainly assisted parents and students to come to grips with the severity of those behaviours, and attitudes certainly changed quickly once people realised that what they were doing was illegal and that there were consequences.

But, of course, dealing with this issue is best done in a preventative way, and that is to educate our community in responsible use. Schools were very quick to bring those policies and practices into cultures. We were fortunate in introducing new technologies on a large scale in this country and in a planned way through the digital education program. This meant that schools prepared the ground by involving parents in, generally speaking, multiple contacts with the school—involving parents and students in those contacts in cyberbullying and awareness training programs. We held them for teachers, for parents and for students as part of our implementation programs. I think this added to broader community awareness about the issues that were occurring in cyberspace.

It also provided an opportunity for the whole school and community discussion about acceptable social behaviours. In fact, in many schools, as we heard the member for Bendigo outline, students were involved in designing those awareness campaigns themselves and strategies were embedded into the curriculum as well as into the culture. It brought the issue of bullying to the forefront again in our classrooms and in our communities, and it allowed us to highlight the hurt and damage that ensues when someone is systematically bullied. In many schools restorative justice practices were used and there was a lot of learning happening for teachers around the power of restorative justice practices. Where those hurt are acknowledged; where the victim is heard and empowered; where the bully comes to an understanding of the consequences of their actions for themselves as well as for the person that they have been bullying; and where the bully is called to account and has to make amends. These were important parts of the learning culture that was happening in schools as this digital disruption grew.

Of course, this is an ongoing issue. New platforms emerge and vast numbers of users mean that systems need to be developed to ensure that offensive material is removed as quickly as possible. I welcome the concession this week from Twitter that they had been lax in dealing with trolls—the new term for a cyberbully. This concession is hopefully a sign that the digital company will follow-up with planning and action to correct this. Perhaps this legislation going through could urge them to do that more quickly than they might have previously. Hopefully they will engage meaningfully in an ongoing way with the proposed e-safety commissioner to ensure that we are in a position to respond quickly as new platforms continue to emerge.

Labor are supporting this bill. As the member for Ryan so carefully explained, there has been a long bipartisan commitment dating back to the Labor government and a very careful, consultative process has taken place. In government we endorsed and responded to recommendations that came out of the cybersafety committees, and in opposition today we support the bill that is implementing some of those recommendations.

Labor have consistently called for detailed industry and community consultation on these proposals. We have facilitated community input on the legislation by referring the bill to a Senate committee and we are pleased to see that the amendment around a review process has been put in place.

There is still work to be done outside of this bill as a community going forward. I hope that our media outlets will continue to create awareness in the community, not so much through front-page stories about bullying as a sensational story but more about ensuring that parents are aware. As a community we are aware of the new platforms that are emerging. As a former teacher I can inform the House that our children are much quicker at finding new platforms and can often be involved in whole spaces on the internet before parents, schools and the rest of us are concerned. I think the media has a role to play in ensuring that we are all aware of what is coming and of what our children are involved in.

The establishment of a children's e-safety commissioner is a step in the right direction—assuming that the commissioner is properly resourced and can act in a timely way. Of course, trying to do something across a whole country may reduce the capacity for this to occur quickly, so I would suggest that setting up systems into the future would be a timely thing. Delays, of course, can be very dangerous. We need to ensure that the commissioner's powers are real and, more importantly, that they are reviewed and kept up to date. I welcome the inclusion of a review built into this legislation.

Most speakers this morning have mentioned the damning statistics of one in five children suggesting that they have been cyberbullied between the ages of 10 and 17. We know that it goes significantly unreported, so we need to continue to monitor that figure to ensure that our practices are helping to prevent those behaviours. We need to continue the conversations started at dinner tables, in classrooms and boardrooms across the country about building supportive, pro-social communities. We need to use the challenges our emerging technologies bring to present as opportunities to address social issues that have always existed but are finding new platforms.

Labor believe we must do all we can to tackle bullying in our classrooms, our homes and our workplaces, and we welcome this legislation as a step towards that. I look forward to working with others in the parliament as we continue progress in this area.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014. I would like to note the children in the upstairs glass gallery here today. The bill we are discussing today is all about you. It is about protecting you and your friends online.

When I speak to principals and head masters of the schools within my electorate of Lindsay, they overwhelmingly cite the rise in cyberbullying as one of the greatest issues that they now see in so many school communities. Many have commented on the change in children's behaviour over the years. For instance, in the past it was quite easy for kids to pass notes. For school principals it was quite easy for them to control the environment inside the school yard. Now they are looking after environments outside the school yard, where much of cyberbullying takes place.

Parents need to know that their children are safe. This bill will see the establishment of a children's e-safety commissioner and a two tiered system for the rapid removal of bullying material from large social media services. For those who post bullying material, the commissioner will be given powers to deal with them also, and there will be a clear hierarchy to deal with the issue. It also sends a message to kids that bullying has consequences. It sends a flag that making fun of others is not harmless; it hurts.

Parents in my electorate of Lindsay are telling me that this is an important step in bringing cyberbullying under control. Debbie O'Connor, a mother of two, actually works in the social media sphere and owns a social media business. She said, 'I think that the online safety bill is not just a great idea but a necessity. I note that the majority of the focus is on children, as it should be.'

I have limited my son to Instagram and Kik, as I am concerned about how many platforms he could be involved in and how I could manage the monitoring of them. I have a rule with him that he needs to hand over his iPad whenever I ask him to, to do spot checks on both apps. I seem to be far more vigilant than many parents who tend to turn a blind eye as it is all too hard and confusing for them.

