Topics: Twitter and online behaviour, CFMEU-Grocon dispute, RU486, Afghanistan
Neil Mitchell: Join the debate with me, Left and Right. Bill Shorten is off, presumably trying to fix the Grocon dispute, and Joe Hockey is, we know not where. With me is Senator Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Digital Communications and Twitter. That’s fair enough isn’t it? And Scott Ryan, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Competition with the Opposition. Morning Senator Ryan.
Senator Scott Ryan: Morning Neil.
Mitchell: Let’s start with Twitter because I guess it is your responsibility isn’t it?
Senator Stephen Conroy: Well Twitter is a registered company overseas so we have no direct control over them and that’s one of the great problems in this debate. We have companies that are based in America, the servers are in America, and if we won’t to access this information, like who are these anonymous trolls that are involved in some of the public discourse we want to know who they really are.
Mitchell: I’ll get to the Charlotte Dawson thing in a moment, but Lachy Hulme must have decided he is Kerry Packer and he tweeted the following about Gina Rinehart: “Work hard, stay out of the pub, inherit millions of dollars and you too can be a morbidly obese, right-wing moron hated by your own kids”. That’s rough isn’t it?
Senator Conroy: Well that’s the sort of civil discourse online at the moment, people should behave online the way they behave in the physical world. That sort of commentary is not acceptable and it is unhelpful.
Mitchell: Scott Ryan, the Charlotte Dawson thing. I’ve been reading some of the tweets. She ended up in hospital after people told her to hang herself. She was obviously fragile. She is re-tweeting all this stuff, I can’t read most of it because it is obscene or vulgar, but basically it’s telling her to kill herself and she’s ended up in hospital. What can be done about that?
Senator Ryan: It is appalling. Like Stephen, I don’t understand why people behave online in a way they wouldn’t say to someone’s face. That cloak of anonymity seems to bring out the worst in a small number of users. We have anti-bullying programs in schools, we have them in workplaces and we obviously need to look at what we are going to do online. I would encourage adults – children are obviously a different point – but adults have the ability to turn off. I know Neil, you probably get abuse, I know some of your colleagues cop it a lot as well, adults have that ability to turn off and I think we’ve got to remind them that they can.
Mitchell: But you wouldn’t walk up to someone on the street and say these things, there’d be accountability.
Senator Conroy: Absolutely.
Mitchell: We really can’t make people accountable for Twitter?
Senator Conroy: Look two things. Firstly, there is a possibility laws have been breached and I understand police are looking at these matters as we speak. That’s the first thing. Secondly, when they’re done anonymously then we do need a capacity to go over to the US and talk to these companies and say – this is the police – ‘can you give us the information to show who’s behind it? Whose accounts these are?’ Over the past couple of years, police, the AFP, have been very frustrated with dealing with these companies. They’ve just basically ignored court orders from Australia. About 18 months ago, Neil Gaughan, who is a great cop at the AFP, he has been over to America and convened a meeting in New York with all these big companies and said, ‘look, you’ve got to start complying with our court orders’. We’ve had a lot more success. We’ve campaigned hard to get the Facebooks and others to have actual physical presence here. So now Facebook has an employee here who we can now go to start prosecuting these matters. At the end of the day, it is an American company, based in America, and they’ve got to understand that they need to be accountable for our laws as well.
Mitchell: In fact the spokesperson for Facebook is a former staffer of yours, isn’t it?
Senator Conroy: She was in the Department.
Mitchell: In the Department, ok. Scott Ryan, what about Facebook. We have a page there called ‘cancer is funny because people die’ with pictures of terminally ill children, we’ve got awful racial stuff against Aborigines, heavens knows what else. Would you see any way, would the Opposition see any way of being able to control Facebook or do we just have to cop this and learn to live with it?
Senator Ryan: I think we’ve yet to figure out how to regulate the online world the way we do civil society. As you said earlier, people do things online they simply would not do face-to-face. If someone was threatening people face-to-face, we know, that’s a criminal offence. So I don’t think there is an easy answer to this and we are going to have to come up with something, but I think it starts with education: what is acceptable behaviour? Good manners are free, my grandmother said to me, and we’ve got to start encouraging that online. I think Stephen’s got a point. We do need to get these international organisations to understand that a court order from Australia is not like the Iranian Government trying to find out who has got an Arab Spring-related Twitter account. It’s about a Federal Court order backed up by a liberal democracy and I think that’s a reasonable request to make
Mitchell: This Charlotte Dawson stuff is unbelievable. ‘Kill yourself you putrid piece of … You can’t ban us you stupid whore … go hang yourself’. It’s obscene and I don’t know people persist. I just get off when I get that sort of stuff and I ban people occasionally and I would just say ‘not worth it’. You’ve got a Twitter account?
Senator Conroy: No for some of these reasons, also to do with privacy, I’ve not ever set up a Twitter account. I know there are a lot of fake Steve Conroy’s on Twitter, you can find them easily, and then you can see why I just don’t bother in this particular area.
Mitchell: Ok, let’s move on to the Grocon dispute, the CFMEU dispute in the middle of the city. We’ve talked to all sides on this today. Senator Conroy, they’re your mates, couldn’t you sort it out?
