Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

My comments today follow on from the vote last night calling for a review of the compulsory code of conduct for search engines, for which I thank Senator Babet. I also thank Senator Shoebridge for his contribution to the debate.

Australia is set to introduce unprecedented age-verification checks for search engines such as Google and for YouTube, video sites, AI and, bizarrely, maps. What started as concern for children on social media has rapidly expanded to mandatory, wide-ranging, biometric age-checking across the digital landscape. For what reason? Safety? These measures vastly exceed what's necessary to keep kids safe. Instead of waiting to see how the under-16 social-media ban goes—if it works, if it's even possible, and how children get around it—the censorship bureaucrats are already trying to push through further nanny-state privacy-destroying restrictions on the internet.

Google and Microsoft will implement age-assurance technology, under threat of a $50 million repeating fine. This verification will be used to automatically censor an unspecified range of content. Yet the experience in Britain and the EU, where almost identical legislation has come into effect, shows that the powers will be most commonly used against material that hurts people's feelings—especially the government's feelings. This week, Britain has started removing any post which shows the current protests against excessive immigration, housing and the cost of living. The wording of the Australian code encourages the eSafety commissar to act in the same way. Did Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mention that in the last election campaign? No, he did not.

If democratic protests around important issues affecting safety and society cannot be spoken of, then we no longer have a democratic society. I'm disgusted. Enough is enough. We need to have an inquiry into digital regulatory overreach, including information about the actual events unfolding right now in Britain and the EU. We know how this legislation will turn out. Why are we making the same mistake other countries are making?