Debbie sees that part of her job as a mother is social media management. She says: 'I know how hurtful and damaging fleeting comments on social media can be.' You need only see comments on Facebook, feeds from different news stations or pop culture sites like Mama Mia to realise that people who say things about others on social media would probably never have the guts to say those things to their face.

My view when it comes to social media is that it is like leaving your child alone in a crowded shopping centre. You would always want to know where they are and who they are with. The same goes for social media. I tell my son that if he is not prepared to have it put on a billboard over the highway, then he must not post it. For some reason, some kids and parents think that posting to social media is private and that it allows them to say and do things that they would never dare say in public. I keep telling my son that once it is posted it is accessible forever for anyone to see whenever they want to. All of his accounts are set to private so he only has access to those he knows.

However, a recent incident had a number of us parents concerned, when a school friend had her identity duplicated on Instagram. Her girl's name and images were used to create a new account. Her friends thought that she had just started a new account and instantly started following it and allowed 'her' access into their accounts until inappropriate content started being posted. A friend notified the girl, and her mother immediately pulled her Instagram account down. This is not an isolated incident, and parents and children should have a place to go where they can report this type of activity. Debbie said: 'I fully support this bill as I think that it is more accessibility to the internet, more apps and mobile devices that is the problem.' And it is only getting bigger and bigger.

And it is not only Debbie that sees the problem. In fact, in 2011, students from 23 Sydney schools were in Lindsay holding a conference on cyberbullying. The keynote speaker, Professor Donna Cross, Director of Edith Cowan University's Child Health Promotion Research Centre, told that conference that not only was the issue affecting one in 10 Australian children but the problem was in fact growing. She went on to say that, while traditional forms of bullying, such as physical violence, were decreasing, the incidence of cyberbullying was increasing at the rate of two to three per cent a year. She cites that part of the reason for this growth is a perception that the bullies can hide—the power to bully anonymously. And my fear is that growth in cyberbullying could see incidences double.

Across the UK, police commands put the rate of cyberbullying at one in five—one in five in the UK. That is phenomenal. Last year, a report from a study at the University of New South Wales titled Research on youth exposure to, andmanagement of, cyberbullyingincidents in Australia found:

The estimated number of children and young people aged 8–17 who have been victims of cyberbullying in Australia is around 463,000, of whom around 365,000 are in the peak age group of 10–15 years old.

And to the children in the top gallery: that is your age group.

Former Family Court of Australia Chief Justice, Alastair Nicholson, speaking at a 2013 conference on the issue, said that current laws provided little guidance about how bullying should be handled. He went on to say:

The legal duty of schools, teachers, parents and guardians, as well as others in positions of authority, is not currently clear.

Appointing a Children's e-Safety Commissioner will also help focus the issue. It will also be a specific authority to deal with cyberbullying and, most importantly, will give authorities a clear approach on how the issue will be dealt with.

Chris Webster, who has lectured to schools right across Western Sydney, notes:

Cyberbullying refers to bullying through information and communication technologies—

put simply—

… "bullying for the 21st century using email, text messages and the internet". Recent polls have shown that one-third of teenagers have had mean, threatening or embarrassing things said about them online. It has the same kind of insidious effects as the traditional form of bullying, "turning children away from school, friendships, and in tragic instances, life itself."

Chris notes that from his research, the best way to combat cyberbulling is awareness of the issue itself. Take the computers out of the children's bedrooms, and bring cyberbullying into wider conversation within the family.

I believe a dedicated Children's e-Safety Commissioner will help lift the profile of this issue. I think there are some programs in the community and some good work being done. But the evidence would suggest those programs and that work needs the support of a dedicated body—and the Children's e-safety Commissioner will provide this. Some of that work has been undertaken by the Australian Communications and Media Authority through its Cybersmart Outreach program. It has been running since 2009. They visit schools and have so far met with an estimated one million students, parents and teachers. Part of their work is in providing presentations on how to recognise cyberbullying and, more importantly, how to stay safe online. They also provide schools with lesson plans, videos and classroom activities. It is a very worthwhile program.

The Children's e-Safety Commissioner will still be within the ACMA. However, this bill provides for an independent statutory office to be created within the organisation. In simple terms, rather than it being a small branch within the ACMA, it will be afforded its own department specifically focused on cyberbullying issues. And it will also have teeth, along with $7.5 million in funding to ensure this organisation can perform its charter. Part of that is the power to demand that offending material be taken down by the service providers and the power to issue a summons to offenders. As a body it will be equipped to handle complaints and provide better outcomes for those involved.

Penrith City Council is very active in trying to combat cyberbullying in our region. In fact, every year they run programs for Safer Internet Day on 11 February. In general terms, they work with local police on the issue. But they also offer resources to explain issues—from cyberbullying to sexting, digital reputation, unknown contacts in social networking, identification theft and illegal content. According to local police:

Often cyber bullying escalates from conflict that begins in a school environment. The content of cyber bullying messages are taunting and insulting and often result with similar messages being sent back.

While these matters cause a significant amount of stress and anxiety for the victims and parents, the actions rarely amount to a criminal offence.

I think that will always be the case. At the end of the day, you are dealing with adolescent minds. You are dealing with kids who act first and think later. Often the taunting takes place out of spite and without thinking through the consequences.

A Children's e-Safety Commissioner will act as a new circuit breaker—somebody who has the legally binding power to confront cyberbullies head-on and show them the seriousness of their actions, somebody who can force cyberbullies to appropriately respond to their actions and somebody who can take the issue to the Federal Court if the cyberbully refuses to cooperate. A new commissioner can also reinforce police measures to combat the issue and, in particular, re-affirm police advice that, if children are being bullied online or by mobile phone, they should (1) tell their parents, (2) tell their school, (3) tell the site and (4) tell the police if it escalates to threats of violence.

