Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Communications. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to support the safety of Australians, and what challenges has the government been facing to deliver on this objective?

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my most excellent colleague for her question. Keeping Australians safe is the core priority of the Albanese government, and that includes online safety, which has traditionally been an area of bipartisanship. This government is now undertaking the substantive work to ensure that the Online Safety Act is successfully implemented together with our regulator, the eSafety Commissioner. ESafety provides critical support to Australians who experience online abuse. Just to give you some sense of scale, since 1 July last year eSafety has provided support to children, parents and schools in response to over 1,200 complaints under its Cyberbullying Scheme. ESafety also received over 6,000 reports of image based abuse and completed over 12,000 investigations in relation to illegal and restricted content.

The eSafety Commissioner is also dealing with new and emerging online harms, including challenges posed by generative AI, which can be used to make what are called deepfakes. When generated with malice, deepfakes can be incredibly harmful. It's particularly concerning to hear about this technology being used to target women, who we know are more likely to experience online abuse that is personal, sexualised and violent. eSafety has powers to remove deepfake images that constitute image based abuse. As these technologies are adopted more widely, eSafety's work will continue to be relevant and a high priority of this government.

Despite this, eSafety faces a funding cliff thanks to the decisions made by those opposite, who left the regulator with a host of non-ongoing or terminating funding measures. After 30 June, eSafety's overall funding would drop by more than half. The question asks about safety. Those opposite liked to announce how important various agencies and programs were, but they left them seriously underfunded.

We discovered this in respect of not only eSafety but also the Viewer Access Satellite Television service and other areas where Australians rely on the government to keep them safe and connected. For example, those opposite announced cell broadcast national messaging to ensure Australians could receive critical emergency warnings, but they actually underfunded it, so it couldn't proceed. Last week, I announced that our upcoming budget ensures this critical project can be delivered, as well as public safety mobile broadband—yet another vital safety project that languished under the previous government. The Albanese government is left once again to clean up the mess left by those opposite, but we're getting on with the job of delivering a better and safer future for all Australians.