Katie Allen (Higgins, 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 strong record on online safety has been further bolstered by our world-leading anti-trolling laws and today's initiation of a parliamentary inquiry to put big tech under the microscope?

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 Higgins for her question. She is a distinguished medical practitioner and researcher, and she has a very strong interest in people being safe offline as well as online.

Our Liberal-National government has a very strong track record in keeping Australians safe online. We established the eSafety Commissioner in 2015. We gave it powers to deal with the cyberbullying of children. We added powers to deal with the unauthorised sharing of intimate images. We promised a new Online Safety Act at the 2019 election, and we consulted extensively on that in 2020, and this year we have legislated that act. The new powers for the eSafety Commissioner will take effect from January next year.

Over the weekend, the Prime Minister and the Attorney-General came together to announce powerful new anti-trolling laws. For too long, the social media platforms have allowed anonymous trolls to get away with spewing violent hate online with no consequences. So we are changing the law so that the platforms will be liable in defamation for comments made on the platform, unless they meet the requirement specified—a complaint scheme, so that if somebody is concerned they have been defamed they can efficiently raise that concern, and the person who posted that comment will have the option to voluntarily take it down. And there will be a power for the federal courts to require platforms to disclose identity information to allow the complainant to commence defamation proceedings.

This is a fast-moving space. Just a few months ago we saw testimony by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen which revealed troubling new information about the practice of the tech giants. For example, do the algorithms used by big tech drive users, including children, down a rabbit hole of viewing ever more problematic content?

We have announced today that we are establishing a parliamentary select committee to give Australians the chance to raise their concerns about big tech. The member for Robertson, who is a former teacher, a former telco executive and a mum, as well as a very effective member of parliament, will chair this committee. It is going to consider a range of online harms faced by Australians, and whether algorithms increase those harms and the mental health impacts. These are issues of great concern to Australian families, to Australian parents—indeed, to just about every Australian. This is a chance for those who are concerned to be heard. It's also a chance for the big tech companies to come before this parliamentary select committee to explain what they're doing to keep their users safe, and to satisfy the Australian people, through the parliament, that what they're doing is sufficient.

This is precisely the kind of work the parliament should be doing. Keeping Australians safe is a very high priority for this government.