Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026

Senator O'SULLIVAN (Western Australia—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) (18:14): I rise to continue speaking on the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026. It is absolutely as clear as day that this bill has been introduced by the government to clean up their own mess. The coalition is focused on putting parents back in control of their children's online safety and forcing greater transparency from big tech.

Australian families absolutely deserve more choice, more control and more transparency online. And parents should be in charge of how they protect their children online, not Silicon Valley and not Canberra. But, as I said, the amendments that this bill is bringing are admission that this government has not appropriately applied the safety measures we called out at the time this bill came forward.

We supported it, but at the same time we said that the implementation is going to be absolutely critical, and the way the government was doing it and was projecting to do it was wrong. And we predicted that we would be back here at some future time to make amends. Unfortunately, though, this bill does not actually deal with the problems.

The eSafety Commissioner herself has publicly stated that the current social media minimum-age framework was developed very quickly—yes, that's right; it was—and has very thin scaffolding, which is also true, and did not give her the potent powers to effectively execute her role. A study published by the British Medical Journal found that 85 per cent of under-16s were still accessing social media and that the ban was therefore unlikely to improve adolescents' mental health in the short term.

The eSafety Commissioner has also reported that the proportion of under-16s still using social media platforms has fallen by just 4.4 percentage points—I mean, hardly a ringing endorsement of success. Now we have the government's second attempt in this bill before the Senate. As I've said, it's fundamentally flawed and cannot be supported in its current form.

We are proposing some amendments that would go a long way to resolving the issues. We can all agree—and I'm sure there is unanimity in this place—that social media, online use and children accessing social media can be very harmful. I've seen it.

I've seen it with family members, I've seen it with members of the community and I've seen the challenge it has brought and the scourge that it is within our communities. So it's important that this issue is dealt with. As I said, I'm sure we can all agree that there is a problem.

But the way the government and the way this bill is approaching it is not at all sufficient. In fact, it can be quite dangerous. The Senate Economics and Communications Legislation Committee tabled its report on its inquiry into the bill just two weeks ago.

The Law Council of Australia, the Australian Human Rights Commissioner and the Institute of Public Affairs all submitted that the bill needed to be amended to confine the eSafety Commissioner's powers under the bill to their intended purposes. We must make sure that there are very strict guardrails around the powers of the eSafety Commissioner. I've got serious worries and concerns about the encroachment and the reach that the eSafety Commissioner has, and it's I hope this parliament's good intent to deal with the problem.

It's given too much, though, to the eSafety Commissioner. The commissioner's inability to compel information from digital platforms understandably impacts the ability to enforce Australian regulations. But that does not justify giving the eSafety Commissioner sweeping powers that could extend well beyond digital platforms and relevant third parties to parents and children themselves.

And now, at the 11th hour, the government has introduced even more extraordinary compulsory powers, backed by very large fines and the threat of up to 12 months of imprisonment. These are serious coercive powers being brought before the Senate, unfortunately without proper scrutiny—not good. Protecting children online matters enormously, but that does not give the government a blank cheque to expand the coercive power of the state.

The committee also heard evidence regarding the lack of transparency around algorithms and social media platforms, which one parent, Ms Mason, called 'the social heroin that is killing our children'. The safety of our children online is a crisis unfolding in real time in bedrooms, on school nights, on devices where parents are completely unaware. The coalition has reiterated that the online safety of Australians, especially our children, is the single most important part of this debate.

During National Child Protection Week, whose focus this year is on shifting conversations to action, importantly, this parliament has a responsibility to make sure that our online safety laws actually deliver meaningful protection for children. Earlier this week, an article published by the Sydney Morning Herald served a grim reminder that there is still so much more to be done to keep our children safe online.

The reality is that children can now be targeted, groomed and exploited without an offender even having to approach them in person. Police revealed a pattern that should stop every one of us in this chamber. Children are being groomed, coerced and manipulated into producing exploitative materials of themselves, not by strangers in dark alleys but by offenders who have never seen them face to face.

