Transcript: Press Conference, Parliament House, Announcement of the Children's e-Safety Commissioner

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well good morning. Well I'm very pleased to be here to announce the new Children's e-Safety Commissioner. And this is an important step in the continuing work of the Abbott Government to enhance online safety for children.

The Coalition did lot of policy work on this issue in Opposition; we took to the 2013 election a policy to enhance online safety for children. We said we would appoint a Children's e-Safety Commissioner to take responsibility within the Federal Government, and to take national leadership, for online safety for children. And we said we would establish a complaints system, backed by legislation, under which harmful cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child could be taken down quickly from large social media services.

I'm very pleased to say that the legislation has passed through the Parliament, it passed through the reps and the Senate a couple of weeks ago. So that was a very important milestone, and we secured bipartisan support for that legislation. Now, that bipartisan support, I think, reflects the degree of concern in the community about ensuring that the Internet is as safe as possible for Australian children. Of course the Internet is a marvellous resource for education, for social reasons, and so on, and today's children are better informed than any previous generation, in part because of their heavy use of the Internet. But the Internet can also expose children to dangers, and it's so important that we do everything we can to keep Australian safe online.

Research commissioned by the Government has found that some one in five Australian children between the ages of 8 and 17 report exposure to cyber bullying in a 12-month period, and the research also highlighted that a continuing difficulty in this area has been securing the cooperation of social media services to get harmful material taken down. And I do want to emphasise that in developing this policy, and in passing this legislation we have worked close with the large social media services, and I want to acknowledge the cooperative intent they have shown here.

So my job now is to announce that the Children's e-Safety Commissioner will be Alastair MacGibbon who's standing here with me. Now, Alastair is extremely well qualified to take up this role. He has some 15 years of experience in the field of Internet safety and security. His background includes time in the Australian Federal Police, he was a founding director of the Australian High-Tech Crime Centre, he's at one stage in his career held the post of Director of Trust and Safety for the large Internet company Ebay in Australia and New Zealand markets. He's also been a director of the Centre for Internet Safety at the University of Canberra. And so he has very extensive experience in the field of online safety, and I know he has a very strong personal commitment to doing everything that we possibly can to keep Australian children safe online.

And so I'm very pleased that I'm able to announce the appointment of Alastair MacGibbon, and I'm going to ask Alastair to say a few words, and then we'll both be available to answer questions.

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON:

Well thank you, Paul, thank you Parliamentary Secretary.

I'm very excited to be tasked with the role of becoming the inaugural Children's e-safety Commissioner. My experience in the Australian Federal Police, and at the centre for Internet safety, and at jobs in between, highlighted to me how fundamentally important the Internet is and the great things that can happen for Australian children on the Internet, but also some of the down sides. And clearly that same government research that the Parliamentary Secretary referred to highlights that the issue of cyber bullying is indeed worsening. Any Australian parent, teacher, headmaster, and child welfare expert will tell you that this issue is indeed worsening for Australian children.

So now that the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill has passed, my job is to set up the Office of the Commissioner to ensure that there's an effective complaints scheme, so that we can start making the Internet safer for children when it comes to cyber bullying. I look forward to working with industry, child welfare groups, educators, and most importantly parents and children, to help make the Internet a safer place.

Thank you.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Thanks Alastair. So, any questions?

QUESTION:

Can you explain how this will work in practice? So if a parent sees something on [indistinct] kid's Facebook having a go at their kid, what do they do?

PAUL FLETCHER:

So once we get the office up and running, which will be in the second half of the year, and we'll make clear announcements once the complaints scheme is in place, then what will now be possible to do is if you're a child who's been the victim of cyber-bullying on a large social media service, then you, or a parent, or a teacher, on your behalf, will be able to make a complaint. What the legislation says is that you first need to go to the relevant large social media service using their existing procedures. But if they don't respond within a 48-hour period, you will then be able to go to the Office of the Children's e-Safety Commissioner, which will investigate, and if the Office of the Commissioner determines that this is cyber-bullying then he will have the power to issue a notice against the large social media service, requiring that the material be taken down.

So as we get the office up and running we'll be announcing the web address, the call number, and so on, there'll be plenty of information about what parents do. But that's how the system is going to work, and that's the mechanism that has been laid out in the legislation that's now passed the Parliament.

Did you want to add anything?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON:

No, apart from the fact that another important role of the office is to help coordinate the education of children and their families on how to be safer online. As a former police officer, prevention is always better than cure, and I think that the more preventative we can be of these types of issues the better it is.

QUESTION:

How confident are you that the big social media companies are going to play ball with this?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well look, we have had extensive discussions with the large social media services, and I do want to acknowledge that they have very much increased the resources that they allocate to complaints, and they have a strong commitment to combatting cyber-bullying. This is legislation of the Australian Parliament, and they have a clear commitment to be good corporate citizens. We are committed to engaging with the large social media services in a cooperative and consultative way, and the legislation in fact has been designed to give them a strong incentive to engage in a cooperative way.

So I'm confident that the Government, and particularly Alastair MacGibbon as the new Children's e-Safety Commissioner, working together with large social media services and other stakeholders, will be able to implement this system, which will now give Australian children who are the victims of cyber -bullying a means of redress, which in practical terms has not been available before.

QUESTION:

Is it right that the Commissioner will have the ability to fine these large social media services $17,000 per day for not getting material down quickly enough, and how would that work and what do the companies think of this fine?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well, the way that the legislation works is that when the Commissioner issues a notice, then ultimately it is right that there is the power to impose a fine of up to $17,000 per day for a failure to remove cyber-bullying material which is the subject of a notice.

