Topics: Digital Duty of Care
Senator Henderson: Well, good afternoon, everyone. I’m very pleased to be joined by Matt and Alex, and also Michael Shellenberger, and Andrew Bushnell, and Margaret Chambers from the IPA. Our message is very clear, the government’s proposed digital duty of care must be killed. This is undemocratic. This is a dangerous piece of legislation, and it must be stopped. And it’s not just because of the blatant assault on free speech and the insidious agenda of the government. Shockingly, Anika Wells, who clearly is shining with incompetence after what she’s done with this exposure draft, is also proposing to remove the mandatory codes and standards, which place very important obligations on the digital platforms to do things like detect and remove child sexual abuse material and terrorism material. This is a shock, and the bill must be killed.
Matt Canavan: Thanks, Sarah. Well, look, it’s great to join a good mate of myself and of our country and of all free speech-loving peoples in Michael Schellenberger. Michael came out to our shores a couple of years ago to help kill the terrible misinformation and disinformation bill, and that was a big campaign. And at the end of our Senate inquiry and discussions that Michael and others contributed to, every senator in this building voted against the misinformation and disinformation bill, including Labor senators. They voted to withdraw it from the notice paper. Back then the Greens’ political party were in favour of free speech because the point I’d like to make is, the reason against this new attempt, this renewed microwaved attempt to censor free speech, is because I want to protect speech of all kinds.
In fact, I’m more passionate about protecting the rights of free speech for those who disagree with me, who might be on the other side of politics, because that’s the true test on whether or not you do actually support free speech properly, it’s whether or not you can support those who disagree. It’s very easy to support free speech of those that you agree with, and it’s very disappointing to see the Greens move away from that position because, as much as this particular government is seeking to use these laws to censor those who disagree with them, and we can hear that from the minister herself, who said that one of the issues she faces is a loss of trust online because of the criticism she gets. She’s not the sort of person to give this kind of trust to.
This bill could be just as easily used to censor speech from the other side of politics, and I feel we’re doing great damage and tarnishing our reputation as a country that’s robust, they can have different views, they can welcome debate when we seek to suppress free speech in these sort of ways, so transparently for political reasons. In fact, we had the new Greens leader, David Shoebridge, in this very place a few weeks ago, say that one of the reasons he supports this renewed attempt to crush free speech is because he’s worried about the emergence of right-wing voices. Well, that should never be a reason to suppress free speech. We shouldn’t silence free speech because we’re upset about political voices on different spectrums, particularly when they may disagree with us. We need to protect children, but we more importantly almost need to protect free speech because it is the underpinning of the success of our society. So it’s great to be back here with Michael. I have to apologise. I have another speaking committee commitment I’ve got to get to now, but I am steadfast behind Michael and the whole team and Sarah, the great work she’s doing in standing up for the free speech rights of all Australians.
Senator Antic: Thanks, Matt. Look, I think the thing that strikes me as I stand here talking today is that we’ve got so many issues that confront Australians, cost of living, high inflation, costs are through the roof. Australians can’t afford to get into a home and yet, for the second or third time in as many years, we’re relitigating the issue of censorship and prosecuting the censorship industrial complex. It’s an issue that I’ve spoken a lot about, and not because I want to be talking about these issues, I want to be talking about things that are biting on Australian homes and dinner tables. But here we are again with this government seeking to prosecute what is basically a free speech issue online. It’s a critical issue. It’s a global issue, and we’ve heard today from Michael Schellenberger, who’s a respected journalist from the United States, who’s been fighting on the front lines of this issue for a long period of time, and is well versed on what the real issue here is, as is anyone. But why we’re here talking about this again, this is an issue which just needs to go away, quite frankly, and we need to kill this bill. It’s an issue that I think all of the people here today should be passionate about as well. I mean, all members of the [inaudible] are all people who seek to want free speech. And we look forward to hopefully having some nice, fair and even-handed reporting on the issue. So, thanks for being here today.
Michael Shellenberger: Thank you. Just wanted to say this is the most extreme and radical censorship legislation that we have yet seen introduced in the Western world. It allows for censorship of anything that the communications minister decides may cause significant harm. I would ask you to consider anxiety disorders among young people around the world, around climate change. The IPCC never says that climate change will be apocalyptic. One out of four British children have had nightmares from climate change. I think that would constitute significant harm. Is the minister seriously going to censor Greta Thunberg? Is it going to censor alarmist climate scientists? What about on the Palestine issue? Why in the world would the left support such sweeping censorship legislation when it means that their own supporters could be censored online by expressing support for protesters around Gaza? I’ve never seen legislation like this that actually gives the government authorisation to wage informational warfare against its own people.
