Children's Rights Alliance welcomes new online safety laws

The Children's Rights Alliance is welcoming new laws aimed at improving online safety.

The Communications Minister will announce plans to establish an Online Safety Commissioner, which will have a number of powers.

It will examine and certify whether the safety standards a company has in place are good enough.

The Commissioner will also act as an appeals body.

Tanya Ward, Chief Executive of the Children's Rights Alliance, says the new law will focus on digital service providers:

"We are very much in favour of it (the new legislation)," she said.

"To date the digital world, the online world has become a wild west where there has been no regulation or poor regulation of big tech companies.

"A lot of the focus has been on educating parents and educating children or young people on how to be safe in the online world.

"But we have really taken the focus off service providers."