Rowan Dean: Joining me now is Liberal Senator and the new Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety, Sarah Henderson. Sarah, it’s great to see you. You’ve hit the ground running. This is fantastic stuff. You are demanding a complete review of the use of these takedown notices by the eSafety Commissioner, that’s Julie Inman-Grant, the so-called e-Karen, after an appeals court ruled this week that she had been operating outside the scope of her powers. Apparently – and this is the story that we know about Celine Baumgarten, who will be on Outsiders on Sunday – Celine simply posted a media post about queer theory being taught to primary school children and the eSafety Commissioner took this down. Tell us what do you think needs to be done, Sarah?
Senator Henderson: Rowan, great to join you and yes, I have called on behalf of the Opposition for a full review of the eSafety Commissioner’s use of mandatory takedown notices after the Full Federal Court found that the eSafety Commissioner was operating outside the scope of her powers. Now, this is a pretty damning finding against the eSafety Commissioner. Of course, she plays a very important role in safeguarding the online safety of Australians but she cannot be in the business of shutting down free speech or legitimate debate and that is definitely what she tried to do in the case of Celine.
As you mentioned, Celine put up a post raising concerns about the establishment of a queer club at a Melbourne primary school and then the eSafety Commissioner then issued a notice, basically trying to pull this post down. Celine took on the eSafety Commissioner in the Administrative Review Tribunal, then in the Federal Court and she won. So this is a very significant victory for common sense.
Rowan Dean: Absolutely, the eSafety Commissioner has lost this twice now. Free Speech Union were helping Celine with this. But this is really worrying because this is your kind of Orwellian censorship and why should a single mum from the western suburbs of Sydney, be responsible for defending free speech? The Court agrees with Celine, thank you for you agreeing with Celine but what needs to be done to curb the powers of the eSafety Commissioner to keep all Australians safe from this sort of censorship?
Senator Henderson: Well this was an attempt to censor, I think, what was a very legitimate concern that Celine had about extreme gender activism in a Melbourne primary school. And it is pretty shameful that that was shut down or the attempt was made to shut it down. So what I’m wanting the minister to do and I think this is very important, there is no greater freedom, frankly, than the freedom of speech and this has got to be safeguarded, Rowan. And so basically each year, the eSafety Commissioner has issued several 100 of these so-called informal notices. She argued that they were just informal. She was just saying ‘look please comply with your terms and conditions.’ They weren’t a mandatory takedown order.
Well the Court found otherwise. The Court found that these do constitute a mandatory takedown order. So my concern is that there are many other so-called notices where posts have been taken down improperly, meaning that the eSafety Commissioner has acted outside her powers. We need to understand exactly what has happened, whether this has transpired in any other cases and that’s why the Minister for Communications must conduct a full review into the exercise of these powers.
Rowan Dean: Sarah Henderson, you’ve hit the ground running in this new job. I am thrilled. This is what I want to see the Coalition fighting for. Thank you so much on behalf of every Australian who goes online and every Australian who’s concerned about things that are happening in this country. Free speech must reign supreme. Sarah Henderson, new Shadow Minister for Communications, well done. Great to chat to you here on The World According to Rowan Dean, Thanks, Sarah.