Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I sincerely hope that there is no-one in this place who does not agree, especially after the month that we have had, that every single Australian needs to be safe and to feel safe at home, in their workplace and when they're out in public. When they're out in public, that's not just a physical presence; it's also an online presence. That is precisely what this bill, the Online Safety Bill 2021, is trying to do: keep people safe when they're online and keep them free of bullying, of intimidation, of harassment, and of sexist, misogynist or downright criminal remarks. I am incredibly proud that our government has introduced this bill, and I sincerely hope we will see its quick passage.

We know that the presence of people online and the manners in which people can interact online have grown exponentially in the past decade. There are so many good things that have come out of the World Wide Web and all the different apps and ways that we can communicate now, including social media, but there's also a terribly large amount of awful and unacceptable behaviour that has been allowed to grow and prosper in these online environments. Unfortunately, I, like many others in this place, have firsthand experience of instances of online abuse, and members of my community and their children have experienced it. We all have to work to stop it, to publicly condemn it and to make sure that people can get very quick and efficient recourse against perpetrators online.

Before I get to my personal experience and then talk about the bill, I just want to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts; of my colleague Nola Marino, the member for Forrest, who has done so much work to keep children safe online, including with the eSafety Commissioner; and also of the member for Mallee and the member for Newcastle, who have established the Parliamentary Friends of Making Social Media Safe. The member for Mallee in particular has been subjected to the most appalling abuse online, and I know that that's taken a very high toll on her, her husband, her family and her local community, for whom the member for Mallee has done such wonderful work in her profession and as a volunteer. I welcome comments, for example, from a senior cabinet minister, the Minister for Industry, Science and Technology, who says that we all need to call out the vile hate speech that exists on social media. I remember that about two years ago Janet Albrechtsen, writing in The Australian, said that all of us must work out how to disagree better, whether in person or online.

To reflect on my personal experience, it was, unfortunately, in and around the 2019 election. It can probably be demonstrated most obviously and clearly by the activities of the man who the South Australia Police finally charged for stalking me. They issued him with a stalking order. His behaviour was physical, but what I haven't really spoken about before is his online behaviour, which reiterated everything that he was doing in person to me to intimidate and harass me and make me feel incredibly unsafe going about my job.

It started in December 2018, and it continued right up until the police turned up on his doorstep and issued him with that stalking order, which was about two weeks before the May 2019 election. He posted hundreds—possibly over 1,000—posts directly about me: posts of me out in the community; posts at community events; posts of events that he could not have possibly known about, because they were not advertised publicly; posts that criticised me and my policies and the way that I look; posts that, in the end, were becoming quite derogatory and very sexist. And it was impossible to have that stopped. That's what this bill will do. That's why it is so important, especially for people in the public sphere, that we will have a mechanism so that we can stop this sort of dangerous behaviour. And it wasn't just him; it was all the supporters that he was attracting: people whose names I saw associated with GetUp, with the Labor Party and with the unions. They were all posting in support of him.

So it was the cumulative effect of his physical presence following me around with this large camera, not stopping when I asked him to stop, not stopping when the AFP turned up, and, then, finally stopping when the SA Police issued him with a stalking order. But he was posting all of that online with the commentary and with the intimidation, and this creepy old man was following me around, turning up when I don't even know that he was there, and then commenting on these photos that he's taken of me, when I was so busy doing my job that I wasn't even conscious that he had been present at some of these things. I was thinking: 'What on earth is going to happen next? Am I really safe?' Honestly, I did not feel safe.

On top of that, with the last campaign it was the thousands of Facebook posts—mainly Facebook, but also Twitter. Serial offenders were just attacking me—nasty, nasty attacks. You block them and you ban them, but then more of them pop up. It is clearly an organised, concerted effort by GetUp, Labor and the unions—the same names pop up time and time again—to have a real go at me. Again, this is the sort of thing that will be able to be dealt with thanks to this bill—and quickly dealt with. We now have a mechanism to help keep people safe.

That brings me to another individual. I wish that this legislation had been in place when they did their dirty handiwork, because it was, and remains, deeply troubling, especially the online response to their appalling post in the first place. It was about two weeks after the 2019 election, so it must have been either late May or early June when I went on the ABC TV program Q+A. When I appeared, Mike Carlton, a former journalist, live-tweeted:

Never have I admired Jimmy Barnes so much as tonight. How does he not leap from his seat and strangle the Liberal shill on his right?

I have the tweet here. This is from about a year ago. I don't know if it's been retweeted and liked since. Suggesting that Jimmy Barnes showed great restraint by not leaping up and strangling me was liked 1,125 times, and it was retweeted 206 times. The Q+A hashtag was on that tweet. What did the ABC do? Absolutely nothing. It was bad enough that his tweet used very dangerous and highly sexist language, but, as we know—and jurisdictions around Australia have now recognised this—non-fatal strangulation is a serious offence. This has been recognised by pretty much every jurisdiction around the nation. It is widely recognised as an action that is perpetrated, almost exclusively, by men against women. And that was the language he used. The comments were also made during a Q+A episode where Jimmy Barnes recounted one of the most horrific acts of domestic violence that I've ever heard, whereby his brother-in-law wrapped his sister's hair around a barbed wire fence and proceeded to beat her almost to death on their wedding night. That was the context in which Mike Carlton said that it was amazing that Jimmy Barnes didn't leap out of his chair and strangle me.

