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

I rise to speak on the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Bill 2018, and thank the member for Greenway for her considered contribution. I'll say from the outset that Labor supports this bill. Labor has a long track record of supporting Australia's arts community and creative industries and all the jobs that come with that. That especially includes supporting them by ensuring sensible reform to our copyright laws so that they are fit for purpose in a fast-changing industry.

The digital era is upon us, and it brings its own challenges for the creative industries and the artists who have input into them. I know the blood, sweat and tears that go into making a piece of creative work, whether it be a film, something on the screen or the small screen; on the page, like poetry or a book; or even through the airwaves. A small part of the author or the artist is left behind when they put out their piece of art. It must be especially galling when a creative work is used without permission and without the appropriate payment to the artist and those who support the artist. Fundamentally, to do so is theft. But it also shows a lack of respect for the artists.

Online piracy is a significant threat to the music and screen industry in Australia. As fast internet now allows us to download in record time, online piracy has taken off. Labor has already done some work with the government in this area in 2015. Those changes allowed the courts to order providers to block access to identified pirate sites through an Australian Federal Court injunction. That was important because many of the pirate sites operate in overseas jurisdictions and are out of the reach of our own Australian laws. Blocking the sites themselves means that Australian audiences are unable to access these pirate sites. Those reforms were successful. However, it is not easy to obtain an Australian Federal Court injunction. It takes time, and there are costs associated with it. As soon as that door has been largely closed, what do unscrupulous operators do? They find another door or they make a door ajar with their crowbar and push through. Our laws need to keep up with an ever-changing copyright infringement landscape.

So this bill will expand the services that will be subject to the previous reforms. Online search engines will be included. A Federal Court injunction can compel a search engine to take reasonable steps to not provide search results that direct users to copyright-infringing websites. Sites that have the primary purpose or primary effect of infringing or facilitating an infringement of copyright can now be blocked. That is the intent of the legislation. This is a significant expansion of the previous reform, which was limited to blocking sites with the primary purpose of infringing copyright.

This bill will also allow more flexible injunctions so that, when a pirate site changes its address or access pathway, the injunction can be adapted without the need to return to court. To streamline the court process to obtain an injunction, this bill adds a rebuttable presumption that an online location is outside of Australia and therefore within the blocking mechanism of this legislation.

So that is why I support this bill and why the Labor Party will support this bill. It is important that Australia's creative industries are protected and fostered. Our musicians, our filmmakers, our TV production industry, our artists, our authors—they're all important to our culture and, significantly, to our economy, as so many jobs are associated with these artistic endeavours. The continued prosperity of our creative arts community is dependent on our creative artists being able to protect their original work and negotiate compensation for its use. So we're also looking after publishers, film distributors and all sorts.

The voice of Australians needs to be heard in our Australian books. We need stories that are told by Australian writers. I'm a co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Australian Books and Writers. My co-chair is Senator Linda Reynolds, who has continued her role after gaining a ministerial position. It's great to work with her. This year, Senator Reynolds and I hosted the announcement of the writers short-listed for the Miles Franklin award, and it was a wonderful night. These writers told the stories in their books about us—about Australians. They have a national focus. They also reach out all around the world, obviously, but they're still Australians telling Australian stories. Who else is going to tell those stories but Australian writers?

Obviously, I particularly note the Australian publishers who support those writers. Without them, we would not have the enjoyment of all of those books—well, from my youth, and from going to teachers' college, books such as Such is Life by Joseph Furphy, all of Thea Astley's work, and the works of Janette Turner Hospital and David Malouf. I know that has a particular Queensland flavour, but there's also Henry Lawson and so many other great Australian writers who have told our stories. They make us what we are as a nation—a nation with the longest history, the longest culture, the oldest culture, on earth. The oldest word on earth is an Indigenous word. But Australian writers also meld that with the modern Australian story—the story from all around the world that makes Australia what it is. How will our children hear these stories unless our writing community is able to prosper and thrive?

I'd give a particular shout-out to one of the recipients of the Queensland Premier's prize for literature, Michael Bauer, who I used to teach with many years ago. I congratulate Michael.

We have such a wealth of talented writers in this country, like Michael Bauer, but all of them struggle to make a living. It is so important that we protect their reward for the work that they do. Not all of them get to tell their stories to overseas audiences, so it's important that we protect every dollar that comes their way.

It is also important that the faces of Australians are seen on our screens and that the stories that they tell are our Australian stories written by our Australian screenwriters. Protecting their industry protects our Australian stories for generations to come. Australian films have been acclaimed for many, many years. A friend who works in the film industry, Chris Holton, has always loved movies such as Breaker Morant and Gallipoli, and obviously the Mad Max movies. But Australian movies do so much—movies like Lantana;The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert;The Castle; Muriel's Wedding and Death in Brunswick, and I'd even throw in there The Rocket and Master and Commander, to name just a few of my favourite movies. They're all Australian stories, or largely Australian stories, that will now live on forever.

In another life, I was also in a band that still plays occasionally; we play together every three years as a fundraiser. We didn't make too much money from our musical endeavours—largely written by John Carozza, who is the lead singer as well—but we did play in our own voice. They were songs that we wrote and we played, and it was part of our Australian story. Obviously, the best Australian music has an Australian voice, whether it be country music, classical music, modern pop music, rap music—all of those voices tell our story. I'll mention a couple of my favourite bands, also with a Queensland flavour: The Saints, from Brisbane, who were at the cutting edge of punk, with Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper and the gang doing so much for punk music back in the seventies; also The Go-Betweens with Grant McLennan and Robert Forster, who are renowned songwriters; and I'd also have to mention The Triffids, from Perth. The point being, we will all have our favourite Australian authors, Australian TV shows, Australian movies and Australian musicians. We must always be prepared to look after our artists. This mechanism, this bill we have before us today, will help us to do so. People must be prepared to support Australian artists, and this legislation will go some way to making it easier to do so.

See this speech in context