Topics: Interest rates, eSafety powers, digital duty of care
Stephen Cenatiempo: Time to talk federal politics with the Shadow Minister for Communications, Senator Sarah Henderson. Sarah, good morning.
Senator Henderson: Stephen, a very good morning to you.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Is there anybody buying this responsible fiscal management line?
Senator Henderson: Look, I think it’s become an absolute joke. I was just watching Jim Chalmers on television doing an interview. This is a person and a government driving our country off the cliff with its excessive government spending, which is driving up interest rates. And this treasurer is just putting his head in the sand, and Australians are paying a very tough price. This is appalling.
What is happening with our economy, Stephen? The cost-of-living crisis, the largest decline in living standards in the developed world, and now the prospect of yet another interest rate increase today, which, as you say, would take interest rates to a 15-year high, with Australians now facing the second highest rate amongst advanced economies. It is a disaster and that is why we are working so hard to get rid of this truly terrible government, focusing on lower taxes, cheaper power, less migration, more homes, and putting Australians first.
Stephen Cenatiempo: The other scary thing that I want to talk about, and this fits right into your portfolio, is this digital duty of care legislation, which will give the eSafety Commissioner and other researchers broad powers to create false identities online to monitor other users. Now I’ve got no problem with the federal police doing this in the context of trying to stamp out paedophilia and child sex crimes and those kind of things. We’ve been doing that for years to great effect, but this is just getting ridiculous now. Particularly when we hear your counterpart Anika Wells say, “Well, people don’t believe me anymore because of social media. Well, we don’t believe it because she doesn’t tell the truth.
Senator Henderson: Well, she doesn’t tell the truth, and neither does the prime minister. This is a draconian attempt to reintroduce the misinformation and disinformation laws that failed a couple of years ago. It’s all about controlling what Australians say and see online. Why else would this incompetent minister, Anika Wells, give herself the ability to decide what online harms should be prohibited? This is not about protecting children. This is about controlling what people say and see. And of course, the Prime Minister made it very clear in the UN the other day, he talked about misinformation and disinformation and political extremes.
This is about shutting down the views of Labor’s political opponents, and so this bill is incredibly dangerous. And not only does the minister have sweeping powers over what she determines to be lawful content, there are dangerously vague definitions of what constitutes online harm. Things like material or conduct which is hostile to women and gender equality. And then I asked what that means in a departmental briefing and I’m told, “Oh we’re very concerned about the manosphere.” I mean, this is just complete and utter rubbish. But these covert powers, and now, of course, as you mentioned, the surveillance powers for the regulator are really frightening, and that’s why we have called for this law to be scrapped and for Labor to go back to the drawing board.
Stephen Cenatiempo: What scares me the most about this is, and I think the failure of it is laid bare when they come out and say, “Oh, this will protect children online.” Well, hang on, I thought we banned children from being online. So where is there a problem?
Senator Henderson: Well, that’s exactly right. And the under-16 social media ban, of course, as we know, is not working. But children are not meant to be on social media if they’re under 16, and so you know again what we have put forward and tried to do as the alternative is say, well, parents do have a right to make decisions about what their children say and see online, and that’s why we put forward a really significant amendment, parental safety tools, to give, and it goes back to the discussions that you and I have had on frequent occasions, the evidence from Qoria, from Tim Levy, about the importance of giving parents choice, giving them access to these third-party digital devices that allow parents to say, “Look, I want to control how much time my kids are online, what they do, what they see, what’s prohibited.” So we put forward a very significant amendment, which was knocked back by the government, and then, of course, the prime minister had the cheek to fly to the United States and go and visit Apple to talk about parental safety tools after voting down our amendment 10 days beforehand.
So, I mean, we have to work very hard to ensure children and Australians are safe online. We are working very hard to hold big tech to account. More needs to be done, including on algorithmic transparency. But there is no doubt that this bill is a dangerous backdoor to controlling free speech in this country, and as you say, these sock puppet powers, which would allow the eSafety Commissioner to set up fake accounts and then monitor what people say and do online, and even engage with users under false names, is really really frightening, and it’s Orwellian. And I can tell you what, I do not want Anika Wells running some sort of Orwellian spy operation under the cover of child safety. This is just such bad legislation and must be withdrawn.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Well, we’ve got to think about the upside, though, Sarah. We’ll get good Wi-Fi at sporting grounds while she’s out there flying around the country watching sport. She can then monitor people online while she’s sitting in the cheap seats?
Senator Henderson: Well, hopefully she will comply with her travel entitlements because, as we know, she has rorted her travel entitlements and had to pay some $10,000 back to IPEA. Look, I think this minister is failing on so many different levels, and this latest bill is a complete disaster. And Australians, and particularly young Australians, can see it for what it is. It’s all about giving government and regulators unprecedented powers over lawful online activity. Can you believe the government did not even exempt news media websites – which, of course, gives them the ability to control journalism, to control political debate, to control political opinion, and, of course, to censor us online.
Stephen Cenatiempo: Well, I put my editorials up on social media every morning now, and well, I’ll probably be the first one to get banned, Sarah. Good to talk to you. We’ll catch up in a couple of weeks.