22nd Jun 2021, 9:27 PM – Senate Online Safety Bill 2021 - Second Reading - Release the report

The majority voted against an amendment introduced by the Australian Labor Party, which means it failed. The amendment would have added the text below to the usual second reading motion "that the bill be read a second time" (parliamentary jargon for agreeing with the main idea of the bill).

Amendment text

At the end of the motion, add: ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

(i) it has been almost three years since the October 2018 Report of the Statutory Review of the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 and the Review of Schedules 5 and 7 to the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Online Content Scheme) by Lynelle Briggs AO recommended a new Online Safety Act,

(ii) since then, the Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts has repeatedly spruiked the non-existent Online Safety Act in response to concerns about online harms, including online hate speech and racism in Australia following the Christchurch terrorist atrocity and graphic online content in the wake of a self-harm video circulating on social media,

(iii) the Minister was slow in releasing the exposure draft of legislation for consultation then rushed the introduction of the bill into Parliament, eight business days after consultation on the exposure draft concluded, which undermined stakeholder confidence in the consultation process,

(iv) the Review of Australian classification regulation is delayed and has fallen out of step with the bill, and

(v) the Government still has not released the report of an expert working group, convened by the eSafety Commissioner and participated in by industry; and

(b) calls on the Government to release the report of the expert working group convened by the eSafety Commissioner so that the broad range of stakeholders supportive of online safety may have the benefit of the work".