Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Henderson for the question and acknowledge her keen interest in this particular area. As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we know that social media has, for far too long, allowed trolls, bots and bigots to weaponise anonymity to strike out at ordinary Australians. That is just unacceptable behaviour. That is why the Morrison-Joyce government will introduce new laws which are capable of forcing global social media giants to unmask anonymous online trolls and, at the same time, better protect Australians when they are online. This is a world-first legislation, and we will address these pressing issues of online abuse and defamation liability.

The legislation, which will go to exposure draft this week, will do the following. In the first instance, it will provide certainty, flowing from the High Court's decision in Fairfax Media v Voller, and we will qualify who is a publisher of defamatory comments on social media. That will be the social media company themselves. We will also protect Australian social media users from potential liability for comments made by online trolls. We will support Australians who are the subject of defamatory comments on social media to unmask anonymous online trolls, and we will assist Australians to institute defamation proceedings in state and territory courts. We will deem the social media providers to be a publisher of defamatory comments, on their platform, in circumstances where the online troll cannot be identified.

This is all about protecting ordinary Australians from liability for comments made by third-party users on social media. It is also about ensuring that anyone who operates in the online space is operating in a safe space.