Liberal MP Andrew Wallace says the Albanese government have “refused to accept” the recommendations of the eSafety Commissioner to introduce a trial for age verification for “absolutely inexplicable reasons”.
The Coalition is promising to deliver an age verification trial to prevent under 18s from accessing explicit content online.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton seized on Communication Minister Michelle Rowland’s reluctance to immediately commit to minimum age rules by committing to a $6.7 million trial of the technology under a Coalition government.
“What we’ve seen, and I did an inquiry in relation to this a few years ago, and the outcome of that inquiry was to very strongly recommend an age verification process.
“There are always going to be kids that are smarter than you and I who are going to be able to do workarounds on this, but equally there is a lot of kids who won’t.
“We cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”
Shadow Communications Minister David Coleman has introduced a bill to enable a trial of age verification technology on harmful content such as pornography sites.
“The eSafety Commissioner wants action on this issue, she wants a trial of this technology and we want to deliver that,” Mr Coleman told Sky News Australia.
He said the Coalition has approved $6.7 million which it would provide to carry out the trial.
“And the technology’s moved a long way … so in the UK, they just legislated to do this, just in October.
“What the government is basically saying is, ‘we’re not going to do what the eSafety Commissioner wants to do, we’re going to leave this process up to the industry which is basically the pornography industry’.”
