Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts, representing the Attorney-General. Will the minister please inform the House how the Morrison government's strong record on online safety will be further supported through online privacy reforms?

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

I do thank the member for Forde, who's got a longstanding commitment to keeping Australians safe—safe online as well as when they interact in the physical town square. He's determined, as all on this side of the House are determined, that people should be safe when they interact in the digital town square as well.

Just this week we have seen further progress by this government in this important policy area, with the release of an exposure draft designed to enable the creation of a binding online privacy code for social media services, data brokers and other large online platforms. This is a great piece of work from the Attorney-General and the assistant minister to the Prime Minister for mental health. It's designed to provide Australians with more transparency, and more control over how their personal information is being handled. Critically, what's proposed under this code is that social media platforms operating in Australia will be required to take all reasonable steps to verify the age of users and to take all reasonable steps to verify parental or guardian consent for children under 16 years, and it will require that the handling of children's personal information on their platforms is fair and reasonable, with the best interests of the child being the primary consideration.

The online privacy code is the next step in the Morrison government's cohesive and comprehensive plan to keep Australians safe online. It's the next building block in our defences. It builds on our tough, new Online Safety Act. It builds on our strong, new industry codes to protect Australians against abhorrent and violent content. It builds on new powers to order tech companies to report on how they're keeping people safe, and to issue hefty fines of up to $550,000 to companies if they don't respond. It builds on our successful cyberbullying scheme for children. It builds on the 25,000 times our school toolkits have been downloaded. It builds on professional teacher programs that have reached 5,300 educators. It builds on our world-first adult-cyberabuse scheme. It builds on the $15 million we've provided for extra investigators to support victims of abuse. It builds on our new powers for the eSafety Commissioner to unmask anonymous trolls. It builds on take-down powers for intimate images shared online without consent. It builds on a $125 million funding commitment to the eSafety Commissioner over the next four years. It builds on our commitment to develop technology to support women in finding intimate images put up without their authority in the darkest places of the web. It builds on our achievement of reaching one million senior Australians through our Be Connected program.

The Morrison government is strongly committed to keeping Australians safe online and has a whole series of practical measures to do that.