Locally, schools have been active in trying to combat cyberbullying. For instance, Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School recently developed a stage play, Cyberbile, by playwright Alana Valentine, about online bullies and their victims. It was made into an event and performed at the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre in Penrith. They have identified that cyberbullying can start with something as small as someone chatting online about how someone dresses, speaks or even moves, and, at its worst, it can lead to suicide. A local year 11 dancer in the play, Charlotte Campbell, said at the time, 'It's very powerful and up-front about issues that society doesn't mention.' Again, this emphasises why the appointment of an independent Child e-Safety Commissioner is so important. It provides the chance to get this onto the table and out in the open.

This is a great piece of legislation, as it provides certainty and capitalises on the excellent work already carried out by authorities. It is important to strengthen measures to fight cyberbullying. This bill is about helping children to find their way through this problem, giving people help and providing hope to families.

Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014. I am particularly pleased because the students of Sacred Heart Primary School, Newport, in my electorate, are in the public galleries as I speak. I acknowledge them, in a debate that has a direct impact on their childhood experience—although maybe they saw all they wanted from the member for Lindsay.

While this bill has its merits, and it is supported by the Labor Party, it must be discussed in the context of this government's commitment to reduce the burden of excessive regulation and red tape on business. Regulation of the kind embodied in the bill before the House today is but one way that government and parliament can respond to the issue of children's online safety, a very important issue. But regulation is the way that the government has chosen in this context. This government talks a good game on red tape, and the member for Kooyong, in particular, in his previous role developed a very flash website to spruik the government's wares on the removal of unnecessary regulation. It is true that the member for Pearce, the new person taking on the member for Kooyong's former role, has not been quite as active in the promotion of this issue, or himself, but there are probably few in this chamber who could keep pace with the member for Kooyong in the self-promotion stakes, so I will not hold that against the member for Pearce! He has some time to come on. I digress, however.

You can look for yourself at the government's claimed record on red-tape reduction and regulation, at www.cuttingredtape.gov.au. The purpose of this website was to document the government's progress in cutting red tape. Under the member for Kooyong, there was even a bar on this website titled 'Track our progress' that gave updates on the 'deregulatory savings over the year to date' and the government's progress in the realisation of its stated target of cutting $1 billion in red tape or regulatory burden every year. The government currently claims to have achieved $2.1 billion in 'deregulatory savings' on this website.

Unfortunately, these savings are shakier than the Prime Minister's leadership. The vast bulk of the regulation removed through the government's 'repeal day' stunts has been trivial in the extreme. The statute law revision bills that we previously debated in this chamber made vital changes like changing the word 'facsimile' to 'fax' and 'e-mail' to 'email' in all Commonwealth legislation. No doubt this unleashed a productivity boom throughout the Australian business community. For too long have unnecessary hyphens existed in our legislation! The removal of these unnecessary hyphens was no doubt a particularly relief to small business. Small business owners in my electorate only want to know why the government did not wade into the controversy of the Oxford comma! And why has the government squibbed the important deregulatory reform challenge of the use of semicolons, colons and ellipses? This is to say nothing of the bonfire of inanities that is the Amending Acts 1901 to 1969 Repeal Bill. The bill makes the vital step of repealing 1,000 acts that were used to repeal other acts but no longer have a substantive effect. These are the kinds of reforms that comprise the 'deregulatory savings' claimed by the government.

That brings us to the bill before the House today. Significantly, the government seems to take no account of the regulation that it is adding when it is calculating the benefits of regulation that it has removed. Unfortunately the bar on the former member for Kooyong's website only seems to go in one direction. I have been keeping an eye on this bar. It is a niche area of interest, but it is an area of interest to me, as in previous lives I have spent far too much of my time dealing with regulatory burdens and page counts of regulation introduced by regulators and parliaments in this country.

So, if you will indulge my niche interest, I can say that the member for Kooyong's deregulation taskbar kicked off in March of last year by claiming $350 million of deregulatory savings. That surged to $700 million of regulatory savings upon the announcement of the repeal of the Future of Financial Advice reform package. The needle did not move after this effort to abolish FOFA fell over and the figure today stands at $2.1 billion in claimed deregulatory savings.

I have been watching this bar for some time and I have not seen it move forward in response to the bills that the government has managed to get through this parliament. But I will pay close attention and I will ask the member for Pearce in the future whether he is netting out the savings from the removal of hyphens from legislation against more substantive bills of this kind. Indeed, the needle only seems to move in one direction. While the government has been talking about its 'bonfire of regulation' in front of the cameras, out the back it has been busy stockpiling more kindling for future bonfires of this kind.

Despite its claims, this government has a 'regulate first, think later' attitude. The Howard government was a government that the member for Kooyong is very familiar with, given his employment at that time. While he was working for the previous Prime Minister, they initiated an inquiry called the Banks review. The Banks review was led by Gary Banks, a former Chair of the Productivity Commission, and it looked at the regulatory burden of red tape across every sector of the Australian economy. The finding that came from this review was that Australia suffered from what Gary Banks termed 'Alan Jones syndrome'. This may have dated the report somewhat, considering Mr Jones's influence at the time, but that is the name he gave to it. What he meant by Alan Jones syndrome is the tendency in this society for governments of both political persuasions to respond to issues, crises and problems in our society with a 'regulate first' attitude. The government must do something; regulation is something. Therefore it must do that.

