QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms WELLS (Lilley—Minister for Sport and Minister for Communications) (14:46): I thank the member for her question and for her ongoing interest in and commitment to advocating in this really important space. Australian parents are understandably worried about the rise of AI and what it means for their kids and, in particular, for their teenagers. Chatbots and nudify apps are things that we just never had to deal with when we were growing up.

Right now, all digital platforms—and that includes AI chatbots—must protect young Australians from online harm, and, if they don't, they face a fine of up to $49.5 million from the eSafety Commissioner. On top of that, we are restricting AI nudify apps and nudify tools, because there is absolutely no place for these abhorrent tools in Australia. I hope we can all agree with that.

We have already seen one chatbot provider leave the country since we did this because of the high bar that we have set. The digital duty of care builds on our world-leading online safety work to minimise online harms and to hold big tech accountable. Last year, we delayed access to social media, as you mentioned, until the age of 16, with five million accounts deactivated so far.

We've quadrupled the eSafety Commissioner's funding to ensure that they can enforce the law and to help Australians who face serious abuse online. The social media minimum age law deals with really specific harms that come from social media—in particular the big four. That's algorithms, disappearing messages, popularity metrics and endless feeds.

Chatbots aren't social media. They're really antisocial media in that there's nothing social about them. So we're creating the minimum age for social media, and then the next step is to legislate the digital duty of care.

Under the digital duty of care, AI chatbots will have to adopt safety-by-design principles in how they develop their tools from the start, and they will have to continue to have systems in place to protect young Australians from harm. So the short answer to your question is yes. If big tech companies want to do business in Australia, they will have to abide by our world-leading online safety laws.