Australian Labor cabinet minister Murray Watt has said a planned live-streamed execution in the US would be extremely distressing for the public, but he would not commit to legislative changes to prevent Australians from watching it. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing The Guardian.
The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, has said she does not have powers to "proactively prevent" the stream on 3 December.
Watt told ABC News Breakfast the government is trying to take "as much action as we can" to deal with rapidly evolving technology.
"I just find the idea of a public streaming of a firing squad execution absolutely disgusting. When I first heard that was being proposed, I couldn't believe that it was real. I think all Australians would agree that this is a very distressing thing to have publicised...
We've seen now that the eSafety Commissioner has said they don't have those powers. I wouldn't want to commit to any legislative change at this point in time, but what I do think it shows is this rapidly evolving situation that we've got with technology, which is why our government is trying to take as much action as we can, as quickly as we can."
It is worth noting that the Australian government plans a $630 million funding boost for charities. Meanwhile, the Greens are at odds about Ukraine weapons.