Senator Conroy: I wouldn’t quite say the CFMEU have ever been my mates, I don’t think they’ve ever voted for me. But look, Bill Shorten convened a meeting last night of the Fair Work Commission. I think that was absolutely spot on. There was a four-hour hearing, the president of Fair Work made a ruling and unfortunately the parties couldn’t agree. I would call on them to follow the ruling of Ian Ross, the Fair Work commissioner, accept it, sit down, start talking. We’re not going to resolve this, as we’ve seen this morning, we’re going to resolve it by sitting down and having a conversation. But fundamentally we do not want to see a repeat of the sort of behaviour we’ve seen in the past few days. It’s unacceptable, people have to follow court orders, they have to respect the rule of law and they’ve got to respect the directions of the police.
Mitchell: Scott Ryan what would the Opposition do to sort this out?
Senator Ryan: Well Stephen is a touch disingenuous. They do vote for you Stephen, they give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the ALP. This has got to start with people obeying the law. Negotiations only happen when people obey the law. Neil, if you, me and Stephen went out the front of the Alfred Hospital today and behaved the same as the CFMEU officials we would be arrested, it would be illegal. Just because you’re doing it under a union badge does not mean somehow it is acceptable. What we would do is bring back the building industry commissioner that prosecuted the CFMEU and as we saw in today’s press, led to millions of dollars of fines. There was peace on Victorian building sites for many years. Labor got rid of that. Now we’ve got a commissioner who can’t prosecute in the same way.
Senator Conroy: No, the commissioner has extensive powers and extensive capacity. That is just a fundamental misrepresentation of the legislation.
Senator Ryan: No it’s not Stephen.
Senator Conroy: We need people to comply with the law, but equally we’ve had a judgement from the independent umpire who said, let’s sit down for two weeks and call it off. Unfortunately they have decided not to take that path that is their choice.
Senator Ryan: It wasn’t a ruling Stephen, it was a request and you have changed the law because these days the minute there is an agreement between Grocon and the CFMEU, the commissioner can’t prosecute an offence. It’s as if I ran a red light and crashed into you and Neil was the police officer and if you and I came to an agreement, then Neil would not be allowed to prosecute.
Senator Conroy: That is simply a misrepresentation. The commissioner has powers and can enforce things so you are just fundamentally hankering after old legislation that has been changed. There is a cop on the beat and what we are seeing here is people won’t accept a request from the independent umpire. Sit down, call this off for two weeks and let’s try and work it out.
Senator Ryan: We’ve got one party breaking the law. The Supreme Court has issued an order and if any of us here ignored it, we would be arrested quite rightly. The union that donates to the ALP, which does donate to you, is breaking the law and this has to start with people obeying court orders.
Senator Conroy: Absolutely. We are in absolute agreement.
Mitchell: Then why can’t you do anything about it?
Senator Conroy: Well the police haven’t arrested anyone at this stage, from what I’ve noticed, so the claims that people are breaking the law aren’t being supported by any police action. But people must comply with the court orders, people must comply with police directions in these circumstances, so we absolutely agree. But we would also say there has been a ruling by the president of Fair Work. He has called for a cooling-off period of two weeks. Now Mr Grollo chose not to respond to that.
Senator Ryan: It is not a ruling it is a request. All the Daniel Grollo’s asking for …
Senator Conroy: It is a ruling to comply.
Senator Ryan: … After they’ve spent 10 days shutting down a worksite and prohibiting a lot of people from getting to work. Let’s not forget, there are people trying to work here Stephen, which the union is stopping.
Senator Conroy: Well the people, the majority of the workforce, didn’t get on the bus this morning.
Senator Ryan: And if you’d seen the scenes earlier this week you’d sort of see why.
Senator Conroy: As I said to you, that is disgraceful behaviour and we’ve got to ensure people comply with court orders.
Mitchell: Could that have been intimidation? Is that why they didn’t get on the bus?
Senator Conroy: Look I wasn’t there.
Mitchell: It would be a fair guess.
Senator Conroy: We shouldn’t try to impute motives as to why people did that. People don’t want to be dragged in and used as a battering ram.
Mitchell: Would you deny there’s been intimidatory tactics used here?
Senator Conroy: The behaviour earlier in the week was not acceptable. People have to accept court orders and the rule of law.
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Mitchell: Minister Stephen Conroy with us and Opposition Parliamentary Secretary Senator Scott Ryan. We’ll take a call on the CFMEU, John go ahead.
Caller John: Good morning Neil and gentlemen. Simple question, why did Grocon go first to the Supreme Court and not to Fair Work Australia?
Mitchell: An answer Scott Ryan?
Senator Ryan: I don’t know the specifics of the case. Grocon went to the courts to get the picket line broken while they were undertaking negotiations. That’s what I’ve read in the papers.
Mitchell: The building industry policeman, for want of a better word, in Victoria said there is organised crime, bikie gangs and thuggery in the building industry. I talked to him about it, he saw it is quite extensive and it has been around for years. What can the federal Government do about that?
