Spender, Daniel call on Coalition to wave doxxing laws through Senate
The Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 passed the House of Representatives three weeks ago
Member for Wentworth Allegra Spender and Member for Goldstein Zoe Daniel have called on Liberal and National Party senators to pass urgent legislation to crack down on doxxing.
The Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 passed the House of Representatives three weeks ago but is now stalled in the Senate.
With this being the last sitting week of federal parliament for 2024, the legislation will have to wait until 2025 if not passed this week.
Spender and Daniel said while they understood the Coalition has concerns about the impact of the privacy measures in the Bill on small business, if it does not pass then important provisions to capture doxxing will not be implemented.
“One of the most frightening acts of antisemitism since October 7 was the doxxing of a confidential WhatsApp group of creative Australians, many of whom happened to be Jewish,” Spender said.
“Peter Dutton and his team seem to be all talk when it comes to the fight against antisemitism. There are bills before the parliament that could make a practical difference. The Opposition need to vote for them.
“My electorate contains the highest proportion of Jewish Australians in the country. They urgently need the protection this legislation offers, and it’s time the Liberal Nationals got out of the way and voted it through.”
Daniel noted that many of the Jewish creatives who were doxxed earlier this year live in her electorate.
“They endured the truly frightening experience of having their personal information weaponised publicly,” she said.
“Having worked with the Attorney-General to bring measures forward to prevent this from happening again and to hold perpetrators to account, I am disappointed and surprised that the Coalition is choosing to block a measure that in part is targeted at protecting Jewish Australians.”
The AJN understands that while the Coalition support cracking down on doxxing such as what occurred to the Jewish creatives in February, the Bill has combined cracking down on the practice with other provisions with which it has concerns.
After the government made a commitment in February to work on the legislation, ECAJ president Daniel Aghion expressed the roof body’s gratitude.
“We look forward to working with the government to ensure the full extent of the harm caused is understood, and that the new laws effectively protect Australians from this shameful and dangerous practice,” he said at the time.
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