KIDS WILL TUNE OUT TO NEW eSAFETY WEBSITE

Senator Catryna Bilyk has today condemned the Abbott Government’s decision to abandon the Australian Communication and Media Authority’s (ACMA) Cybersmart website and redirect it to their new Office of the Children’s eSafety Commissioner website.

“The Cybersmart website acted as a ‘one-stop-shop’ for cybersafety resources and was designed to appeal to children and young people.

“The eSafety Commissioner’s website is bland and official-looking and it fails to effectively engage a younger audience,” Senator Bilyk said.

The issue of the new website was discussed at the recent Slide2Learn Conference in Hobart, where educators agreed that it was not appealing to children and failed to draw them in to search for help or information.

Senator Bilyk, who served for two years as the Chair of the now-disbanded Joint Select Committee on Cybersafety, said the lack of a child-friendly resource on cybersafety will result in less children engaged in learning about safe behaviour online and ultimately worse online safety outcomes for children.

Labor in government provided $125 million in funding for cybersafety initiatives 5 years, increasing funding for cybersafety education, awareness-raising activities and law enforcement.

“By failing to provide web-based cybersafety resources that are attractive and appealing to children, the Abbott Government is limiting their options to engage in learning about how to be safe online,” Senator Bilyk said.

“There will no doubt be more pressure on parents, schools and teachers without a child-friendly resource to help them teach and reinforce positive online safety messages.

“I call on the Parliamentary Secretary for Communications, Paul Fletcher, to restore the Cybersmart website and provide an online safety resource for children that is actually child-friendly.”
SENATOR CATRYNA BILYK DEPUTY OPPOSITION WHIP IN THE SENATE SENATOR FOR TASMANIA