109/07
Monday 13 August 2007

Plenty of time for Kevin07 but no time for families

Following the launch of the Howard Government’s $189 million NetAlert Protecting Australian Families Online programme, the response from Labor has again highlighted their disregard for the dangers facing children using the internet, the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Senator the Hon Helen Coonan said today.

“Whilst the Government’s comprehensive programme will provide families with the necessary tools to protect their children in the increasingly complex internet environment, Labor’s online child protection policy contains only one measure and not a single dollar of funding.

“And even then, Labor’s one policy idea is a complete cut and paste of British Telecom’s proprietary internet filter product, ‘CleanFeed’.

“But I am not surprised that Kevin Rudd has done little more than dust off Kim Beazley’s old internet safety policy and re-launch it last week.

“Kevin Rudd’s interest in the internet begins and ends with his own self promotion.

“As far as families are concerned, Mr Rudd would do better spending less time working on his Kevin07 internet site and more time working on their internet concerns.

“Labor is patently not interested in helping parents make the internet safer for their families and in fact, I question Mr Rudd’s family credentials across the board.

“Since elected to the seat of Griffith almost nine years ago, Kevin Rudd has only spoken on two bills related to the family portfolio in his whole parliamentary career and one of those was the NT legislation last week.

“Before this speech, Mr Rudd’s only other contribution to a family bill was over eight years ago, and even then, he couldn’t bring himself to mention families once in the speech.

“Australian families have every right to be asking themselves where Kevin Rudd has been over the past eight and a half years if he has not been debating issues that matter most to them.

“For a man trying to market himself as Australia’s next Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd stands to be condemned by his appalling record,” Senator Coonan said.

By contrast, the Howard Government has an outstanding record on internet safety and many other policy areas affecting Australian families.

The Government’s NetAlert programme will provide:

• Over $43 million extra for the Australian Federal Police’s (AFP) Online Children Sex Exploitation Team (OCSET) to double the numbers of officers who monitor chatrooms and web sites, and engage in other activity to track down online child predators;
• The $84.8 million National Filter Scheme to provide access to the best available internet filtering technology free to every Australian family;
• Free filtering for every public library across Australia;
• More funding for the Commonwealth Director of Prosecutions;
• Over $11 million to expand the NetAlert Outreach programme enabling internet safety officers to visit schools and give parents hands-on information about internet dangers;
• Over $22 million to fund a comprehensive public information and education campaign about internet safety;
• The establishment of a special Working Group between the AFP and industry to tackle the issue of social networking sites – where predators often seek to target young people, and
• Investigation of how the Australian Child Offenders Register (of convicted child sex offenders) might be used to keep paedophiles away from children online.

“This Government has always taken the issue of protecting our families seriously. In fact, Australia has led the world in managing the risks associated with the internet starting with the Online Content Scheme in 1999, a model opposed by Labor,” Senator Coonan said.

“Parenting is a tough job in today’s modern world and parents want real assistance to help them keep their children safe, not mock concern from a Prime Ministerial aspirant who has only jumped on the family bandwagon as we head towards the election.

“Only the Howard Government is serious about protecting children and that’s why we have a world’s best, fully funded and whole-of-government response to internet safety,” Senator Coonan said.

ENDS

Media Contact: Katherine Meier 0417 441 141