This legislation allows the government to create unlimited numbers of fake accounts, which used to be known as bots, now often referred to as sock puppet accounts, when we’ve asked people how to justify the government running unlimited number of fake accounts to spread disinformation, misrepresenting themselves as authentic Australian voters, what they’ve said is that we need that right in order to enforce the legislation. But read the draft legislation, it says very clearly that the government can use this for educational and promotional purposes. That goes far beyond the justified and legitimate reasons for having fake accounts. There is a legitimate, justified reason for fake accounts. That’s to investigate child predators. That’s to investigate fraud online. It is absolutely not justified for the government to go and pretend to be authentic Australians to demonstrate support on their issues that they apparently cannot generate without it, so I came down here because this is the most alarming development in the world right now on censorship.
Around the world, we’ve seen publics reject government censorship. We’ve seen this government spread misinformation multiple times, and yet they appear to have no self-awareness that they could be censored by future governments. Every major censorship law that’s been passed has been used against the people that created it, including in Weimar Germany. So I would ask people that support this legislation to consider that you too might be censored. Nobody should be more sensitive to this than journalists. The legislation would absolutely allow the government to censor online journalism as well as social media platforms. Thank you very much.
Senator Henderson: Thanks, Michael. Andrew.
Dr Andrew Bushnell: Thank you. My name is Dr Andrew Bushnell, I’m from the Institute of Public Affairs, and we’ve been lucky enough to bring Michael Schellenberger out here to help us with our research, which has shown that this is a dangerous and disproportionate law. The digital duty of care is flawed at its basic conception. It’s a broad law that would apply across the entire internet, and all of its various problems from freedom of speech, followed from that [inaudible] is simply the incorrect regulatory approach, disproportionate to the objectives of the government, and for that reason, it cannot be fixed by amendments, and it must be scrapped in its entirety. Thank you.
Senator Henderson: Thank you, Andrew. Happy to take any questions.
Reporter: On the digital duty of care, the Greens have proposed adding a right for individuals to be able to sue social media companies for breaches. Could I get your view on that, Senator Henderson, and also for Mr Schellenberger? Do you think that would make the Trump administration even angrier about this bill than they are already?
Senator Henderson: We haven’t seen the bill. We’ve only seen the exposure draft. I haven’t seen the proposal from the Greens at all, I think they’ve got a range of concerns. But our focus right now is in sending this exposure draft and any bill, should it come before the parliament, to a Senate inquiry. We want to see this incompetent minister quickly realise her fundamental mistakes. Though this bill cannot be rescued. This bill cannot be repaired or amended. It must be killed off. Now we’ve made it clear that we are open to measures to better protect Australians online and particularly children, and that’s why I prosecuted the case for algorithmic transparency, and parental safety tools and other measures which give parents empowerment over what their children see and say online, but the government has got this fundamentally wrong, and that’s why we are saying this bill must be scrapped.
Michael Shellenberger: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s obviously deeply alarming that the Greens would want this legislation to be even more extreme than it already is. I think when they say that they want to hold the platforms accountable, what you have to understand is they’re seeking to silence voices that they don’t want online. That’s the underlying agenda here. And what I think the Greens need to remember is that these tools will be used against you in a future administration if you get them to pass. You are playing with fire here. This is an extremely dangerous exercise. You have to remember that the president of the United States is somebody who was illegitimately deplatformed by Facebook and Twitter. I did the Twitter files that looked into the discussion within Twitter around the decision to deplatform President Trump, and what that showed was that the Twitter staff themselves knew that they were violating their own terms of service in deplatforming a sitting president. Leaders around the world, including on the left, were alarmed by the power of a social media platform to remove a sitting head of state from their social media platforms. So it’s hard to imagine an administration more sensitive to this issue on censorship, and the Trump administration, Bobby Kennedy Jr, their Secretary of Health and Human Services, was himself censored. So I think you’ve actually seen a muted response from the Trump administration to date. The administration has obviously been focused on the midterm elections, but I think you can expect that if this legislation goes forward and we get into November, that there could be a much more aggressive response from the United States.
Reporter: Senator Henderson, you said there that the government should scrap the bill, that there’s no saving it, no amendments. Are you basically saying that it looks like the government will introduce this bill this week? Are you saying that there’s no way the Coalition would vote for this bill in any form? Not interested in negotiating with the government on this legislation?
Senator Henderson: The bill needs to be killed because it’s not just the ministerial powers which gives the minister unfettered abilities to prohibit any type of online harm. Now, of course, it’s a disallowable instrument, but we’ve seen instruments made in the parliament where it’s taken some 200 or more days to come before the Senate, so this minister could make any law and impose any penalty without any parliamentary oversight. But there’s also very dangerously vague definitions of online harm in the bill. I mean, we hear that material hostile to women or gender equality is prohibited material, we don’t even know what that means.
