Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts. Will the minister please update the House on how the Morrison government's world-leading Online Safety Act will hold platforms to account for harmful abuse online?

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

I thank the member for Reid for her question. Of course, she has a longstanding interest in the question of the safety of children, bringing to bear her expertise as an extremely well qualified psychologist with a distinguished record of private practice. She has been a very strong advocate for the Morrison government's tough new Online Safety Act, which passed the parliament just recently. The act will come into effect in January and will give Australians who are using the internet new protections that do not exist in any other country—the world's first adult cyberabuse scheme.

Adults who are the victim of online abuse, if it is abuse that is intended to cause serious harm and that's menacing, harassing or offensive, will be in a position to report that to the eSafety Commissioner if the platform does not act on their complaint. Our eSafety Commissioner—Julie Inman Grant, a highly regarded former tech executive, doing such a great job—and her officials will have the power to issue a takedown notice. If a takedown notice is issued against a platform where the eSafety Commissioner has concluded that the material meets the statutory test, then the material must be removed within 24 hours. This is a powerful means of dealing with the problem of trolls online, and if the platform does not act to remove the material within 24 hours then the eSafety Commissioner has the power to issue fines of up to $555,000 for companies and $111,000 for individuals. If that troll thinks that hiding behind anonymity is going to protect them, what they need to know is that the eSafety Commissioner will have the power under this act to direct the social media company to hand over all identifying information they have in relation to that account, and the commissioner will be able to use that power against the troll who posted this material.

What we've also done as part of this legislation is we've increased the maximum criminal penalty for offences when people use a carriage service—that's to say, the internet—to menace, harass or offend. We've increased the maximum criminal penalty from three years imprisonment to five years imprisonment. We're committing a record $125 million in funding to online safety over the next four years and we expect the platforms to lift their standards across the board. Our government has been clear about that. From the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, we are united in our expectation that we need to see better standards from the platforms and we are standing up to provide those protections to Australians. The rule of law must apply online, and we're making sure it does.