TRANSCRIPT - SKY NEWS SATURDAY EDITION WITH TIM GILBERT

PAUL FLETCHER MP

Shadow Minister for Science and the Arts

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy

Manager of Opposition Business in the House

TRANSCRIPT

SKY NEWS SATURDAY EDITION

4 MAY 2024


TIM GILBERT: Joining me now is Paul Fletcher, shadow minister for government Services. Is this abrogating responsibility? 

PAUL FLETCHER: Well, Tim, the responsibility sits with the minister. Ministers, of course, receive advice. But they set up this community protection board and there are all kinds of -

TIM GILBERT: They're saying they're not making the decisions, the boards making the decisions. 

PAUL FLETCHER: Yeah, but the responsibility sits with the minister who has created this particular board. Now he's trying to point the finger at the board that he's created. If he thinks the board isn't doing a satisfactory job. And there are very good reasons to doubt whether it is, um, then, uh, he needs to recognise the responsibility. Sits with him. Andrew Giles, he is the minister. He's the elected official. He's accountable to the parliament and the Australian people. And when the Australian people see an elderly woman being bashed and robbed by somebody who was released from immigration detention, and when they know that that's part of a group of more than 150 people that Andrew Giles has released from immigration detention, including known murderers and rapists and a collection of other very undesirable people. The Australian people want to know there's a plan, they want to know who's in charge, and they want to know that the minister who is responsible is doing his job. And the Australian people right now would have very good reason to be questioning all of those things 

TIM GILBERT: As the opposition, how should it be working? 

PAUL FLETCHER: Well, um, we've made the point consistently that the government should have had a plan in advance of the High Court decision, because the direction was certainly, uh, very predictable. Instead, they seem caught out flat footed. It took them a long time to respond. We've been critical of the way that Mr. Giles then rushed to release over 150 people. It's not clear that he needed to release all of those. But what we also expect them to do is to do the things they said they would do. Mr Giles has repeatedly told Parliament that those who'd been released would be continuously monitored This individual who bashed the lady in Perth was supposed to be wearing an ankle bracelet, but he wasn't. Why not? And the Commonwealth was represented in the court case when this individual was before a magistrate. I understand it in Western Australia in relation to having breached his conditions under the Commonwealth legislation and the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth's lawyer said. We don't object to him getting bail. What is going on? Who is managing this and why isn't the minister, Andrew Giles all over this? Protecting Australians and keeping them safe.

TIM GILBERT: You were the social services minister, so you have been across domestic violence for a long time. It's horrendous, this crisis in this country right now. You just talk about electronic monitoring there. Is that something that we need to bring in? 

PAUL FLETCHER: Well, I think we need to be looking at all the issues. And the opposition has certainly been supportive of the fact that this week national cabinet considered domestic violence, as you say, this is a very serious and challenging issue. The number of women who are killed by current or former partners is, disturbingly high. The figures, as I recollect from when I was Minister for Social Services I think it's something like 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 Australian women report being the victim of sexual violence on the part of a partner or somebody they're on a date with, or something like that. These are very troubling numbers. Now, certainly one of the areas that's important is where women are in a violent relationship and want to leave it, typically with, you know, if they have children taking the children with, her making, uh, addressing any economic barriers to that. So was certainly one of the announcements this week, essentially a rebadged programme that had commenced, as I understand it, under the coalition, but nevertheless we do support that. But the other point we make is, announcing measures is one thing, you've got to implement them. You know, it was over two years ago that the government announced 500 frontline workers to deal with domestic violence. Now we welcome that. But the last time the Prime Minister was pressed on how many had actually been put into the field, and that was, I think earlier this year, the number was very, very low. So we need to see not just the announcements but the implementation of practical measures, because as we all know, sadly, on a weekly, indeed daily basis, there is violence against women, all too often from current and former partners. 

TIM GILBERT:The world's changed enormously since you and I grew up. Social media is everywhere. When we were growing up, we had it ingrained in us from our parents, from our grandparents, all about behaviour. Where does the education in all of this education at every level, step in?

PAUL FLETCHER: I think education certainly is important, modelling good behaviours. And let's recognise that, um are very large numbers of men and boys are appropriately respectful of women. Let's also recognise that there are men who are sometimes victims of sexual violence, but overwhelmingly or domestic violence, I should say, overwhelmingly it is. women. The numbers are clear on that. Um, certainly one area that we've been emphasising for many years is better regulation of social media, uh, and the very wide availability of online porn, which is a significant problem. When I was communications minister, I asked the safety commissioner to do a serious piece of work on how we could introduce age verification for online porn with a view to not continuing to have a situation where young children and teenagers can readily go online and see content that they would never have been allowed to see 20 or 30 years ago. And some of that content is really very, very troubling indeed. Now, it is pleasing that this week, one of the other outcomes of that national cabinet meeting was that the government committed that they will now proceed with a trial of age verification. It's taken too long as David Coleman, our shadow communications minister, has pointed out. Last year, the minister resisted accepting the eSafety commissioner's recommendation to proceed with that trial. Pleasingly, she's now backflipped and that trial will go ahead. 

TIM GILBERT: Just finally on the eSafety Commissioner, I've been in the headlines, of course, over the past few weeks. Where do you think those powers should start and finish? 

PAUL FLETCHER: Well, the eSafety commissioner does have significant powers under the Online Safety Act, which we passed in 2021. We struck a very careful balance. She has powers to deal with cyber bullying of Australian children. Those powers are never used to exist. Ten years ago, if you were cyber bullied, you couldn't do anything about it. We added new powers to deal with significant online aggression towards adults, again, with a whole series of conditions that have to be met and very carefully balancing up the free speech issues. And we also put in powers, uh, in relation to so-called class one and class two content. This is content that if it were, uh, in the on television or in movies would be refused classification, extreme violence, that kind of thing. And the online equivalent of that is what's called class one content. So it is important that the internet is not a free for all, that the rule of law applies online as well as offline. That was a principle the Morrison government pursued very vigorously. And it's something we continue to champion. And David Coleman, our shadow communications minister, has been very clear in our priorities in this area. We do support the eSafety commissioner. She's doing important work. And of course, there are important issues to balance up in terms of free speech. But we cannot have the internet being a free for all. That's beyond the rule of law. 

TIM GILBERT: Yeah, absolutely. Shadow Minister for Government Services Paul Fletcher, thanks for coming on the programme Thank you.