Topics: Senate inquiry into the sale of defence estate assets, online safety
Kieran Gilbert: Joining me is the Shadow Communications and Digital Safety Minister, Sarah Henderson. Senator, thanks for your time, you’re currently in Queenscliff at the Senate inquiry into the sale of the possible sell-off of defence land, particularly Fort Queenscliff. What is the view of the local community where you are?
Senator Henderson: Well, Kieran, good afternoon. The local community and right across the Geelong and Bellarine regions are really up in arms about the proposed sale of Fort Queenscliff, which is one of the country’s most significant coastal artillery forts 0 in the entire country. And it is really abhorrent what Richard Marles is doing, backed by Libby Coker, and the community is outraged. And of course, it’s not just here in Queenscliff. There are other very significant military sites on the chopping block. We’re not objecting to every single one but where it is our military history, very significant sites like for Queenscliff, like Victoria Barracks in Sydney and Melbourne, we’re fighting this very hard.
Kieran Gilbert: The deputy prime minister says he has made the point that all heritage values will be honoured and respected. And in fact, what this process is about doing is providing greater public access to areas that currently doesn’t have or don’t have sufficient access to general members of the public. So he doesn’t want to undermine the heritage. He argues he wants to preserve it and open it to more Australians?
Senator Henderson: Well, Kieran, the Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles, is actively misleading Australians because the minute this is sold off – and it might go to the state government, might go to a hotel group – any planning restrictions or heritage protections under the Commonwealth can be overridden, including by a state act of parliament. So he is talking rubbish. He is tone deaf to the importance of our military history. And now, of course, we’ve seen Chris Minns come out and oppose the sale of Victoria Barracks in Sydney, and where is Ben Carroll? Where is the Victorian government standing up for our military history? These incredibly precious defence sites, and I can tell you, the local Liberal candidate, Callum Whitehead, is fighting very hard to stand up for this community. In contrast to the Labor member, they are missing in action. And as for Libby Coker, she’s just a sheep. All she does is follow what she’s told to do. I’ve never seen her fight. She could not fight her way out of a paper bag, and it is an absolute disgrace.
Kieran Gilbert: The issue of online safety. If we move to your specific area of responsibility as shadow communications and digital safety minister, it’s been back in the headlines. Women’s safety, more broadly, off the back of a series of shocking events, is toxic masculinity, as it’s known in some of these sites, some of these podcasters, is that part of this? What do you see as part of the reason that we’ve seen this spate of violence and alleged violence ongoing against women.
Senator Henderson: Every woman and girl deserves to be safe, no matter where they are, in their home, in the street, in the community, and online. And Kieran, I don’t believe that the communications minister, Anika Wells, is doing nearly enough with enough urgency in relation to online safety. We’ve actually got a bill before the parliament at the moment. It’s completely inadequate and I’ve been very outspoken on the need to turn off the algorithm, which of course is driving addiction, which is driving harm.
Young Australians, including of course, women should have complete control over what they see on social media, because the social media ban is not working. Sure, it might be a solution for some but it is not the solution for all. There’s very high circumvention, and then of course the prime minister is referring this to national cabinet on Wednesday. What more can the Commonwealth do to stand up for the rights of women and girls? Well, what about changing the Sex Discrimination Act to protect sex-based rights? How can you stand up for women when the Commonwealth government, led by Anthony Albanese, refuses to define what a woman is? Because we have situations, Kieran, including in domestic violence refuges in Melbourne, where men who say that they identify as women are turning up to these refuges late at night and demanding to be let in, which of course is a huge risk. So let’s start with fixing the Sex Discrimination Act.
Kieran Gilbert: Do you get any feedback as well from parents? I’ve had people tell me about situations where the you mentioned the algorithm, where for young men that they, not all obviously, but a small number end up having some of this really misogynistic, appalling and violent material that once something’s opened or read, that it can then repeat, and they get more and more material on it, and it goes down a terrible spiral for some of these individuals. And the parents are left pulling their hair out, wondering how did their son end up having these views. This is this is also part of that sort of toxic mix we have to deal with, isn’t it?
Senator Henderson: It is, and one of the other shortfalls of this government, they’ve taken no notice of the need to provide parents with the safety tools that are available through the operating systems of Microsoft and Google and Apple. Now, of course, they are made available through enterprise agreements between large corporations and the likes of Apple and Google, but they are not made available to parents. So parents should be able to control the sort of material that their children see online, including, of course, horrific material, child sexual abuse, pornography, and the like. And that is another very big shortfall. So this minister, Kieran, to be really frank, is just tinkering at the edges, and she’s putting up some disgraceful social media posts using grieving parents who have lost their children because of cyber abuse online, saying, you know, every day the Coalition doesn’t pass this law, then that’s another bad day for grieving parents. It is disgraceful because we want to ensure that we do everything possible to keep children safe online, including women and girls. And this minister is fundamentally failing in that job.
Kieran Gilbert: Shadow Communications Minister, Sarah Henderson, thank you for joining us live from Queenscliff, Victoria.