Subjects: Deepfakes; Domestic Violence Commissioner, legal assistance.
LISA MILLAR: Well, Federal Parliament has passed laws that make it a criminal offence to share non-consensual and sexually explicit deepfakes. It comes as the Domestic Family and Sexual Violence Commissioner released a national plan of action to combat the gendered violence crisis. The Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, joins us now. Good morning to you, Minister.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL MARK DREYFUS KC MP: Good morning Lisa, good to be with you.
MILLAR: Why is it so important to get this law through on the deepfakes?
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: The deepfake, sexually explicit material that’s shared without consent is deeply distressing. And overwhelmingly, it affects women and girls. We’re determined to do whatever we can to stamp out this practice and that’s why we’ve criminalised it. Sharing of deepfake sexualised material without consent will now carry criminal penalties, potentially jail up to seven years.
MILLAR: We had Micaela Cronin, the Commissioner, on the program a little bit earlier and we were going into a lot of the elements that came out of her update yesterday, including just how young people are exposed to misogyny and pornography. And there is certainly a link between what you’re trying to do. I just wanted to take up something that she’d said, and I know you’ve been asked about this already this morning in regards of tracking possible perpetrators like terrorists. I asked her again about that, and she does mean what she says. She wants them to be tracked. She says, we never used to think about material at Bunnings being material that could be turned into bombs, but now our minds are in that regard and this is what we should be doing if we’re going to have a chance of decreasing gendered violence in the community.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: I’d start by thanking Commissioner Cronin for her speech yesterday, for the work that she’s been doing for her first year in office. She’s right, this is a crisis. We’ve got to take it seriously. And that’s why, for example, the Prime Minister convened a ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet meeting back in May to look at what can be done. And we’re about to have a second ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet meeting in September as a follow up to that meeting. In the meantime, as Chair of the Police Ministers Council and as Chair of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General, I was asked by ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet to work with state and territory ministers on what other things we can do – urgent measures, action now to do something about this crisis of domestic and family violence. And I’m confident that at that next ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Cabinet meeting that’s coming in September, people will see further measures that are able to be attended to. And as to Commissioner Cronin’s point, I think everyone will have seen reporting over the last year or two of the increasing seriousness with which state and territory police take accusations of family and domestic violence. We’re seeing arrests, we’re seeing orders that are being enforced and of course that’s what needs to happen.
MILLAR: She’s raised questions about how it can be implemented. How do you it’s one thing to say, okay, I’m chairing the various committees and this is what needs to happen. But there’s such a lack of funding for these frontline services that are the ones that are trying to make the change and offer the help.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Of course, frontline services matter. Part of frontline services is something in my portfolio which is the legal assistance sector – that’s the work that’s done by Legal Aid Commissions and by Community Legal Centres around the country, many of which I’ve visited. I’m acutely aware of the assistance that’s provided by those legal centres and Legal Aid Commissions to women and children fleeing family violence. I’m working right now on the new five-year agreement that will start on the 1st of July next year, to try and make sure that we have got, as the Treasurer said earlier this year in Parliament, a new agreement with increased funding for legal assistance services because they are part of this frontline response. Another part of the frontline response is what police do, another part of the frontline response is what counselling and other assistance services do. We’ve got to look at all of it. It’s a whole of government response that’s needed and not only in my portfolio, but many of my ministerial colleagues and the Prime Minister himself are working on how we should be responding to this national crisis.
MILLAR: All right, Mark Dreyfus, thanks for your time this morning.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Thank you very much, Lisa, and good luck in the future. I understand it’s your last day on air tomorrow. Thank you for being on our screens in the morning.
MILLAR: Thank you Mark. I appreciate it.
