Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

I am especially pleased to be asked this question by the member for Forrest. I know that every member of this House, and indeed all Australians, I believe, are concerned about ensuring that our children are safe online and that cyber bullying is stopped and its consequences are mitigated as far as much as they possibly can be. The member for Forrest has set an extraordinary example to all of us with the way she has campaigned about online safety and the way she has conducted classes and seminars in the many schools in her electorate and elsewhere to ensure children and their teachers and parents are made aware of online safety issues. This morning, another champion for children's online safety, the Parliamentary Secretary for Communications, the member for Bradfield, introduced into the House the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Bill 2014. This fulfils an election commitment to take real action to ensure that our children are safe online.

The internet is the most transformative invention or piece of infrastructure that mankind has ever devised. That has been supercharged by the development of the smartphone. We all have one of these in our pockets. These devices have the processing power of a supercomputer of 20 years ago. They are supercomputers, and they enabled the billions of people who have them to be connected to each other and to all of the knowledge and wisdom of mankind. It is a remarkable change. But there are serious threats online. We all know that children can be cruel to each other. We know that adults can be cruel to children. But the internet offers a means of amplifying—

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