Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to start by saying that I wholeheartedly agree with the eSafety Commissioner's goal of removing child exploitation material online. This is absolutely what we want to see as a nation, and I believe that harsher punishments are needed for those who produce or access this material. However, the scope of the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, has been expanded well and truly beyond the safety of children online. She has turned the agency into a worldwide censorship machine that is being used to target political enemies.

Free speech is a fundamental value of the Australian culture. It should be in the Constitution. But the uniparty does not want the Australian people to have the protection of the Constitution. After all, it was the coalition that appointed Julie Inman Grant to patrol the Australian public under the guise of protecting them. The uniparty is not for the people. It is not for the rights of Australians to say what they think and to see the events of the world and judge for themselves. It is a blight on our country that we allow bureaucrats to decide what Australians are mature enough to see.

This hasn't gone unnoticed around the world. The US congress has demanded that the eSafety Commissioner, a US citizen, present herself before congress to give evidence in their review of worldwide censorship regimes. In his request, Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, refers to the eSafety commissioner as a 'noted zealot for global takedowns' and cites her travel to the US in September 2025 to be a keynote speaker at a Stanford University event. I would like to read a passage from the letter from congress around how they viewed the event:

The stated purpose of this event was to 'bring … together policymakers, academics, and experienced Silicon Valley experts to discuss the state of compliance and enforcement of existing regulations related to online trust and safety'.

Put plainly, the roundtable sought to facilitate cooperation with global censorship by bringing together foreign officials who have directly targeted American speech and represent a serious threat to the First Amendment.

This clearly shows the antagonistic effect that the eSafety Commissioner has had on one of our most important allies—an ally that has much more regard for the freedom of its people than the government of Australia does.

What has the eSafety Commissioner been ordering to be taken down that has prompted such strong language from the US? It was the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari, an Islamist attack on a Christian bishop, an example of the government's complete failure to address the Islamist extremism that they decided should be censored, not only in Australia but around the world. And the slaying of Iryna Zarutska and the assassination of Charlie Kirk were geoblocked in Australia—once again, both videos that the far Left of politics found inconvenient to their cause. I asked about the blocking of these videos during estimates. I was told they were blocked because of the National Classification Scheme and that the content was unrelatable and therefore not suitable for anybody to view.

There is some important work to be done by the office of the eSafety Commissioner. However, the scope needs to be limited and monitored closely. We have seen an appetite for this office to reach beyond their duty to protect children and into the realm of ideological censor. Adults do not need a government guardian to tell them what is and is not safe for them to view. If they knowingly view anything that is child exploitation material they should be subject to the full force of the law. It is up to parents, not the government, to decide what is suitable for their children. No-one loves kids more than their parents do—certainly not the government. I have no issue with education, but taking away parents' rights to choose what is right for their children is gross overreach. Provide parents with the tools and leave the parenting to them.

Last of all, I would like to point out the ridiculous cost of eSafety's failed litigations. Extending the ban on the stabbing of Ma Mari: they were made to pay out over $600,000, not including their own legal costs. Australian taxpayer money was spent to have them censored. And eSafety ordered that Billboard Chris's criticism of transgender ideology used on children be taken down. It's a criticism that most Australians would agree with—complete ideological censorship. It cost the Australian public $66,000 in legal costs. The recent case of Celine Baumgarten, who raised the issue with a queer club being advertised in school, had an estimated cost of $50,000.

What a waste of taxpayer money, which should be used to prosecute the eSafety Commissioner's real objective of removing child exploitation material. The recommendations of this report do not address the need to severely limit the scope of this office to what it needs to be focusing on and away from government censorship. One Nation would completely reform the eSafety office for this purpose. We would scrap it and start again if necessary. Australians do not need censorship. We do not need the government to parent our children. If you don't like what's online, switch off. Stop the censorship now.