Chris Kenny: Let’s catch up with Sarah Henderson now, she joins us live. Sarah, this is extraordinary. You know, it’s near enough’s good enough when we’re talking about the potential ability of a government to censor what is online?
Senator Henderson: Well, Chris, good afternoon, and the eSafety Commissioner’s admission that this needs to go back to the parliament, so many definitions are unclear in the bill, is a damning appraisal of Anika Wells and her efforts to bring forward this deeply flawed legislation, which is all about shutting down their political opponents and information control.
So Julie Inman-Grant is talking about definitions such as material or conduct which is hostile to women and gender equality will be banned online. Now, what does that mean? When I asked the department, they said it’s all about the manosphere and yet the minister denies that. I mean, we have got a very strong set of laws, Chris. The Online Safety Act specifically prohibits serious harms and also a range of age-restricted material. I should say things like pornography, eating disorder materials, material which encourages suicide, that is all either banned or restricted. And now we’ve got this across the economy-wide general duty, which is imposed on every single business which runs a website. It’s absolutely nuts. And places all of these compliance and red tape obligations on all of these businesses right across Australia. This is so bad and what’s even worse with the codes and standards being removed from the Act, they set out the really specific limitations on what digital platforms can and can’t do. The government has brought forward legislation which will make our online safety laws weaker and that is also astonishing.
Chris Kenny: Look, we all know because we’ve seen it in public debate already, if the government has the power to ban material based on these gender issues, then people won’t be able to comment online that, you know, a biological man shouldn’t be playing on a netball site and such like. They’ll stifle that sort of debate. We know that sort of power will be used in that way.
Senator Henderson: That’s right and we know that the eSafety Commissioner has already tried to shut down that type of material by taking action against Celine Baumgarten, who raised concerns about a gender club at a primary school. She took on the eSafety Commissioner and won that case in the Federal Court. And now we’ve got these broad definitions, sweeping powers, a lot of the power has been moved from the parliament to not just the executive, but to the regulator.
And Anne Twomey, the esteemed constitutional lawyer and professor, she’s raised concerns about algorithmic control. There are unfettered powers for the minister to control any sort of design feature on an online service, so she’s raised concerns that that could mean the government might decide to amplify certain types of advertising-based algorithms. Because of course, all advertising is governed by algorithms online and that could have an impact on elections and electoral outcomes. I mean, this is such dangerous and undemocratic legislation. It must be stopped at all costs. And for the Greens to support this, just goes to show, I think if the Greens do continue along that path, they’ve really lost sight of what their own supporters want, and that is, they want freedom of speech. They want the most serious online harms to be prohibited. Families want to know their kids are safe online. But this is all about shutting down free speech. It’s all about information control.
Chris Kenny: You just can’t give big government this kind of power. They will misuse it. And I point to what went on during the COVID pandemic because these laws give them power over health issues to keep them safe online. And even under a Coalition government, then continuing under Labor, we had a lot of material on social media that was secretly censored by the government. Stuff that was saying, for instance, the vaccines don’t prevent infection or transmission. Information that was absolutely true, that is all known to be true now, was censored at the time. So even on health grounds, you can’t trust the government with censorship.
Senator Henderson: Well, Australians have got every reason to be very concerned. And we did see some alarming examples of censorship during COVID no doubt about that, Chris. And that’s why these laws have got to be confined only to the most serious online harms. The idea that you could give any government or any future government the power to basically shut down any type of speech, because as part of this, the eSafety Commissioner has also got the power to make any rules in relation to risk assessments that any online business must conduct.
Now, you know, there is no limitation as to how this bill could mean that governments could shut down almost anything. And this also has very serious consequences for religious freedom, the churches, Jewish groups are raising serious concerns. It is a complete and utter dog’s breakfast. I don’t think I’ve seen many pieces of legislation which are worse than this. And I say for your viewers, please go to ProtectFreeSpeech.com.au. Please sign our petition. Show that you think this is a really important issue that we’ve got to fight very hard because we cannot let this dreadful government get away with this.
Chris Kenny: Sarah Henderson, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.