Peta Credlin: Joining me now, the Shadow Communications Minister, Senator Sarah Henderson. Sarah, thank you for your time. I led off the show with this tonight because I think it’s so important people understand that the genesis for a lot of this goes all the way back to those Gillard era media reforms that were eventually junked. But this is about censorship of the internet. That’s certainly my read. They’re cloaking it as a child protection measure. [Oh, I can’t hear her. Have we got that picked up? I think we just might see if the boys can pick her up.] The issue here, obviously, with Sarah Henderson is she’s got a long history not only as a senator, but she’s also worked in the media for the ABC. Sarah, get your take on this. I open the show with the whole announcement today. Yes, they’re talking about child protection, but I see this as Labor’s latest attempt to try and censor media organisations. But now, of course, what we all receive as users online.
Senator Henderson: Peta, our worst fears have been realised today with the release of the exposure draft of the digital duty of care. It provides the minister with unfettered powers to make any regulation into what she would describe as serious harm in the case of adults or harm concerning children. Now this means almost anything. The government could shut down any content or material that they deem to be harmful. This is a very egregious breach of our freedom of expression, and we must fight this extremely hard.
Peta Credlin: I used the example at the top of the show. This is even before these laws, where things that I got out of FOI from the government about the voice were then banned and taken off online after objections from activists. Well, the lawyers here fought it. We got back into the fight on the Voice, and eventually the Voice was defeated. But with these laws, if they pass as they are, then there’s no point trying to fight the government on something like The Voice because they will win because they will shut you down.
Senator Henderson: Well, that’s exactly right. What if the government decided that it was harmful for children to see material that was questioning gender ideology? I mean, that’s just one example of what might happen, we know the eSafety Commissioner has already attempted to shut down this type of material online, and so this is just a shock. The minister has been out today lying to Australians, saying there is nothing to see here, but she has given herself the ability to make any law without parliamentary oversight, it’s extremely dangerous. It’s a breach, frankly, a threat to our democracy. It not just threatens media organisations and anyone else with a voice, but it threatens ordinary Australians. And this is just one more of the dangers from this extreme left-wing Albanese government.
Peta Credlin: Yeah, Labor will do whatever it takes. I use the Graham Richardson phrase at the top of the show: whatever it takes to hang on to power. We saw stuff the other day, Sarah, from the Climate Change Authority that said even talking about rising power prices or the fact that regional areas don’t like these transmission towers was to be discouraged. Well, that would also be picked up here. I use the example at the top of the show that even discussing women and gender-that’s one of the categories. I mean, how do we discuss then trans women playing football and the anger from female sports people and parents? Again, that could be shut down under this new regime. It’s a Trojan horse bill too, because you rightly say it’s going to all be done by regulation. How do you even know what you’re voting for?
Senator Henderson: Well, that’s exactly right. And to make things worse, there’s another online safety bill in the Senate right now, where the government is seeking egregious powers for the eSafety Commissioner, compulsory powers of interrogation without any right of self-incrimination, with extraordinarily heavy fines if you don’t comply, including a jail term of up to 12 months. And those powers apply to anyone in relation to the social media ban, not just the tech executives or the social media companies. I mean, it could be a parent, it could be a podcaster. This government is out of control. We are fighting this every step of the way. We have put up some, and we will be putting up some strong amendments on this bill in the Senate right now Peta, giving parents greater control, trying to empower parents to give them access to safety tools on operating systems so that they can protect the device of their children. We also want to see algorithmic transparency, like what X has done. X has published a very large part of its algorithm for the ‘for you’ feed. Now we want to see that across the board as well, but we are not going to stand by and watch the government and the regulator do everything to shut down the free speech of Australians.
Peta Credlin: So how do we fight it, Sarah? Because Labor’s got the numbers in the lower house, obviously, and with the Greens on board and some of those tealy type crossbenchers, they’ll have the numbers, won’t they? How do ordinary people fight this?
Senator Henderson: We have got to fight this like no tomorrow. I know there are already a number of different groups which are gearing up. The IPA, the Free Speech Union of Australia, for instance, they’re very, very activated. But even the Australian Human Rights Commissioner, in our recent Senate inquiry into the current bill in the Senate, she raised very serious concerns about the digital duty of care and what it might do to free speech. But as you say, this is a Trojan horse because they have mixed this bill in with other, you know, serious harms that no Australian wants to see online, but we have to fight this tooth and nail because this is a very, very dangerous proposal.
Peta Credlin: I’ve got to leave it there, Sarah. Thank you for your time, and we’ll join the fight with you. I think this is one of the huge issues we’ve got coming at us at the moment.