Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Copyright Amendment (Service Providers) Bill 2017 and I thank the member for Griffith, my next-door neighbour, for her great contribution. I know that the member for Griffith is a wonderful musician and an author, so I think she does have some skin in the game or a dog in the fight when it comes to looking after the rights of people who create. I thank the member for Griffith for her creation.

I say up-front that, from the outset, Labor has supported this bill. It is a balanced measure that will benefit educational and cultural institutions without compromising the commercial creative arts market or the public interest, but not at the expense of the creator's living. As I'm sure the member for Wakefield would agree, artists must eat. We must look after our artists and those who create, but also make sure that we look after educational and cultural institutions.

Mr Champion interjecting—

I'll take that interjection from the member for Wakefield, who is making the point that I'm glad I have a day job rather than relying on my endeavours as an artist! I'll come back to that later, time permitting. This bill extends the scope of the safe-harbour provisions already contained in the Copyright Act. The current provisions were designed to protect carriage service providers from copyright infringements by their subscribers. They limit the remedies available against those providers, where the carriage provider does not control, initiate or direct the primary infringement. Certain circumstances must be present for the carriage service to have the benefit of these provisions, including that the provider must implement reasonable policies that provide for terminating the accounts of repeat infringers—they can't turn away from the poor behaviour. Also, they must comply with industry codes. We have a focus on self-regulation here, so they must do the right thing. Also, they must expeditiously remove infringing material and they must not receive a financial benefit that is directly attributable to the infringing activity. These are commonsense approaches, as I'm sure you would agree, Deputy Speaker Hastie. The remedies are limited and include orders to disable access to infringing copyright material. Remedies do not extend to damages or an account of profits.

These are important safeguards for carrier services such as Telstra and Optus, who provide internet services to their customers—or, maybe, in turning my mind to Optus I should say that they try to provide internet services to their customers. I'm just kidding, Optus, and I'm sure you'll reply to the tweeted question I asked of you the other night about the World Cup game where the commentary was two seconds ahead of the vision, which is quite disconcerting when watching a game of football. Nevertheless, I'm sure Optus will be looking to improve what they're providing to the Australian public.

This bill extends these provisions to include other institutions, such as educational institutions, including universities, schools, technical colleges, training bodies and preschools, and to libraries that make their collections available to the public or are parliamentary libraries. I'll just give a big shout-out to the Parliamentary Library here. I'm sure everyone in opposition would agree that the library in this building is the opposition's best friend—maybe a backbencher's best friend, as well. They do their job impartially. They do great research and provide a great service to the democratic institution that is this building.

We also extend these provisions to archives, including the National Archives of Australia—and I mentioned the Queensland archives, which are located at Runcorn in my electorate of Moreton. The provisions are extended to key cultural institutions, including specific archives and libraries that are not open to the public, and to organisations assisting persons with a disability.

Labor supports this bill because it embodies the principle that passive carriers with no control over the material carried on internet services should not be liable for copyright infringement provided they take reasonable steps to remove infringing content when notified of its use. It is important that our schools and universities who operate in the digital age are protected from unnecessary financial legal burdens if they are operating in a responsible manner. All of the institutions that will benefit from the extension of the safe harbour scheme in this bill do not receive financial gain from the use of content on their networks, which is a good framing mechanism for how we approach this balancing of the public interest with the creators' rights.

In his second reading speech the Minister for Communications foreshadowed further broader reforms to the safe harbour scheme. The Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee reviewed this bill. Their report concluded that the government's incremental approach to safe harbour reform was appropriate. The committee supported the approach that educational and cultural institutions and organisations assisting people with a disability will be afforded protection immediately. I particularly mention those organisations assisting people with a disability. I'd like to say hello to Braille House in my electorate of Moreton, who provide a great service throughout Queensland and, on occasion, throughout Australia. They are taking an artist's work and providing it to people that would not normally be able to access it. Hello to all those at Braille House who were so welcoming when I visited during May.

The committee also supported continued consultation with stakeholders. I note that the Greens political party tabled a dissenting report to that committee inquiry. I think some of their inner-city base would have a couple of artists, musicians or creators. The Greens political party, who often like to think of themselves as champions of the Australian arts, bizarrely put in a dissenting report to the committee, ignoring the concerns of artists, musicians and creators. In the face of the vast majority of rights holders and their umbrella organisations in Australia, the Greens political party backed the position of Google, a multinational giant, to extend the safe harbour scheme in line with the current United States scheme, which has been highly criticised and is currently undergoing a review by United States lawmakers. Radical changes to copyright laws, as advocated by the Greens political party and Google, would have the capacity to undermine the ability of Australian artists, musicians, authors and other rights holders to negotiate viable commercial arrangements for the distribution of their work.

As someone who makes a very meagre living from the books I write, I declare a slight conflict of interest. I hear snickering from the member for Brand behind me. I do have three books published by Boolarong Press: The Twelfth Fish, The Big Fig and The Solid Rock. I'm working on a new book at the moment.

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