Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026
Ms BERRY (Whitlam) (18:00): I rise today to speak in support of the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026. This legislation is about one simple but vital principle: when laws are made to protect children, those laws must be strongly enforced. A law without effective enforcement is merely a statement of intent, and this bill ensures that Australia's social media minimum age laws are backed by serious consequences for companies that fail to meet their responsibilities.
Social media has transformed how we communicate, learn and connect. It has brought enormous benefits to society by allowing people to stay in touch across continents, access educational resources, build communities and express themselves creatively. These advantages should not be ignored.
However, alongside these benefits come serious risks, in particular, for young Australians. Children today are exposed to cyberbullying, inappropriate content, online predators, scams and unrealistic social comparisons at unprecedented levels. This is completely unacceptable.
These are not isolated incidents; they are systemic problems that demand systemic solutions. Keeping Australians safe online, particularly children and young people, is an important priority for the Albanese Labor government. That's why we've delayed people's access to social media until they're 16 years old.
It's to protect young Australians from the pervasive impact of social media. Social media companies are among the largest and most influential digital platforms in the world. They have the capability and resources to meet their obligations under the social media minimum age framework and to protect younger users.
We are expecting them to demonstrate their social responsibility to children and young people in our society and to use that capability to protect young people. In March 2026, the eSafety Commissioner released a public compliance update which found that while platforms have removed, deactivated or restricted access to more than five million accounts—and this is a good start—a substantial proportion of Australian children under the age of 16 continue to hold or create new accounts, or they are able to bypass existing age assurance systems.
The eSafety Commissioner is actively investigating the compliance of five platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. In considering potential enforcement action, the eSafety Commissioner has advised the government that stronger investigative powers are required to build stronger evidence against potentially non-compliant platforms. This bill responds to these challenges by strengthening the enforcement framework underpinning the social media minimum age requirements.
The Albanese Labor government is on the side of parents and children, not platforms. The eSafety Commissioner's public compliance update shows that social media giants seem to be trying to get away with doing the bare minimum. If these social media companies want to do business in Australia, they must obey Australian laws and they must uphold their social responsibility.
This bill increases the maximum civil penalty for noncompliance with minimum age obligations from 30,000 to 60,000 penalty units. This brings the maximum penalty up to $99 million. These changes are intended to strengthen deterrence and reinforce the expectation that platforms take their minimum-age obligations seriously and do more to comply.
Our government will strengthen the eSafety Commissioner's information-gathering powers so they can get the information they need from platforms to assess compliance when they need it. In particular, the amendments enable the commissioner to issue notices requiring the provision of information and documents from any person where the commissioner reasonably believes they hold material relevant to compliance with the minimum-age framework.
(Quorum formed) The next step in the Albanese Labor government's mission to protect Australians from online harm to is to legislate a digital duty of care. A digital duty of care will put the responsibility on digital service providers to adopt a safety-by-design approach and have systems in place to protect Australians—in particular, young Australians—from harm before it occurs.
Our original social media minimum-age legislation recognised these dangers by requiring social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent children under 16 from holding accounts. Importantly, the responsibility was placed where it belongs: not on parents, teachers or children but on the tech companies themselves. Today, our proposed amendments strengthen that framework by ensuring those companies cannot simply ignore their obligations.
Some of the largest tech companies in the world are impacted by these measures, and they generate billions of dollars in annual revenue. For businesses of this size, modest financial penalties can come become little more than another cost of doing business. This bill addresses that problem by significantly increasing the maximum penalties for companies that systematically fail to comply with Australia's online safety laws, and that's why we are doubling maximum penalties to $99 million while giving regulators stronger investigative powers.
That's about ensuring accountability. When multinational corporations profit from Australian users, they must also respect Australian law. No company, regardless of its size or influence, should be above the law.
Critics have argued that these reforms place too much responsibility on social media companies, but we disagree. Technology companies possess some of the most sophisticated data-collection and identity-verification technologies ever developed. These companies know what users watch, where they're located, what ads interest them and even how long they pause while scrolling.
