THE federal Coalition has proposed the Crimes and Online Safety Legislation Amendment Bill in an attempt to crack down on youth crime.
If implemented, the amendment would make it illegal to post social media material which “glamorises violence” or criminal activity.
It would also provide the eSafety commissioner with specific powers to require such videos and material to be taken down.
Member for Barker Tony Pasin said it was time to “get serious” on young criminals who sought to highlight their criminal activity on social media.
“The escalating rates of youth crime across the country demand urgent attention and decisive action from this government,” Mr Pasin said.
Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton said the federal government had a “role to play” and that it was “incumbent on the government” to “show some leadership” and play its part in “cracking down on this behaviour”.
“We are putting forward a proposal to deal with this scourge and we need to do all we can to keep our community safe and deter young criminals from doing the wrong thing,” Mr Dutton said.
“This is the perfect opportunity for the government to get on board and support us on this important, common sense policy, which will keep our community safe.”
The amendment would introduce a new commonwealth offence to deal with the “increasing use of social media” to promote or publicise criminal activity.
It would also make it an offence to post material depicting violence, drug offences or property offences for the “purpose of increasing a person’s notoriety” which would be punishable by up to two years imprisonment.
Sentencing measures could also be added to the Crimes Act to ensure courts are able to prohibit persons who have been convicted of the new offence from using social media for up to two years.
