The Federal Coalition Government has signalled its plans to introduce a new independent statutory authority in addition to laws that could force harmful content to be removed quickly from social media sites, along with the introduction of a "simplified" cyber-bullying offence.
The Government this week released a discussion paper, echoing its pre-election policy, which proposes the establishment of a Children’s E-Safety Commissioner to "take the lead across Government in implementing policies to improve the safety of children whilst online".
The Commissioner would help implement a proposed scheme "for the rapid removal of material that is harmful to a child from large social media sites" and assist schools deliver online safety education.
“The Children’s E-Safety Commissioner will be a single point of contact in the Federal Government for online safety issues for children," the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications Paul Fletcher said in a statement.
“When a child falls victim to cyber-bullying, it can be hard to get the harmful material down fast, and with current laws, cyber-bullies may not realise they are breaking the law. This is what these measures are designed to address,” he said.
The discussion paper has suggested Australia would not follow New Zealand in implementing a criminal offence for bullying laws, citing the Coalition's position that criminal laws in Australia were already appropriate to deal with the offence.
However, the paper proposed Australia could introduce new civil penalties and an "infringement notice scheme" that would provide "a faster, more effective process for dealing with cyber-bullying complaints, by avoiding the delays of court processes".
"The penalties under the infringement notice scheme should be high enough to dissuade and attract parental attention, but not so high that it leads people to contest the matter as a preferable option (perhaps a $1,000 fine)."