Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government is keeping Australians safe online by meeting the challenge posed by the increase in online activity during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Curtin, who of course, in her previous role as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame Australia, was a very strong champion of the education and, of course, safety of younger Australians. So this is an area in which she has a considerable interest: how do we keep Australians of all ages, certainly including younger Australians, safe online? As the member has rightly noted, during COVID we saw an extraordinary increase in the amount of activity occurring online around Australia and, indeed, around the world. In fact, the National Broadband Network saw an increase in daytime network traffic of up to 70 per cent.

The internet is a very important place where Australians come together to engage, to do business, to socialise and to be informed. We welcome more activity on the internet, but we also need to recognise that, as in all forms of human interaction, when people come together, there will be a percentage of times when the interactions are not as we would wish. That's why it's so important that we have the eSafety Commissioner—an initiative of our government in 2015—to support Australians in staying safe online.

We've seen a surge in reporting to the eSafety Commissioner over the March to September period: a 49 per cent increase in adult cyberabuse, a 32 per cent increase in youth cyberbullying and a 123 per cent increase in illegal and harmful content. We are making sure that the eSafety Commissioner has the resources to help keep Australians safe online. This year's budget provides $39.4 million over three years for the eSafety Commissioner. This builds on the $11.9 million over three years we provided to the Be Connected program to help older Australians get online and stay safe online and a $10 million funding boost we provided in June 2020 to support the eSafety Commissioner in dealing with the increase in workload as a consequence of COVID. So, in total, the Morrison government is investing over $100 million over the next three years to help keep Australians safe online through the work of our world leading eSafety Commissioner.

We are also committed to and well advanced towards introducing a new online safety act that will give the eSafety Commissioner expanded powers. It will reduce the required take-down times from the digital platform from 48 hours to 24 hours. There will be a new adult cyberabuse scheme. We will introduce what are called the Basic Online Safety Expectations to make it very clear to the digital platforms what the Australian community and the Australian government expects of them in keeping Australians safe online. The eSafety Commissioner and her office will keep providing practical tools and tips for Australians to stay safe online: esafety.gov.au. Australians deserve to stay safe wherever they are, including online.