In a departmental briefing, I was told they were concerned about the manosphere. I mean, the government and the prime minister are clearly concerned about shutting down voices on the right, and they want to shut down the podcasters, the influencers, their political opponents because we know that this is a Trojan horse to reintroduce the misinformation and disinformation laws of two years ago. It is very dangerous, and for all of you in the media, and I’m a former member of the media, former journalist, this is frightening. How can you not be screaming from the rooftops saying, ‘How dare you censor us?’ The media plays an incredibly important role in our country, holding politicians, governments, decision makers, to account. And the idea that you would stand by and watch these laws go through the parliament, which can censor the media, is shocking. We’ve never seen anything like this before, and that’s why it’s got to be shut down. But as I say, there’s also the deeply concerning issue that all the online mandatory standards and codes are also being gutted from the Online Safety Act.
Reporter: The reality is, though, that the Greens are keen to negotiate, if you’ve vacated the field, aren’t you then letting that bill go through in the form with support of the Greens potentially make that bill even less palatable to themselves?
Senator Henderson: If the Greens want to play ball with the government on this bill, this is a very dangerous step for the Greens because this will also be a weapon that will be turned against the left as much as the right. So, if they care about their voices, if they care about expressing what matters to them, how can they support this bill? This is a fundamental assault on free speech. No matter where you sit on the political pendulum. We are so shocked about this bill and what it does to all Australians. Now, that’s not to say that children need to be safe online, and more needs to be done, and more needs to be done to hold big tech to account. I mean, I cannot believe the number of financial scams, which are being published by Meta, the ACCC has been in the federal court fighting Meta for four years, and there is still no resolution. And that is a disgrace because people, Australians, are losing their life savings. And we are saying yes, more needs to be done, but assaulting the free speech of Australians is not the way to do it.
Reporter: To be clear, you believe that the government could and would use this bill to shut down right-wing media holders [inaudible]. This is not just keeping nasty from the internet. This is closing down podcasters and others?
Sarah Henderson: That is exactly right because these powers are unfettered, and the prime minister let the cat out of the bag at the sideline meeting of the United Nations in New York when he said, ‘Well, protecting children is the first stage, but the inevitable next stage is that we need to tackle the polarisation, the misinformation, and disinformation on the left and the right. This government is failing Australians. They are running this economy off the cliff. They are deserting everyone. The prime minister is being carved up online by the podcasters who are cutting through and who are getting their message that this is a hopeless, reckless, irresponsible government is destroying the lives of so many Australians. So, Mr Albanese is doing everything he can to shut down those voices and he let the cat out of the bag in New York a few weeks ago.
Reporter: One for all of you. The Greens have written to the eSafety Commissioner asking for the takedown of that US military execution livestream. First off, are you comfortable with that particular act? But also, do Australians have a right to watch it?
Senator Henderson: Well, I have also written to the eSafety Commissioner because I believe that the unlawful material codes would cover this sort of conduct. So I am concerned about the live streaming of what is an abhorrent and violent act – to watch the live execution by firing squad – and so I have written to the eSafety Commissioner also to seek advice as to whether this proposed broadcast, we don’t know whether it will go ahead, but whether this is covered by their unlawful material codes. But I think there’s a very good argument that it is. But let me not make this point again, the unlawful material codes covering extreme violence, child exploitation material, terrorism material. These are all the codes the minister is proposing to strip out of her digital duty of care legislation. That is a shock because they are the very codes that ensure that this material is prevented and detected and stopped from being broadcast online.
Reporter: Mr Schellenberger, are you comfortable with that live stream, that proposed live stream?
Michael Shellenberger: Well the Australian courts have already ruled that the Australian eSafety Commissioner erred when she demanded that a terrorist attack was being taken down off of X globally, not just in Australia. She withdrew her complaint from that. So it seems to me the Australian courts have already spoken on it. I would also ask you to pay attention to what’s been happening in France. We’ve had videos going around of protesters assaulting police, we’ve seen police using batons against protesters. If you were, under this legislation, somebody online that said ‘Go get them’ toward either side could be censored, or the online platform could be censored for carrying that material. One of the concerns that we have is the incredible chilling effect that this will pose. The bill is so sweeping that it would basically put the platforms in a position of erring on the side of censorship rather than erring on the side of free speech.
