STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator ANTIC (South Australia) (13:42): International globalist organisations, tech giants, the UN, the EU and the World Economic Forum have long advocated for centralised control over the internet to combat disinformation, hate speech and cyberthreats. On 24 September this year, Stanford University's Cyber Policy Center hosted a meeting entitled 'Compliance and enforcement in a rapidly evolving landscape' attended by leaders and officials from across the world.

The agenda was leaked to American journalist Michael Shellenberger, and it showed that the meeting's purpose was to discuss the state of compliance and enforcement and also to identify where data research and expertise can enable more effective compliance and enforcement of existing policy. So the top EU, UK, Brazilian and Australian officials meet in the US in September.

But to what end? Why did they hold this meeting? What was its purpose?

Congressman Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House judiciary committee in the United States, certainly didn't hold back when he wrote to the Standford policy centre seeking documentation relating to 'Stanford University's cooperation and coordination with foreign governments seeking to censor American speech'. Congressman Jordan wrote further: 'Foreign censorship laws, regulations, enforcement actions and judicial orders may have the effect of limiting Americans' ability to access constitutionally protected speech in the United States.

In fact, this seems to be the intended effect of many foreign censorship efforts.' Interesting. Also interesting was that the lightning keynote speaker was our own eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant. Why did the eSafety Commissioner attend this meeting?

That's a question I'd really like to know the answer to.