As I say, despite its claims, this government is a 'regulate first, think later' government. Just in the telecommunications space, the space dealt with by this bill, the Minister for Communications and the Attorney-General have already announced plans to introduce regulation to force internet service providers to block websites involved in copyright infringement—a significant intervention in the technical nature of the running of these businesses. They have announced plans to introduce regulation to force internet service providers to police claims of copyright infringement made by rights holders against the customers of these ISPs. This is more regulation interfering in the way that these businesses work. They have announced plans to force internet service providers to retain their customers' metadata for a two-year period—a substantial regulatory and cost impost that the government to date has not even been able to fully scope out. We are well advanced into a parliamentary inquiry into the bill and the government has still been unable to tell members of that committee and members of the broader public what that regulation will cost to implement.

And then we have the bill before us today. As I say, Labor supports this bill. We are committed to doing all that we can to support the government in combating online child bullying. As our children's online activity continues to grow in size and scope, cyberbullying will become a more and more prevalent issue if nothing is done. It is clear that cyberbullying is already a monumental issue. We have heard contributions from members in this chamber before about the extraordinarily serious impacts that it can have on children who are subjected to it. The fact that it can result in suicide really brings home the gravity of this issue for all of us here.

Indeed, cyberbullying must be considered to be as important as face-to-face bullying. Probably most members of this chamber are advanced enough in age to have avoided the social media age during their schooling or even their younger lives. But, talking to the principals and teachers in my electorate, I can certainly see it in my schools and the really extraordinary impact that it can have within school communities. According to research done by the University of New South Wales Social Policy Research Centre, one in five young Australians aged between eight and 17 have experienced cyberbullying. There is also an average of 22 cyberbullying complaints per high school made per year. It is not only a serious issue but a widespread one.

In this context, in 2010 the then Labor government established the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety, underlining that government's commitment to evaluating better ways in which we could improve cybersecurity measures. In 2011 the committee released the High-wire act: cyber-safety and the young report. The report contained 32 recommendations that focused on a multifaceted approach that put education of children at its core. Labor endorsed and responded to those recommendations.

A government that was serious about red tape, however, would be asking itself whether regulation of the kind before the House today is necessary to achieve our shared goal of protecting children from the harmful effects of online bullying. In this context, take the submission on a cybersafety bill from the Institute of Public Affairs. They believe that the existence of a children's e-safety commissioner will not prevent or protect children from bullying. They argue that, instead of introducing additional regulation in this space, we should focus on the effective enforcement of our current laws. Speaking on the submission, Chris Berg, a fellow of the IPA, said:

There are a large number of existing laws which already cover any conduct which could be considered cyberbullying.

The Commonwealth Criminal Code already prohibits menacing, offensive, and insulting conduct on the internet. On top of that there are defamation laws, anti-stalking and harassment laws, and laws which protect against threats of harm.

A government that was serious about red tape reduction might consider in this context whether there was regulatory overlap and duplication in this space and seek to tailor this bill to minimise this impact.

Given the plethora of social media sites that are used by children these days and the seeming propensity of these sites to pop up like whack-a-moles, it may be that education and an approach focused on children instead of the service providers would be a more efficient response to this problem and that we should focus on preventative measures within schools to curb this online bullying in the first instance.

Another approach we may have taken is to spend more time influencing the social media sites and the platforms themselves to take an enlightened view of their commercial self-interest and to start acting on these issues of their own volition. In this respect I note the comments of the CEO of Twitter, a very large social media website, just last week in an email sent to his executive team. I will read from it at length because it does demonstrate the kind of enlightened self-interest we could leverage in this space. The CEO, Dick Costolo, wrote:

We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years. It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO … There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being … aggressive on this front …

We're going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them.

Everybody on the leadership team knows this is vital.

So some social media sites, after some time, are waking up to the need to address this issue themselves without government intervention.

I also draw the House's attention to the recent digital licence program established by The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, with the support of Google—another large digital technology platform. This eSmart Digital Licence program will be made available to every grade 6 student in Australia this year—almost 300,000 children—thanks to a grant of $1.2 million from Google. As part of this digital licence program, children who undertake it will use quizzes, videos and games to teach them how to be smart, safe and responsible digital citizens—again, targeting intervention at the children rather than from above through regulation.

While I support the bill before the House and share the government's objective of reducing the harmful impacts of cyberbullying against children, I do believe that more MPs should be asking whether more regulation and new regulators, as established by this bill—and it is not only new regulation; it is a new regulatory body—is the most efficient response to problems of this kind. I do believe that more MPs should be asking whether the government is really serious about its anti-red tape agenda when it continues to marching a suite of new regulatory interventions into this chamber. In this respect, the review mechanism being proposed to test the efficacy of this legislation in future years is important in this respect, and I do look forward to revisiting the impact this legislation in the future.

There is much work that can be done on the issue of cybersafety. However, genuine reductions in the burden of regulation require vigilance in the face of new proposals for regulatory intervention. To date there is little evidence that the government is interested in this task. However, I intend to speak out on these issues further in the future.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the comments from the member for Gellibrand. I hold strong views around the incapacity to drive underground the sometimes terrible things that people think and the sometimes terrible things that people say. The minute that you try to regulate in this space, you tend to drive bad thoughts, bad people and bad comments underground. Fundamentally, I do believe that. But, in this instance, when we are dealing with our most precious asset, when we are dealing with the future, when we are dealing with our children, I regrettably say that I do not think we have a choice and that all of us must do everything we can to protect children in any way we can.

The government have delivered on a commitment that we went to the election with. We have engaged and consulted very broadly on this issue through public consultations. More than 80 submissions were received from a range of sectors from January 2014 on. So it has been a comprehensive process—as it should be because perhaps there is nothing more important than our children. Consultation has occurred with community organisations; industry; education bodies, which naturally enough are particularly interested in these issues; government and legal representations; academics; and members of the public. The government have engaged properly with the community and consulted widely in the formation of this genuine attempt to keep children safer online. I do notice that there are some young people up in the gallery today. I remind them that this is about them. This is about keeping them and their friends safer online.

The Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014 is an important bill before the House today. It contains a number of measures to enhance online safety for children and it was an election commitment by the government. It includes establishing the Children's e-Safety Commissioner and setting out the commissioner's functions and powers, and a mechanism to create an effective complaints system for harmful cyberbullying material targeted at Australian children. The commissioner will have two sets of powers it can use in responding to a complaint. These include the power to issue a notice to a large social media service, requiring it to remove the particular material; and the power to use a notice to the person who posted the material, requiring the person to remove the material, refrain from posting the material or apologising for posting the material. The measures in this bill are planned to bring a better and more rapid response to the dangers of cyberbullying and to keep Australian, and indeed Tasmanian children, safer online.

I have two boys. I have one nearly 16 years old and one nearly 13 years old. I look back on my eldest son and think of the period around year 6 when the use of deodorant could kill a small farm animal at a hundred yards! That was one phase. More recently it has been all about the hair. The hair seems to take on a life of its own. The point I make is about body image and the way that we appear. I guess it is no different to any of us. We all want to be respected. We all want to be loved. We all want to be liked. The phenomenon that truly is social media has taken this to another level. Talking about multitasking, my wife often talks about my incapacity to multitask—I do not suppose I am unique in that instance!

I look at my boys and I see that, whether it is with the television, the iPad, the phone or the little bit of conversation that we can throw in there, these young people truly are multi-tasking.

I do not think we can kid ourselves that we can eradicate bullying. I do not think that we can kid ourselves, at all, that we can eradicate bullying, but damn me if we should not be doing everything we can and everything within our power to make our young people safe. We want to see resilient, strong, confident young people, who understand that bullying behaviour is more a reflection on the bully than it is on the people they are trying to bully. Social media is real; we all use it. I know for young people, particularly my 15-year-old, life is influenced by the number of likes they get for a post. They feel that that is an important thing; I understand that. When it is a photograph of your sixpack—and it has been a while, Deputy Speaker!—this is important!

In the context of this debate—and we appreciate the other opposition's support of this legislation—we should never forget that bullying has been around since Adam was a boy, and we should not ignore all the other types of bullying that go on, not only with young people, but in workplaces and sometimes at home, often closer than we might dare to imagine.

The internet and social media offer a forum for human interaction which brings great social benefits, but sometimes things go wrong online, as they do offline. When this happens, the internet and social media, in particular, can make bullying behaviours more dangerous to the children who become the victims. The posting of humiliating or harmful photos, videos or rumours is often exacerbated by other social media features such as comments, shares, or likes, which can rapidly promote and spread content which is damaging for the individual involved. It can have serious effects such as anxiety, depression, behavioural problems and even suicidal thoughts. I note the presence of the Minister for Health in the chamber at the moment. Nothing is more important than mental health; it is a particular interest of mine. We all have physical predispositions that we can do nothing to control, but the things that we are talking about here today could be the triggers that may well exacerbate some of those predispositions.

I come back to the point that my wife and I try to bring our boys up as confident—though not overly confident—capable young people who have respect for others and understand that certain actions, whilst they might seem to be trivial or harmless, can have a terrible impact on friends and colleagues.

Research shows that one in five Australian children have been, or is, a victim of cyberbullying. Last year, the University of New South Wales Social Policy Research Centre found that, in its best estimate, over a 12-month period 20 per cent of Australian children between the ages of eight and 17 had experienced some kind of online cyberbullying. Think about those figures. That is one in five young people between the ages of eight and 17 experiencing some form of online bullying. Cyber bullying is most common in the ages 10 and 15 years, which makes sense because this is a vulnerable period of someone's life. It does tend to diminish in the 16 to 17 age bracket. These figures mean that the estimated number of children and young people who have been victims of cyber bullying in 2013 was 463,000, with about 350,000 of them aged between 10 and 15 years old.

Children can be cruel—that is no news to anybody. Human beings can be cruel. A few moments ago I was speaking to Victoria Harrison, principal of the Cressy District High School—which is in my electorate of Lyons in northern Tasmania—to get her perspective on this discussion. This area is incorporated into their health education part of their curriculum. Within each year group they have clear expectations about the way devices are used. There is a code of conduct for the use of electronic devices, which includes penalties for any sort of behaviour that is considered inappropriate, such as the use of Facebook and other social media sites in a way that would bring the school into disrepute.

I guess if I were going to give one message, though, to the young people that are just leaving the gallery upstairs, it would be that you can always turn off your device. You can always turn off your device, and nobody will ever know. You can block somebody that is impacting on you in a negative way. But, most of all, there are adults everywhere, whether they be in your school, in your family—one would hope—or in the police forces. There are good people. We would strongly encourage young people that are exposed to this sort of behaviour to contact responsible adults.

The bill being debated today contains a number of enforcement provisions so that, if a person fails to comply with a requirement under an end user notice, the Children's e-Safety Commissioner will be able to, firstly, issue a formal warning. If a provider of social media fails to comply with a social media service notice, they will be liable to pay a penalty of 100 penalty units—in this case, those units being roughly $17,000—for each day in which the service provider fails to respond. Those are not insignificant penalties. The commissioner will be able to go to court to obtain an injunction to ensure compliance.

The Children's e-Safety Commissioner will be established as an independent authority within the Australian Communications and Media Authority and will take a national leadership role in online safety for children.

