Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution on the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Bill 2021. Last week we saw the worst of behaviour from big tech. It was on show for all to see. The petulant behaviour of Facebook and what they did last week reinforces for me why this legislation is not only necessary but that the tough stance that the government has taken on this issue is justified. My constituents in New South Wales were met on Friday in the Daily Telegraph, which is a widely read newspaper in New South Wales, with headlines such as 'Faceblock—Social media giant's news ban lays bare its callous disregard for Australians'. It goes on to say 'Unfriendly fire hits Oz' and it looks at the sites which were blocked, which included sites of emergency services, support services such as helplines, charities, government agencies, university research sites, commercial sites, sports sites, retail sites, arts and other sites. They are listed. Indeed, one very interesting little headline by James Morrow read, 'It's time I zucked off and became anti-social'. I wonder whether after my speech this evening I will be zucked off by Facebook and my Facebook page deleted? But, of course, there is concern. For example, the newspaper also talks about how the block by Facebook was shutting the door to child abuse cops, and how Facebook would risk hindering probes into under-age sex complaints.

The editorial on that day was very interesting. It's headed 'True colours shown and they're all bad.' It was interesting. It summed up the situation very, very well and it drew an interesting parallel between the need for Australians, particularly post pandemic, to look at and examine decoupling from China and the dependence that we have on China. It said that, just like China, Australia must now find other ways to connect and be informed online. In other words, it said and drew this parallel: China hit Australia with trade barriers and tariffs, and now Facebook has hit us with indiscriminate page purges. It is a very good analogy. Of course, I have been advocating for us to decouple from China, just as I think that the time has come for other players to be involved in this space.

I'll now look at some detail in relation to this bill. It will establish a world-first mandatory code to address the bargaining power imbalances between digital platforms and Australian news businesses. We know that consumers are obtaining their news more and more online, and news media businesses are now having to deal with the challenges of finding a viable and sustainable business model so that public interest journalism can be provided. But, at the same time, we do see that digital platforms are thriving, with their advertising revenues growing in leaps and bounds. Under these circumstances, it is totally unacceptable that digital platforms continue to earn revenue from news content that is created by Australian news media outlets and news businesses without them being properly remunerated. The ACCC found that this situation has arisen because of the imbalance of the bargaining power between these platforms and local businesses. That's why this code seeks to find a fair and flexible way to deal with this imbalance.

The code will encourage the parties to negotiate commercially outside the code, and there are processes that will be put in place if these negotiations are not successful. It's important to look at bargaining; it does say 'good faith' bargaining. There is also a process of arbitration in the event that a deal cannot be reached. The code also, importantly, provides for standard codes and for the publishing of standard offers, which are ways for those small businesses to avoid the cost and time of going to arbitration. Of course, the code will apply to Facebook and Google at first, but will be expanded in the future to other platforms. There are also substantial penalties for breaching the code's provisions.

As the Chair of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation, I do want to raise a number of scrutiny points which were raised by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. I'll again reiterate another bill which has substantial and significant matters that are going to be set out in delegated legislation. This is, of course, of great concern to the committee that I chair, because we do continue to see again another legislative scheme which should be included in primary legislation rather than delegated legislation. This was a concern that was raised by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. It also raised the question of the power of the minister to make a determination that specifies services as designated digital platform services and specifies corporations as designated digital platform corporations. This is the sort of thing that should be in the primary legislation rather than the delegated legislation, because here we have circumstances where rights will be affected. These are concerns that have been repeatedly raised and, unfortunately, here we have another bill that is likely to fall foul of scrutiny and delegated legislation principles.

In recent opinion piece 'Big Tech has no claim to moral high ground', Rachael Falk, the chief executive of the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, makes some very valid points. She refers to an incident at the San Bernadino County Department of Public Health. Following that incident, a problem emerged in relation to the phones and accessing encrypted data. Despite the death and the carnage and the desperate search for answers to what had happened, Apple dug its heels in and wouldn't provide the necessary assistance to authorities. And recently we've seen the banning of former President Trump by Twitter and Facebook. Ms Falk makes this comment:

It is, at best, misguided altruism, but is more likely feigned in the name of wokeness. It serves to build a false sense of trust and camaraderie with users, when ultimately all these platforms want is their data and dollars.

It is also virtue signalling of the highest order and of the worst kind. The type that has much more to do with the bottom line than the betterment of society. The kind that is worth billions to Big Tech. Importantly, for all people, this must be a wake-up call. Because any threat to free speech is a threat to democracy. And by muzzling Trump, these platforms have demonstrated the potential power they wield in "designing discourse".

She states, and I think it's worth noting this very important point:

This power is far more immense than that of a government or media mogul—it represents a move away from social media to social engineering, algorithms over informed decision making. There is no moral high ground.

We've seen what happened with Parler, the social network platform that was very popular amongst conservative users. It was plunged into internet limbo recently, facing a technical, complex and very costly path to getting back online. Amazon booted the company from its cloud computing services, knocking it offline—again, taking the decision for what they deem you should be reading and have access to. I think Silicon Valley is silencing dissent while depriving users of free-speech alternative platforms.

There is an article, written by spiked online editor Andrew Doyle, called 'We ignore Big Technology censorship at our peril'. He's not a fan of former President Trump; nevertheless, he does make some very important and valid points. I'd like to pick up on some of them. He says:

The glee of seeing Trump banned has blinded left-wingers to the threat posed by Silicon Valley.

The greatest trick of authoritarians is to convince their subjects to rejoice in their own subjugation. Over the past week we have seen self-proclaimed 'leftists' cheering on multi-billion dollar corporations as they ratchet up their policies on censorship and their determination to control the parameters of acceptable thought and speech.

The article also states:

Big Tech censorship is set to be one of the most important issues of our time, and those of us who still care about our liberties are right to be vigilant.

Let us consider the misconceptions one by one. The tech giants of Silicon Valley operate a collective oligopoly over the equivalent of the modern-day public square.

The article goes on to say:

These kinds of corporate oligopolies are precisely the reason why antitrust legislation exists in an open-market economy. … The way in which the tech giants have coordinated to prevent users from accessing Parler, a rival platform established in 2018, demonstrates that they are willing to go to any lengths to ensure that their dominance of the market is absolute.

I would like to continue my comments with what Twitter did in terms of banning a former president, Donald Trump. I thought that was absolutely appalling. I was actually pleased to see that Chancellor Merkel was very critical of that as well. Of course, there is the hypocrisy of Twitter. They're prepared to let totalitarian rulers continue to promote their bile and their vile comments. They were prepared to take action in relation to President Trump but still let the head of Iran continue with his activities, particularly calling, as Iran does, for the wholesale eradication of Israel. That's just hypocrisy in the extreme. I conclude my remarks with some comments that were made by spiked-online editor Brendan O'Neill. He talks about the unaccountable billionaires in Silicon Valley who switched president Donald Trump off, which is a clear and grotesque interference in democracy. He refers to this as Silicon Valley influences switching off politicians and preventing them from engaging online. People should not underestimate just how serious this is.