But Mr Carlton's denigration of conservative women, Liberal women, women on the Right—whatever you want to call us—is not limited to me. He has attacked Rita Panahi, who is a very strong woman. She writes for the Herald Sun and she has a Sky News show. This is a direct quote from one of his tweets:

I'm not sure what a Rita Panahi is. It sounds like one of those lolly pink, sticky sweet Indian rice puddings.

For the record, Rita's not actually Indian. Not only did he denigrate her in a racial sense, but he also denigrated her as a woman. He has also attacked Daisy Cousens, a gorgeous, outspoken, highly intelligent young woman who has a great presence online and appears regularly on Sky News. Again, these are direct quotes from Mike Carlton's tweets:

Dunno who or what is this Daisy Cousens. But she can't write and she's as thick as cow shit—

Excuse my language, I know that's very unparliamentary—

I don't think even the RWFWs take Crazy Daisy seriously.

In tweets—I have them all—he has also called Judith Sloan, the highly intelligent, leading economist who writes regularly for The Australian, 'fatheaded', 'dimwitted' and 'Miss Piggy'. This is disgraceful behaviour. It is unacceptable. It has no place in this nation. Finally, with this bill, we might be able to stop people like this. Currently, it's very hard to do so. I know because I've tried.

But wait, there's more. Tweeting about Sharri Markson—I'm so grateful to Sharri for attempting to hold him to account over many years for his appalling behaviour—Mike Carlton wrote:

I'm reliably told that the weapons-grade halfwit and murdocracy toady @SharriMarkson has been going nutso about me all day. She's blocked me, of course, but I'd be very grateful if some of you might send her my best thanks and wishes.

To which I replied—and I rarely bother replying to horrible trolls, especially to people like Mike Carlton:

I rarely lower myself to respond to people like you, but Twitter should ban you for your disgusting attacks on women like me & @SharriMarkson & so many others. Twitter must reform their system & we must reform our Oz Hons system so some good comes from your dangerous behaviour.

To which Mr Carlton replied:

What a pathetic little twerp you are: a Liberal party hack of no notable attainment and no evident future. I do not abuse women and it is defamatory to say I do. Stop whining. As Harry Truman famously said, if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.

This is unacceptable. This is what I hope this bill will stop. If it doesn't, I'll be lobbying to strengthen it even further. But I have great faith that it will. All Australians should treat each other with respect, whether it's online or in person. It's one of the beautiful things about our country. It's a safe, free, respectful society and a strong democracy, but we have to protect that. I believe that this bill will. I'm very grateful to the minister for communications for introducing it and for listening to people like me very carefully. I am very grateful that this bill will enhance and expand the existing legislative framework so that harm that is visited upon people through online media can be proactively and swiftly defused, in the first instance, or dealt with by the law, in the latter instance. This is a world-leading initiative, and it follows on from other excellent work that we have done in this area.

As I remarked on at the start of this speech, technological developments have presented new ways for Australians to engage with one another, but they have also presented new risks and regulatory challenges. Indeed, as I'm sure members are all aware, the bill's explanatory memorandum lays out an incredibly disturbing list of types of online harm, including cyberbullying, abusive commentary, trolling, non-consensual sharing of intimate images, child grooming, cyberflashing, cyberstalking, technology facilitated abuse and the sharing of personal information without consent, otherwise known as doxxing. As I've just outlined, unfortunately, I have experienced some of this behaviour.

The broadening of the eSafety Commissioner's remit will bring ancillary service providers under the expanded regulatory umbrella—which I think is very important—as well as search engines and app stores, because we know there are so many different ways that individuals can distribute and disseminate abusive material and messages online.

I want to close by again acknowledging the leadership of the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts in overseeing this groundbreaking work to modernise and expand the legislative and regulatory framework that provides the protections Australians should be able to enjoy. It just disappoints me that we haven't done this sooner—much, much sooner—but I'm incredibly proud that it is our government that is finally acting.

I also again want to acknowledge the member for Forrest, because I know that she was an early adopter of seeing the need to keep children safe online. I know she has spent many, many hours visiting schools in her electorate to talk about how to stay safe online and about the work of the eSafety Commissioner.

I want to acknowledge the eSafety Commissioner and the ones who have come previously, because they are the people who have helped us to get to this point. They are the people who have worked incredibly hard over the years to try to keep Australians safe. I am very pleased that the keyboard cretins who hide behind their computer screens at home and put up fake profiles will no longer be able to attack, in such hateful ways, people in public life, kids at school and members of the public. Nobody deserves this.

I commend this bill to the House and, in doing so, implore all Australians to please be respectful to one another.

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