Senator Conroy: Well the building industry has a separate cop on the beat, we’ve put that in place. They have powers and they have capacity to get information and get to the bottom of these sorts of things. What we’ve got to ensure is that people follow the rule of law. So if you get a Supreme Court that says do this, you should comply with that. No ifs and no buts.
Mitchell: But organised crime in the building industry? It has been there for years.
Senator Conroy: As you’ve seen spectacularly on TV series, we know there are a whole range of criminal elements in a whole range of areas, it’s not just something problematic for the building industry. We’ve had investigations in the past into the painters and dockers, so this is not something that is suddenly new. But what we’ve got to do is make sure the police have the powers to deal with this and investigate this where there is credible evidence to follow through.
Mitchell: The abortion pill, RU486, it is reported today, will be widely available from the end of the year. It has been available since 2006 but under tight control, it will be more widely available now. Senator Ryan, do you agree with that?
Senator Ryan: Before I came to the Parliament, the Parliament voted to have the Therapeutic Goods Administration decide whether it was available. I don’t think politicians are best placed to make decisions on medical devices, on medical procedures. Therapeutic Goods Administration can’t be directed by any minister and I think that is the best way to make these decisions.
Mitchell: Do you support abortion?
Senator Ryan: I think a woman does have a right to choose but I also say I think the laws passed in Victoria a few years ago went a touch too far.
Mitchell: Senator Conroy?
Senator Conroy: I support a woman’s right to choose.
Mitchell: And the abortion pill?
Senator Conroy: The Parliament had a big debate about what the process should be for it to be introduced and ultimately Parliament decided they’d take it out of the hands of politicians and put it into the hands of the medical fraternity. I didn’t support that at the time. I believe that ultimately, on some of these questions, Parliament should have a view. People can have different views but Parliament should have a view. Ultimately a majority of the Parliament decided it should be independent of the Parliament.
Mitchell: Does the Opposition have a policy to reverse this?
Senator Ryan: No, this issue has always been a conscience issue for both sides of politics Neil. I wasn’t in Parliament, as I mentioned, but I think the Parliament’s decision then is going to stand now and that is that the decision remains with the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
Mitchell: If I can just go back to Twitter for a moment, Senator Conroy, do you have a Twitter account?
Senator Conroy: No I don’t for some of the reasons we’ve seen displayed today. I also don’t think I’m that interested. What I would say is that Twitter should cooperate with the police investigation that is now under way to help reveal who these trolls are. You shouldn’t just be able to hide behind anonymity. You should behave the same way in the physical world as you do in the online world, so Twitter should come to the party and if the police say ‘they’re all anonymous at the moment, we want to know who they are’ Twitter in the US should cooperate with the police investigation.
Mitchell: And make people accountable.
Senator Conroy: And make people accountable. But Twitter, because they’re an overseas company operating under American law, they have in the past – a range of these big internet companies – they haven’t always been prepared to chase it down hard for us. The AFP has been trying to make them and I would call on Twitter, Twitter should cooperate with this police investigation.
Mitchell: So they haven’t been serious about tracking?
Senator Conroy: Look not at all. I think there have been a lot of protests. Neil Gaughan, one of the AFP officers in this area, he has been to New York, he has convened a meeting with all these big internet companies and said take this seriously.
Mitchell: Senator Ryan do you have an account?
Senator Ryan: I do, I’ll admit my staff actually use it. Twitter is a device to let people, particularly younger people, know what you’re doing. It is an important communications tool. They’re kind enough, my staff, to not tell me how many followers I have – it is probably not that many – but also to not pass on the abuse, because we do get a bit.
Mitchell: Just finally, tragically five Australians are dead – as announced yesterday – in Afghanistan. Three from gunshots and two in a helicopter crash. Does the bipartisan approach continue here? Is there no question that both sides support our continued involvement in Afghanistan? Senator Conroy?
Senator Conroy: Absolutely, I think that the Opposition would say the same. We’ve got a mission; we’ve said we’re going to complete the mission. We think that it will be largely completed in 18 months time and we can’t afford to let the sort of behaviour that allows the Taliban insurgents to have a victory by being seen to leave early. We’ve got to finish the mission and continue with the pull-out we’re engaged with at the moment.
Mitchell: Senator Ryan?
Senator Ryan: Absolutely. Yesterday was a tragedy and there are still also two wounded soldiers who are in our thoughts and prayers. The Coalition agrees with the Government here. Our defence forces are doing an extraordinary job. I have never served, the people who lead our defence forces have and when they say our troops are making a meaningful impact on the ground, when we know that there are women and children, in particular, freer than they have been, girls at school, then we know we are making a real difference.
Mitchell: Gentlemen thank you for coming in. On a lighter note, I did reveal some very important personal information on the Opposition Leader yesterday. He always a light blue tie. Senator Conroy, you’ve got power red on, why?
Senator Conroy: It goes with a blue suit. It is a red and blue tie.
Mitchell: And you have gay marriage pink.
Senator Ryan: They’re not particular fans of mine at the moment either. I opened my drawer up after I heard you Neil and I saw the 50 shades of blue, so I decided to put on the pink tie.
Mitchell: Thank you for your time.