In the short time that I have left, I will just come back to—and I note the comments of the member for Gellibrand in respect of—red tape. This government has delivered on reducing red tape in small business particularly and right across our economy: over $2 billion worth of savings in red tape, which makes it easier for business to get on with business. But in this instance regulation is required. Our children are our most important asset, and we should do everything within our power—it may not be a perfect solution, but it is a first step, and we should do everything in our power—to make them safe.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to make a contribution today on the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014. It absolutely goes without saying that one of the chief roles for members of parliament in Australia is to protect young people who live in our country. This bill is not perfect. It is not going to solve all of our problems, but it makes an important step towards establishing a safe online community for Australian young people, and for that reason Labor will be supporting the bill.

Any parent of a school-aged child, or indeed anyone who knows a young person today well, will understand that cyberbullying is one of the most common, the most widespread and the most disturbing trends for young people today. I say this not because of the consequences, because we know that bullying has always existed—although I must note that there have been some very severe consequences, which I will come to later. I say it because of the unbelievable prevalence that online bullying has developed amongst young Australians. The internet for Australian young people is a constant part of life, and the bullying that takes place is an intolerable part of life.

I think it is hard for many of us in this chamber to really appreciate how much of a big deal this is for young people in Australia. I am one of the younger members in this House, but, when I was the age of the young people who are most affected by this problem today, I did not even have an email address, nor did most people my age in Australia. Photo text messages were a number of years away. Facebook was 10 years away, and Snapchat, Messenger and the other apps that young people use in a day-to-day sense now were a few years beyond that.

But now what we see is that all of those things, so new to us as Australians, are part of everyday life for most Australian children. Parents frequently raise the issue of cyberbullying with me as a member of parliament, and, when I talk to young people who are in this kind of target demographic of around grade 3 or 4 up until year 8 or 9, it is often the first issue that is raised with me about the things that are affecting their quality of life. I make those points just to say that there is no doubt that cyberbullying for young people is an issue that this parliament should be taking incredibly seriously, and thus I am pleased to be making these comments on this bill.

For those who are watching at home and may not have young children, or even for those in the chamber who are not aware of the kind of day-to-day significance of this problem, I just want to explain a little bit about the character that I understand cyberbullying is taking on for young people. We know that young people in Australia are amongst the biggest internet users. Lots of young people I know who are lucky enough to have a mobile phone will take it to bed with them, if they are allowed to, and lie awake at night texting their friends until the early hours. But, even for those who are using family computers, the internet is just a part of everyday life.

We also know that it is a very unregulated part of life. What we see is that bullying that used to take place in the schoolyard has been moved onto this online environment and, because of some of the features of these online programs, some of the barriers that used to stand in the path of bullying have been really stripped back. One of the critical things that we see is young people making fake profiles on Facebook or other types of social media and using those profiles to avoid what we would normally see as the consequence of bullying that occurred in the schoolyard.

We also know that social media has given the opportunity for young people who want to engage in bullying behaviour to say really mean and humiliating and hurtful things in front of hundreds and thousands of people, effectively—something that they probably would not be able to do in a face-to-face context. We also know—all of us—from our life experience that sometimes, when you are online and using a computer, you say things that you might not say to someone straight to their face, again just because of the consequences.

And there are so many other factors. We can keep digital photos now. People might send them in one context and then, when the situation changes, those embarrassing photos are shared with others, even sent to whole-school communities, which is something that I am sure anyone who can remember their time at school will just shudder to think of.

One other critical element is that the internet has allowed people to speak with each other at any time of the day or night. When you talk to young people about the effect that cyberbullying has on them, a lot of them just explain that it has taken away a place of safety for them. They feel that no matter what time of day or night it is, at the weekend, at any moment, they could be the target of an attack. That is a very stressful feeling, I know, for a lot of young people who are the victims of cyberbullying. I have heard a lot of young people talking about situations where young people gang up on one young person and bully and tease them online, again in front of many, many people.

The final thing is that, when we look at the options for young people about what they can do in the face of cyberbullying, there is no silver bullet. Yes, you can block someone from being online, but it is a bit like saying that bullying does not matter in a schoolyard context because you can leave the room, even when someone might continue to say humiliating things about you after you leave. The conduct and pain still occur, even if you are not there to see it.

We know that young people can be mean sometimes; of course, adults can also be mean. But you can just imagine, with the impacts that I have described, how the internet very unfortunately has opened up this new world of bullying for young people. Bullying has become a lot easier. Small actions are now capable of creating a lot more pain and hurt and, again, many of the consequences that might have stopped people from bullying in the schoolyard have now gone.

A lot of studies show that, on the whole, the internet is quite constructive for young people. It is important to note that a lot of young people talk about the really strong feelings of affirmation they get when going through a difficult period in their life. A lot of young people talk about the support they get from online communities. But it does have this darker element, and that is what the bill that we are discussing today is really targeting.

How are young people reacting to and being affected by these problems? We know that cyberbullying, like all bullying, tends to leave the victims feeling very depressed and upset. It can go from having a few bad days and low self-esteem to the point where we know that young people have actually gone to self-harm and suicide because of online bullying incidents, sad as that may sound. We hear young people talk about the fact that there is no safe place for them anymore. Although this is not a new problem, it is the ease, the damage and the ability to escape consequences.

I mentioned earlier the prevalence of online bullying. It is very fascinating looking at the studies which try to estimate how prevalent this problem is. One study says that one in five young Australians has been bullied online. Another study I am aware of shows something much more significant than that: the Australian Covert Bullying Prevalence Study found that, for young people between grade 4 and grade 9, a quarter are bullied every few weeks or more than once term—which is very common, very prevalent. I come back to the point that it is hard for us, as adults in this House, to realise how serious and significant a problem this is and how much it is affecting young people.