If companies possess technology capable of delivering personalised advertising with remarkable accuracy, then surely they possess the capability to implement reasonable age-assurance measures to protect children. The question is not whether or not they can; the question is whether or not they will. This legislation ensures that they must.
This debate is ultimately about protecting children. Parents across Australia are increasingly concerned about the amount of time their children are spending online. Where parents can control this, they do, but there is so much outside of their control because of the content that children can now access online.
Unfortunately, this is now a challenging feature of modern parenthood. Many families struggle to monitor social media use around the clock. Children can access content at school, at friends' homes and on multiple devices.
Some of the content that children can now access on social media is horrifying and distressing and far from being age appropriate. Parents should not have to fight billion-dollar technology companies alone. Government has a responsibility to create an environment where families are supported rather than undermined.
The evidence surrounding online harms continues to grow. Research has linked excessive social media use among adolescents with increased rates of anxiety, depression, body image concerns, sleep disruption and exposure to harmful content. Young users are particularly vulnerable because their emotional regulation and decision-making skills are still developing.
Social media that is designed to maximise engagement does not distinguish between content that is healthy and content that is harmful. Instead, it prioritises whatever keeps users scrolling. For children, this can mean repeated exposure to unrealistic beauty standards, self-harm material, misinformation, disturbing material, cyberbullying or addictive content.
No child should become collateral damage in the pursuit of advertising revenue. Some opponents argue that young people need social media to remain socially connected. That concern deserves consideration.
Social connection is important. However, this legislation does not seek to isolate young people from the digital world altogether. The law was designed so that messaging services such as WhatsApp, online education platforms and essential health services could continue to remain available where appropriate.
This bill is not anti technology; it's pro safety. It recognises that not every online platform carries the same level of risk. Some have raised concerns regarding privacy and age verification.
Privacy is an important right. Australians rightly expect that any age assurance systems introduced under this legislation will protect personal information and minimise unnecessary data collection. That's why implementation matters.
Age verification technology should be proportionate, secure and subject to strong oversight. Protecting children and protecting privacy are not mutually exclusive objectives; both can and must be achieved together. Australia is starting to be recognised internationally as a leader in online safety regulation.
Other countries are closely watching our approach. If these reforms succeed, they may influence similar protections around the world. Leadership requires courage.
It requires governments to act in the interests of their citizens and, in this case, their younger citizens. Waiting for technology companies to regulate themselves has not delivered adequate protection for children. This bill represents a recognition that stronger government oversight is now necessary.
There are those who will say that determined young people will always find ways around restrictions, and they likely will. No law achieves perfect compliance. Seatbelt laws do not eliminate every road fatality.
Speed limits do not prevent every accident. Yet we continue to support these laws because they reduce harm. Similarly, this legislation will not eliminate every underage social media account, but if it prevents thousands of children from being exposed to harmful online experiences, then it will have made a meaningful difference.
Public policy should not be judged against perfection. It should be judged against whether it improves outcomes. My children are now aged 21, 16 and 15.
As a parent, I battled for many years to protect my children from damaging online content. It was important to me to allow my children to have a childhood. I wish that this law had been in place years ago.
As a parent, I know we need better protections for children online. As lawmakers, our responsibility is to safeguard the wellbeing of future generations. Children cannot negotiate terms of service.
They cannot fully understand complex algorithms. They cannot realistically challenge multinational corporations. The responsibility therefore lies with us.
This legislation reflects a fundamental principle that has guided public policy for generations: that, where there is a risk of significant harm to children, governments both have the authority and the obligation to intervene. We regulate tobacco. We regulate alcohol.
We regulate seatbelts. This bill follows in the same tradition. We are seeking to protect children from harm.
I need to fast-forward some of my speech because it was interrupted. To recap, more than five million under-16 social media accounts have now been removed and we really want to strengthen the approach that we've already taken. I sincerely hope that these attempts at protecting children online are effective.
We know that we are signalling to social media companies that we are serious about online harm to children, and we expect them to do everything they can to comply.