This is a short video prepared by Senator Lundy to inform you about the Joint Select Committee on Cybersafety, how such committees work, and how you can contribute constructively to the consultation process.
Transcript:
Hi, I’m doing this video to tell you about the newly established Joint Select Committee on Cybersafety.
This committee was a Labor election commitment and it was recently set up with Senator Dana Wortley, a Labor Senator from South Australia as Chair, and Alex Hawke, a Liberal MP as Deputy Chair.
The cybersafety select committee is embarking on an enquiry that relates specifically to quite an extensive terms of reference which can be found on the Parliamentary website.
I’m a member of the select committee, and along with me, the Chair and the Deputy Chair are the following people:
- Senator Guy Barnett, the Liberal Senator for Tasmania
- Senator David Bushby, Liberal Party for Tasmania
- Senator Scott Ludlam from the Greens
- Mr Michael Danby MP, the Labor Party from Victoria
- Mr Paul Fletcher MP, Liberal Party for NSW
- Mr Robert Oakeshott MP, an Independent from New South Wales
- Mr Graham Perrett MP, from Queensland, Labor Party
- Mr Bernie Ripoll MP, Queensland, Labor Party
- Ms Maria Vamvakinou MP, Labor from the state of Victoria
So what is a joint select committee?
Joint select committees are committees of Parliament that draw their membership from both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The Joint Select Committee is set for a certain amount of time, and it’s moved by reference in both houses of Parliament.
This particular select committee terms of reference is due to be reported in February of next year, but because we’re likely to go to an election, well, presumably this year, we’re keen as a committee to have quite a short sharp focus on cybersafety issues as they relate to children and young people in the first instance.
Senator Wortley as Chair has said in her terms of reference on that press release and we’ll point to it on the website.
The Australian newspaper has advertised today for submissions to this enquiry. The cybersafety committee has decided to keep the focus on children and young people and how cybersafety issues affect them.
Can I encourage everyone who’s been following my blog on these and related matters to take the opportunity to have a constructive say in this enquiry.
It’s an important opportunity to get your views across and a great example about how Parliament interacts with the community. So please take the time to have a look at the website and see if you’ve got the time to make a contribution.
The committee invites submissions by the 25th June. All of the details are on the newspaper advertisement, but you can also find the details on the committee website, which is at www.aph.gov.au/jscc, for Joint Select Committee on Cybersafety.
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While I applaud this effort, I have to ask the question that everyone is thinking;
* How many of these committee members have any sort of Information Technology background of ANY kind ?
I suspect very few, if any. It’s all very well “taking advice” from … well, advisors, I guess … but if you don’t have the technical competance to be able to assimilate that advice and form an INFORMED opinion, then you are no more use than Senator Conroy, luddite extreme.
(Please note; I am not including you in the above, Kate – you at least appear to have some savvy when it comes to technical matters)
With 25 years IT experience as a “codemonkey” and sysadmin, I’m open to offers to join the committee..:-)
Is this going to be a “we’ll keep it secret and launch political attacks our critics” consultation process like the ISP filtering plan, or a “you’ve given us too many submissions so we’re going to ignore you” consultation process like the R18+ plan?
I know I’m just pretending my voice will be heard, I just want to know how exactly you’re going to waste the opportunity to hear from the public.