I should emphasise that the act sets out a two-tier scheme. And if a company chooses to participate in tier one, and we're hopeful that the large players will choose to do that, then at that point compliance is voluntary; however, if they consistently fail to comply, if they repeatedly fail to respond to a notice, then they get moved to tier two where the fines are as you say.

So look, this is a big stick which is ultimately there, but it's very important to emphasise we do expect that we'll be working very cooperatively with the large social media services, and together we can make the Internet safer for Australian children.

QUESTION:

And what companies are you referring to when you're talking about these large social media companies.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look, the legislation defines the term large social media services, and sets out a process under which the Commissioner will determine which ones qualify, will make a recommendation to the Minister, and he will then make a declaration. So an early job for Alastair as the Commissioner will be to identify which services meet that definition of large social media services, but certainly, we can expect it will include the big brand-name social media services like Facebook and so on.

QUESTION:

Is there cost to the Budget for this?

PAUL FLETCHER:

We announced in the Budget last year $10 million of funding, which includes $7.5 million of funding for education. So that will go to schools, and what schools will have the capacity to do is use that money to purchase internet- online safety programs from a range of credible providers, and the e-Safety Commissioner will accredit programs that they can use that funding for. So the point as to funding is there was an additional $10 million of funding announced in last year's Budget; now that we have the office up and running we're now in a position to start to spend that money. Additionally, there will be other resources moved in from other parts of the public service into the office that Alastair will now have responsibility for, and so we've got a combination of some new money, and some reallocation of existing resources.

QUESTION:

Mr Fletcher how confident are you that the metadata legislation now before the House of Representatives has significant enough protections for the privacy of Australians, for journalists certainly, but for all Australians?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look metadata is an important issue but I'm not here to talk about metadata today. I'm here to talk about online safety for children so I'll confine my comments to that area.

QUESTION:

You have an expertise in that area though, Mr Fletcher, I mean it's an expertise that's valuable to Australians today particularly as that bill comes to this parliament surely.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Indeed and I made some comments I spoke in the debate yesterday. It is an important area and it's an area where the Abbott Government is working to ensure the safety and security of Australians but another important area that we're working on is online safety for children where we've just today announced the appointment of Alastair MacGibbon as the Children's e-Safety Commissioner so that's another step in our process of working towards making the Internet as safe a place as it possible can be for Australian children.

QUESTION:

And you're assessing the success of this legislation in I think it is three years, what kind of metrics will you be considering in relation to this?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Look I'll make some comments and then ask Alastair to comment as well. One of the things that we want to be able to do here is capture data as to the volume of complaints and the volume of complaints that get successfully resolved and so certainly that is something we'll be looking for evidence of. We'll also be looking to see that we've been able to operate this in the way that is as light-touch and as least disruptive as possible from the point of view of the operation of the large social media services. But ultimately we'll be looking at have we managed to make the internet materially safer, demonstrably safer for Australian children; that's to say are there children who previously might not have had for example somewhere where they could go to get redress for a cyber-bullying complaint who have now successfully achieved redress and I'll ask Alastair to add to that.

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON:

Thank you, that was a pretty comprehensive answer from the Parliamentary Secretary. What I would say in addition is that changing online behaviour has to be one of the key objectives, that's no small task but the important thing there is to make sure that we have the appropriate information captured to look for that type of change but as the Parliamentary Secretary said some of this is going to be about how many complaints are received, how quickly they're acted upon by those large social media services and also how schools and parents feel the safety of children has been enhanced.

 QUESTION:

So do you think a lot of complaints in two or three years, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well I think as with any complaints system what you want to do is where there people who have a serious issue that needs to be addressed, you want those complaints to be coming forward. You obviously want to also resolve as many of them as you possibly can so you look at all of those metrics.

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON:

And I'm not new to this space, I set up the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in the early 2000s where we started asking Australians to report crimes that occur online and there's always a vexed question of course, crime statistics or reports in this case of cyber bullying - if it goes up is it good or bad but as the Parliamentary Secretary said when you create an avenue for people to make a complaint we would hope they would make those complaints and then the key measure will be how effectively those complaints are handled and then ultimately if we've changed the behaviour of Australian children online.

PAUL FLETCHER:

Okay any last questions?

QUESTION:

And just to clarify we're talking about children is this anyone up until the age of 18 or have you…

PAUL FLETCHER:

That's correct, yes.

QUESTION:

And what will your first focus be, I know the office will be set up second half of the year, where does your first focus lie in all of this?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON:

There are some mechanical aspects of actually establishing the office, making sure that there is a complaints regime that can be effectively run at the backend. That'll take significant consultation with industry, child welfare groups, parents and children themselves to make sure that we have a process in place that is thorough, robust, and would actually do what the legislation expects. Of course a lot of this is going to be reaching out the social media services large and small to convey the Australian Parliament's expectation of their service delivery to Australian children.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:

Can I call for any final questions before we wrap it up just one final question.

QUESTION:

In terms of the fine you may not be fining these social media companies for some time or when you expect to be able to get that ball rolling?

PAUL FLETCHER:

Well I might just make an initial comment, if we find a necessity to impose fines obviously we'll do that but in many ways success will be if we can get this - these arrangements in place on a cooperative basis and we certainly do expect to working cooperatively with the large social media services. We'll - the question of how we exercise the powers will ultimately be a question for the commissioner but the objective is to get harmful cyber-bullying material taken down quickly and then more broadly to be taking the lead to be the - to take national leadership on the question of online safety for children. So I want to emphasise that the complaint system is part of it, an important part of it but also the educational role, the advocacy role and you can expect to see Alastair as he gets his feet under the desk from 1 July increasingly in the media talking about online safety and seeking to make the case and seeking to help explain to parents, children, schools what they need to do to stay safe and help support them in doing that. Terrific, thanks very much.

ENDS