We know from some of the studies that it is people around the year 5 to year 8 levels who are most affected. We also know that girls, unfortunately, are a little bit more inclined to bully in these covert ways. One of the things that I found most disturbing, when looking into the material on this, is that some young people report problems with cyberbullying from as young as grade 3, so we are talking about quite young children who are getting into these problems.

Of course this is very important to young people, and because it is important to young people it is also important to their parents. We know that children who are the victims of cyberbullying can take those difficulties and their unhappiness back into their family home. I said that, at its very worst, bullying can lead to incidents of self-harm and suicide, which is incredibly sad.

I reflected, when I was preparing my notes for the discussion earlier, that we see hundreds of young people who are suffering from mental illness and for whom social media plays some role in their ultimate self-harm or suicide. I was reflecting on how this is actually a higher figure than the road toll often is from year to year, and how much emphasis and discussion and how many resources go into reducing the road toll. I wonder how many pieces of legislation, both in this parliament and in state parliaments around the country, are focused on this very important issue of preventing deaths on the road. We must spend billions and billions of dollars every year, as a nation, on this issue. Yet cyberbullying is not very frequently in discussions.

I think that reflects a few things about the political process. We know that this is an issue that prevalently affects young people, in particular young people and children. I wonder if there is less focus on this than we would see if it were adults and voters who were affected by this problem. It is an important reminder to us, as representatives, that although the people who are affected by this problem are not our voters, it is just as important that we listen to them, that we seek them out and that we talk to them about problems that are affecting them—because this problem is leading to more deaths in Australia than the road toll, and I think it should be getting some commensurate level of attention.

The second thing I would note is that, of course, it is a very difficult problem to stop. This is about people's behaviour in an environment where their behaviour is largely unregulated. But it is a problem that goes right to the heart of life in modern Australia. I know there are a lot of people that sit on this Labor side, particularly on our Labor front bench, who are parents of children who might be affected by this problem. Of course, for that reason, we are very pleased to support the legislation.

I want to talk in a little more detail about what this bill proposes to do about this very difficult problem. There are two essential elements to the scheme that is being set up by this bill. The first is the establishment of a children's e-safety commissioner. The role of the e-safety commissioner will be to crack down on online bullying. We know that a child who is the victim of online bullying will now be able to make a complaint, or their parent will be to make a complaint, to the commissioner. The commissioner will have the power to issue notices to social media organisations with which they must comply, and the materials will need to be taken down. A fine is imposed as part of the legislation, which will force social media companies to pay a certain amount of money every day that materials remain online after the commissioner has required that they be taken down.

The bill also sets out some expectations for social media organisations, because I think it is very important that we acknowledge that social media organisations need to do better at preventing this problem. In recent days, in fact, the CEO of Twitter has come out and talked about how that organisation accepts that it has a serious problem to deal with and that it has a responsibility for criminal and bullying content that appears on its site. So, I think we are starting to move towards being clear about what those obligations are, and the bill begins that discussion here. This bill requires a certain set of minimum standards, and the service provider's terms and conditions of use need to reflect that. It requires social media sites to have a complaints scheme—very basic, but very important—and also a dedicated contact person. Those who have tried to deal with some of these problems in the past will know that it is sometimes hard to find a person to talk to when you need to discuss these sorts of things.

These are important steps forward in what is a very difficult issue. I do need to point out, of course, that it does not solve this problem. There are a lot of things about online bullying that will not be prevented by this bill. One of the critical things, of course, is that social media and online bullying are instantaneous. What we are doing here is setting up a commissioner; there will have to be a process of review to look at content. This will have to go back to the social media sites, and there will be some discussion, presumably, there. To the extent that young people are still going to be humiliated by things that happen online, this is not going to stop that conduct—although I accept, of course, that there are additional consequences that are being put in place, and that is a very good thing.

In closing, one of the things we do need to think about and work on in this House is trying to help build resilience in young people—and indeed in adults—who use the internet. The internet is a part of life for us now, and it will just continue to be more and more integrated with the day-to-day activities of living as a human being and a person living in Australia. So I would just say that we can put laws and regulations in place all we want, and we should always take action on an issue that is as important as this one if we can. But I would note that something we all need to be doing is thinking about how we can ensure that young people have the skills they need to cope with what is really a very challenging and very difficult time to be a young person facing problems that those of us in this chamber never had to deal with as young people. So, I commend this bill to the House and thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the chance to make a contribution.

Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the previous speaker from across the political divide, the member for Hotham. She is absolutely right when she says that there is no silver bullet to deal with the pervasive impacts of online bullying, or bullying in general, among young people.

The bills we are debating before the House here today are a very significant step in the right direction. The Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014 follows a significant amount of good work that I am very proud to have been part of. Such was the coalition's resolve on protecting young people from an increasingly evident threat of predatory, bullying and other harmful cyber behaviours that in January 2012 we formed an Online Safety Working Group, of which I became the Queensland representative. Over the ensuing 18 months, our engagement, which included many forums with parents, with children, with teachers and with community leaders in capital cities and regions across the country, informed a very strong policy platform that we took to the 2013 federal election as a commitment.

In January 2014, after the election, a public discussion paper was released to consider aspects of the Enhancing Online Safety for Children policy, with more than 80 submissions received. The suite of measures before the House reflects this conversation we had with the Australian people, as well as extensive and targeted stakeholder consultations with industry groups; large social media sites, including Facebook, Google and Twitter; child safety advocates; and law enforcement officials. In essence, this bill seeks to establish a children's e-safety commissioner, establish a two-tiered scheme for the rapid removal of cyberbullying material from large social media services, and, finally, implement an end-user notice regime under with the commissioner will have the power to issue notices to any person who has posted cyberbullying material aimed at an Australian child.

