Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The defamatory abuse, denigration and harassment which is being posted every second of every minute of every day on social media in this country, particularly on Facebook and the extremely toxic Twitter, must stop. This is one of the principal reasons political discourse in this country has degenerated to such appallingly low standards. This must change. We, Australians, are better than this. Last night I posted on Twitter the powerful, emotional speech by the member for Boothby, Nicolle Flint, who has called out the Labor Party, GetUp and the unions over the most disgusting campaign against her at the last federal election. Much of this was facilitated through an unceasing barrage of false, misogynistic, abusive and of course defamatory publications on Twitter, cowardly anonymous posts which are beyond the reach of Australian law. Even my post last night was met with more abusive and defamatory comments.

The loss of the member for Boothby, my good friend and a warrior for Liberal values, is a great loss to this parliament, to the people of Boothby and to the Liberal Party. The Leader of the Opposition said this morning on ABC radio that he stood by Ms Flint at this time, yet it was Senator Wong who was leading the charge on behalf of Labor in its campaign against Ms Flint. These are weasel words from the Leader of the Opposition and from Labor. This is an issue above politics. Every woman deserves to feel safe when she goes to work, no matter where she works. The Morrison government's response to the distressing allegations by Brittany Higgins, including the commissioning of an independent review into Commonwealth workplaces by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins, is well underway.

In recent days I've spoken a lot about the need for urgent change, including reform of state and territory criminal justice systems, to ensure that more victims of sexual assault receive justice when their cases go to court. However, in this contribution, I want to focus on the urgent need for social media defamation law reform in Australia. Every Australian deserves to feel safe online, no matter how they engage, whether it be connected with work, family, friends, shopping or leisure. The global digital platforms have an ugly history of showing scant regard for the material they publish. Currently, social media companies cannot be held responsible for content they publish because, under schedule 5 of the Broadcasting Services Act, they are not considered as hosting the content in Australia. This is purely because their web servers are located overseas. This is untenable. It is a matter of common sense and law that these companies publish content in Australia, but because their web servers are located overseas they currently cannot be held liable for what they publish, no matter how defamatory it is. In the meantime, peoples' reputations can be ruined by a single viral post, a barrage of online abuse, a misleading photo or a quote taken out of context. All of these continue to be published in Australia by companies like Facebook and Twitter without any legal repercussions for this defamation.

It is unacceptable that social media giants have, for so long, evaded responsibility for the content they publish. This cavalier approach to the lives and reputations of ordinary Australians must be stopped. It is time to reform defamation law in this country. Such reform would build on the Morrison government's strong commitment to combating online abuse, such as our children's online safety reforms and the Online Safety Bill, which combats violent, abusive and other similar material.

This government has also passed world-leading legislation to ensure that Google and Facebook pay for the Australian news content they use in this country. However, it is clear that if left to their own devices these global giants will do everything they can to escape liability for content they publish, even if it means recklessly exposing Australians to the ravages of online defamation. The hypocrisy of these companies is galling. Facebook and Twitter routinely block or take down posts they consider to be politically controversial or offensive but will continue to publish defamatory posts long after the affected person has notified them and lodged a complaint, or after a court has issued a warrant for the post to be taken down.

Last May I informed the Senate about two anonymous Twitter accounts that, over three years, posted vile, abusive and defamatory content about me. I detailed how I believe that the current member for Corangamite had some direct or indirect control over one of those accounts, and her subsequent denials are simply not credible. These posts included false and defamatory claims that I was guilty of—