THE HON MARK DREYFUS QC MP
SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL SECURITY
MEMBER FOR ISAACS
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RN DRIVE
THURSDAY, 4 APRIL 2019
SUBJECTS: Labor's victory in the House of Representatives; social media legislation
PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: I'm joined by the Shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, welcome back to RN Drive.
MARK DREYFUS, SHADOW ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Thanks for having me Patricia.
KARVELAS: Lets talk about something that just happened in the House of Representatives lets nerd out a bit something just happened, just explain it because it's quite interesting.
DREYFUS: Well, to start with the final vote of the 45th Parliament was won by the opposition. And it was won because the Speaker cast his casting vote the vote was tied 72-72 the Speaker cast his casting vote to produce the result that the House agreed with a motion from the Senate which called for the lifting of the cap on water buybacks that was put in place by Abbott and Joyce. This is water buybacks for environmental flows in the Murray Darling. It's a very important piece of policy, it's a terrible mistake that was made by Abbott and Joyce to put on a cap, and the Senate moved a motion and passed a motion calling for that buyback, for the cap to be lifted. The House of Representatives has just agreed interestingly on the back of a casting vote of the Speaker.
KARVELAS: OK so explain to those who don't understand parliamentary process the Speaker of course is a Liberal and he gets a casting vote.
DREYFUS: When there's a tie.
KARVELAS: When there's a tie. Why did he side with Labor? Is he breaking ranks with the government? Is that what we should understand?
DREYFUS: No he's not. He's absolutely keeping with convention. A credit to Tony Smith, the Speaker, I pay credit to the advocacy skills of Tony Burke as well who pointed out to the Speaker that it's convention that he not use his casting vote to create a majority where there wasn't one, a majority of the House. It's his job to use his casting vote in more usual situations to preserve the status quo that didn't quite arise here. What he's done is keep with convention, not create a majority of the House where there wasn't one. The result was that the government's moving to disagree with the Senate was lost and that means that Labor won the last vote of the 45th Parliament.
KARVELAS: Which you're very happy about, you smile every time you talk about it.
DREYFUS: Well I like to say that!
KARVELAS: I can see that. Does it change does the government now have to follow this? Does it become policy and affect the buybacks?
DREYFUS: Well were about to go to an election, we have a clear difference in policy with the government, it doesn't it's not the same as a legislative event. It's a motion.
KARVELAS: That's what I was trying to clarify.
DREYFUS: I'ts something of real moment, that both Houses of the Australian Parliament have expressed their view that this cap on water buybacks has to go and that's our policy.
KARVELAS: So it doesn't change the rules, but it sends a message. Just to explain, it's symbolic.
DREYFUS: It sure does.
KARVELAS: Lets talk about the other legislation which wasn't symbolic, it was real legislation. It hasn't been through the committee process and there's been no consultation so why did Labor support it?
DREYFUS: What happened after Christchurch was the self-glorification that this terrible murderer in Christchurch, who murdered and seriously injured dozens more, and has now been charged with the murders, he got his way. He was allowed to self-glorify, the material that he took, the video that he made was made available millions of times on social media platforms and that cant be allowed to happen again. That's whats behind this legislation, we have to regulate the internet to make sure that this doesn't happen again, I'm prepared to accept that the social media platforms are saying that they are going to try harder in the future, that they're working on developing algorithms that can stop this happening. But we agreed with the government that there needed to be regulation. What we didn't agree with the government about was the rush with which this was done. It has produced clumsy legislation and that is entirely the result of the government deciding that this Parliament should hardly sit.
KARVELAS: You've just described this as clumsy legislation but you've passed it.
DREYFUS: We did, because it's our view sometimes you're faced with this choice in politics Patricia, you've got a choice. If wed voted today to not pass the bill, and possibly with the support of the crossbench, which the bill would have been defeated, it would have meant no further regulation by the Commonwealth of Australia until the Parliament can resume again. We had to make a choice, and we made a choice for regulation even though there are problems with it. I was the speaker on behalf of the Opposition in the Parliament, I pointed out that there are some problems with this legislation. It's because the government decided that this Parliament should hardly sit- because they've only provided seven sitting days in February, three in April, none in March. They assumed wrongly that there wouldn't be anything urgent coming up or anything complex coming up.
KARVELAS: But there was this.
DREYFUS: This has come up.
KARVELAS: So now were going into an election cycle it could be called tomorrow, it could be called Sunday, anyway it's imminent. So what will Labor promise? Because it appears that under this legislation, there is no exemption for whistleblowers uploading or streaming content depicting human rights abuses which of course is incredibly important. Would you make that change immediately if you're re-elected?
DREYFUS: We've said that we will send this piece of legislation immediately to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which we think has got a very important role of reviewing every national security law that comes to the Parliament. This is a national security law. It should have been sent to committee for a proper review. There should have been proper consultation with Australian tech companies, with international tech companies. We will do that consultation. We will ensure and Ive promised this today publicly that it goes to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. In the meantime, were going to continue to consult with the Australian tech companies and international tech companies, and media companies.
KARVELAS: So how quickly can these changes be made? There are concerns around yes, human rights, which I just mentioned but also journalism and the impact on journalism. How quickly will we see changes to the legislation to improve it if you think that it's clumsy?
DREYFUS: Absolutely my aim, if a Shorten Labor government is elected in May, is to make sure that these changes take place this year. We should have had consultation over some months. Even New Zealand has said that although they too intend to legislate, they are not doing it with this level of rush. They're going to take a bit more time, we should have taken a bit more time, well take that time to consult properly.
KARVELAS: How about if in the meantime, because Australia now has this legislation until you make any changes. A human rights video is uploaded and there is a criminalisation. I mean are you concerned that there could be an issue that happens in the meantime?
DREYFUS: The making of this law today ought to put every single person operating on the internet absolutely on alert that they have to do more. That takedowns, very quick takedowns are expected. We are looking forward, if we are elected, to working with the big social media platforms, the big social media companies and the Australian companies to make sure they've got procedures in place so that it's never necessary to go to the stage of criminalising or someone being charged. Wed hope no-one ever gets charged because what were looking for is absolutely responsible conduct on the part of everybody involved.
KARVELAS: Thank you so much for coming in.
DREYFUS: Thank you Patricia.
ENDS