For years, child protection agencies here and overseas have told us the same thing. Offenders no longer need to approach a child physically to inflict lasting harm. All they need is an online game, a social media platform or a streaming device.

What was once rare and shocking is now, in the words of officers investigating it, 'growing, accelerating and outpacing us.' And, once the harm is done, it does not end. Material that is coerced out of a child does not disappear; it is copied, it's traded and it's recirculated again and again long after the abuse has stopped. Law enforcement has said that they are running to keep pace with offenders who exploit new technology faster than our systems can respond.

The scale of this problem is enormous. In the 2024-25 financial year, the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation triage unit recorded a whopping 82,764 reports of child sexual exploitation—a 41 per cent increase over the previous year. Listen to that.

That is up from 58,503 the previous year. And it's been growing. It was 36,600 the year before—I beg your pardon, in 2021-22.

In the Education and Employment References Committee's inquiry into the quality and safety of Australia's early childhood education and care system, Mr McCartney, a representative from the Australian Federal Police, said: I'm going to be honest: the crime of online child sexual exploitation is not getting better; it's getting worse. He also said, 'It's simply not something police can tackle alone, making it essential for parents, carers and the wider community to take an active role in protecting our vulnerable young people.' At the same time, children continue to access social media at very young ages.

Research by the eSafety Commissioner found that 80 per cent of children aged eight to 12 used social media in 2024, despite platforms already having policies prohibiting child users under the age of 13. That's an important lesson for this parliament. Passing an age restriction is one thing, but making platforms actually comply is another.

We also know that an age restriction alone will not address every risk that children face online. Children are increasingly exposed to pornography, harmful content and exploitative behaviour at young ages. Research has linked exposure to pornography with harmful sexual behaviours among some children and young people, while eSafety's own work has highlighted concerns among young men about desensitisation, consent and the objectification of women is a major problem.

These are difficult issues, but they reinforce the need for parents, platforms and governments to take online safety seriously. But the principal responsibility of keeping children safe is actually in the home, with families, with parents. We've got to have a system that provides more control for parents.

That's why I want to, in the remaining time that I have in this contribution to this legislation, deal with one of the amendments that Senator Henderson is proposing here for the Senate. It's very good, and I thank Senator Henderson for bringing it before us. That is providing parents with the same capability that enterprises or that businesses have and that Parliament House has over us, as members of parliament and staff in this place.

They have control over the management of our devices. Your employer has control. Why are we not allowing parents to have control?

Unfortunately, the vendors—Apple, Google and others—do not provide parents with the same level of access over the management of the devices that they are providing to their children. It's therefore very, very simple and easy for kids, who are smarter than us when it comes to use of technology—we Boomers, as they say, even though I'm gen X— Senator McDonald: Speak for yourself, Senator!

Senator O'SULLIVAN: I'll speak for myself. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I'm sure you are, Senator. Senator O'SULLIVAN: That's right.

It's ludicrous that parents do not have the same control that an employer has over employer issued device. If you, as a parent, are issuing a device for your child, you should be able to have management control over that device. So the amendment that Senator Henderson is proposing is to make it mandatory for the vendors of these devices that are provided to children, if parents choose to have management over that device, to restrict what apps can be used and to restrict what content can be viewed on that device.

Then we go a long way to actually dealing with it. Kids right now are just putting VPNs on their phone, getting around the social media ban and registering in other countries. Pornography is accessed by registering in the United States or anywhere else in the world where they don't have a geoblocking restriction on access to this sort of content.

It's easy for them to do it. They're getting access to it. They're shown on the bus how to access it and in classrooms how to access it.

It's happening, so what we need to do is empower parents. We believe, as a coalition, that parents know best how to care for their children. Let's give them the tools to be able to do it.

I ask this parliament, this chamber, to support this very good amendment that Senator Henderson has brought before us. (Time expired)