Traditionally, bullying would stop at the school gate. Today, unfortunately, that is often where it just begins. It is a 24/7 invasive action, with anonymity for those who inflict this pervasive behaviour on Australian children. Put simply, social media has made bullying easier to perpetrate, and unfortunately you end up having more of it. Our Online Safety Working Group frequently heard disturbing stories, particularly from school students and sometimes their parents. We were told of how individuals had used social media networks to coordinate assaults on other children. We discussed how, if a child was bullied in the schoolyard, two or three people would see it, but if you were bullied on Facebook, thousands of people would see it; you had a sort of viral humiliation.

In today's digital world, fuelled by smartphones, tablets and computers, 90 per cent of high school students are on Facebook. We heard how one 12-year-old girl would go to sleep with her phone under her pillow and get abusive Facebook and text messages at 2 am or 3 am. Quite aside from relentlessness of that sort of bullying, there is a clinical term for the habit she had developed: FOMO, or fear of missing out. Thousands of children are reporting disturbed sleeping patterns and compromised functionality in their daily lives because of a refusal to give their computers and phones—and their minds and their bodies—a break. The fear is that if all your friends are participating in something on Facebook and you do not see that, then you are missing out on the social interaction and may even lose touch with your entire circle of friends. It becomes an addiction that creates constant anxiety, stress and discomfort. It makes sufferers less likely to cope with the challenges of life. It makes them less likely to reach out and be a confident, well-rounded and happy individual.

So we owe it to the current and future generations to ensure that the Australian cybersphere is safer and healthier. This is not about vilifying or demonising social media and all the positive benefits that it brings to our society. It is about equipping our young people to deal with the challenges that they may face online and increasing their ability to safeguard themselves.

The Children's e-Safety Commissioner will head an independent statutory body within the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The commissioner will assume national leadership in online safety for young people, and central to that role will be the administering of a complaints system against cyberbullying. The bill sets out a common-sense, two-step scheme for the rapid removal from social media services of cyberbullying material targeted at an Australian child.

Social media services participating under tier 1 will do so cooperatively. Following investigations of a complaint, the commissioner may request that the tier 1 social media service remove the cyberbullying material, but there is no legal obligation to comply. However, the commissioner will have the power to revoke tier 1 status if the social media service provider repeatedly fails to remove cyberbullying material after repeated requests over 12 months and may make a recommendation to the minister that the service be declared a tier 2 social media service. A service may also be declared tier 2 at its own request.

Those declared to be tier 2 social media services will be subject to legally-binding notices or face the risk of civil penalties for noncompliance. The commissioner will maintain registers of tier 1 and tier 2 social media services. The commissioner will also be able to publish statements about social media services that fail to comply with the basic online safety requirements, fail to comply in the removal of cyberbullying material or fail to comply with a social media service notice.

The working group in which I participated found another major issue to be the lack of a coordinated approach, not only across state jurisdictions but across schools and community groups. Instituting the Children's e-Safety Commissioner will help fix this. One of its other functions will be as a central agency responsible for managing the upskilling of students, teachers, parents and carers in strategies to meet cyberbullying, online predatory behaviour and the dangers of age-inappropriate content.

Importantly, the commissioner will also carry the power to issue an end-user notice to a person who posts cyberbullying material targeted at an Australian child. An end-user notice could require the person to take all reasonable steps to ensure the removal of the material, refrain from posting further material targeted at the child or apologise to the child for posting the material in the first place. The commissioner may proceed to the Federal Circuit Court to seek an injunction against an end user who fails to comply with an end-user notice.

A theme that emerged from my discussions nationwide with teachers and from feedback from my local community was an underestimation of hazardous online behaviour. Part of the insidious nature of online bullying is that it is so secretive. Parents and teachers are often unaware of online bullying—or at least unaware of the extent to which it is occurring. It is clear we need to be break through this cloak of secrecy, and this bill will go a long way to doing that by lifting a lid on the issues and moving to address potential dangers while also, via the Children's e-Safety Commissioner, conducting, evaluating and accrediting schools and community awareness programs.

In relation to concerns that have been raised about the propriety of a rapid removal scheme, may I offer a few salient points. Freedom of speech has an intrinsic value, which is not under siege here. Protecting children against harm is our priority, and any perceived threat to freedom of speech is mitigated in two ways. First, these measures will apply only to communications directed at children; they have no impact on freedom of speech between adults. Second, the scheme applies specifically to cyberbullying—that is, content targeted at, and harmful to, an Australian child. It is not a general content regulation scheme, nor will rapid removal ambush large social media sites and unfairly disrupt their business processes, because a clear principle is that in the first instance, before a complaint can be received and considered by the Children's e-Safety Commissioner, the complainant must have reported the cyberbullying material to the social media site under its already established protocols.

The government acknowledges that many large social media sites have significantly improved their complaints-handling arrangements for removal of cyberbullying material. If a site receives a complaint and acts on it promptly there will be no need for the complaint to go to the Children's e-Safety Commissioner, and the scheme will have no impact at all on the operation of the social media provider. Only if the site does not comply or does not respond will the Children's e-Safety Commissioner get involved.

The rise of social media has led to an explosion of connectivity between people which is difficult for us to grasp as a society. These interactions have brought joy, humour and enlightenment. They have encouraged and helped bind relationships. But, with all its virtues, we cannot afford to be blind to the vulnerabilities implicit in cybercommunication. We have a duty to, as best we can, protect our children from the oftentimes devastating consequences of online bullying and other cyberharms. For that reason, I commend these bills to the House.

Debate adjourned.