Reporter: Could I ask Senator Antic? You’ve been a critic of the way Julian Inman-Grant carries out her functions, but a lot of the exercise of her powers have been, you know, they’re just things that the parliament gave her, including under the former Coalition government, the 2021 Online Safety Act. So, what do you think when you hear, you know, for example, that she went too far in issuing takedown orders? Do you regret passing that bill?
Senator Antic: Yeah, sorry. Well, look they’re matters for the courts, obviously, I mean, interpretation of the law as it currently stands. I don’t support the drift and the expansion of the powers, frankly. I mean, I think it’s gone too far and I do think the courts have spoken on many occasions. I mean, I don’t know how many successes there have been from the office of the eSafety Commissioner in terms of prosecutions and takedown orders, but I don’t think there’s very many, if any. So, look, I think the issue is whether or not this office should exist in its current form. If I had my way, and I speak for myself as a backbencher, I would roll back the office back to perhaps not even what was originally intended. Let’s not forget this was originally the office of the children’s eSafety Commissioner, and of course the inevitable [inaudible] has rolled out towards, now we’re talking about the sort of things we’re talking about. For the record, I would say that I don’t support the death penalty, and I wouldn’t want to see that online. But I’m very concerned about the ability of broad powers to pick and choose what’s suitable and what’s not, just based on small criteria. So yeah.
Senator Henderson: Can I just add to that question because I too, as the Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety, have raised concerns about the abuse of power by the eSafety Commissioner, the Celine Baumgarten post is a case in point where there was overreach, and of course, Celine Baumgarten, who raised legitimate concerns about a gender club at a primary school, took on the eSafety Commissioner, and she won that case in the Federal Court. I will also just point that we actually put up an amendment to curtail the eSafety Commissioner’s powers in another bill, an online safety bill that went before the parliament a number of months ago, and they were rejected by the government, even though the eSafety Commissioner herself and the Department of Communications agreed that they didn’t need those scope of powers. So we need to make sure that the powers that are given to regulators are fit for purpose, and that there is not overreach. And we’ve demonstrated, the entire Coalition, that we are concerned about the overreach, including the fact that in relation to the social media ban, the eSafety Commissioner now has the power to issue infringement notices of up to $21.84 million without judicial oversight. We rejected that amendment, but it went through the parliament, and so that was another indication that we have some concerns.
Reporter: Senator, just before we move on from this topic, I think it just sharpened your earlier point. If this is a wholesale attack on the right side of Australian media, name for us a media program, news program, a podcast that you believe would not survive this legislation. I mean, with respect to my colleagues, is Sky After Dark in trouble here? How far would [inaudible] take this, and who might not be on the air?
Senator Henderson: The entire Australian media sector.
Reporter: So Sky After Dark is under threat?
Senator Henderson: No, I am saying the entire media sector is in trouble with this legislation.
Reporter: But you won’t name one?
Senator Henderson: Well, I’m saying that everyone is. Because of the expansion of these powers, as proposed by the minister, the media sector is not excluded from these laws, and so every single media operator, no matter who they are, is under threat from this legislation.
Reporter: Senator Antic, can I just ask you about some remarks on an actual podcast a couple of minutes ago?
Senator Antic: Oh yeah, here we go.
Reporter: It was just about…
Senator Antic: Something taken out of context?
Reporter: I’m asking you to provide some context.
Senator Antic: Alright, well, let’s go.
Reporter: That you said there’ll be some sort of understanding between the Coalition and One Nation at the next election. I’m just wondering, I guess, if you could provide within the context, what do you mean by that?
Senator Antic: Well, I mean, what do you think? But first of all let’s just understand what your interpretation of that was?
Reporter: I’m not sure that’s why I’m asking.
Senator Antic: Very good. Look, I mean I’ve been very clear about that. Of course, this is the point of going on podcasts is to talk about issues in broad terms. I mean, I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know but there is a very clear, real politic scenario here where the polling says what it says, polling says at the moment that our numbers are, depending on the poll you take, in the 20s. At this very moment, it would seem that it would be useful to have some sort of conversation. I don’t know what that looks like. Someone, might be one of your friends here contacted me the other day and said you still support a preference deal? Well, this is the problem when you’re mixing the language, I never said that at all. What I do say, though, is that the lines of communication have to be open. They have to be real. The goal of my next two and a half years or two years is to remove this terrible government, and this is beyond partisan politics. We’ve got a country to save, and so I am in the business of trying to do whatever it takes to remove this government. I don’t know what that looks like, but I think it would be foolish to close doors from a personal point of view.
Senator Henderson: I’ll just add to that, Jack, the Coalition is aligned with One Nation on one critical mission, and that is to remove this terrible Albanese Labor government. Alright, thank you very much, everyone. Really appreciate your time and interest. Thank you.