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

Senator ROBERTS (Queensland) (19:12): Officially, the Online Safety Management (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026 amends the Online Safety Act 2021 to strengthen the operation of the social media minimum age framework, the SMMA. The bill expands the eSafety commissar's information-gathering powers and increases civil penalties for noncompliance to around $100 million—$100 million—depending upon state.

In reality, the social media minimum age framework legislation has failed, and now the government is doubling down. One Nation does not support the social media minimum age ban, for two reasons. Firstly, what children do online is the responsibility of parents, not the nanny state.

Secondly, the technology will never be smarter than a resourceful and tech-savvy child. In November 2024, I moved an urgency motion arguing that a blanket ban expropriates parental power. Parents in the home can supervise a child's device better than a tech company or a Canberra bureaucrat.

No country has made age limits work, and the ban would make parents who let children watch educational YouTube content law-breakers. I call for better parental locks from platforms and device makers instead of a nanny state rule. Parental locks from platforms and device makers have been proven to work.

I quoted the Australian Human Rights Commission warning that a ban would isolate young people. I predicted that the ban would fail because of VPNs, impersonation and other tricks while pushing children onto less supervised spaces, such as game chat rooms, peer-to-peer apps and Tor. This is exactly what's happened.

The ban has failed, and the answer from the eSafety commissar is bigger fines, more power over you and more removal of human rights. A government amendment circulated overnight is draconian and terrifying. The amendment will provide powers for the eSafety commissar to demand that a person travel at the person's cost to appear before her in person and includes penalties of up to a year in prison for refusing to do so.

Which platform do you think will be the first that the eSafety commissar demands to appear? No doubt X, to continue her obsession with Elon Musk. If the commissar thinks she will be demanding that witnesses appear from overseas, I would point out that Julie Inman Grant, the commissar, refused to appear before a US congressional inquiry into her actions last year.

One can't demand a higher degree of accountability than the commissioner was prepared to demonstrate herself. The amendment abolishes a basic human right against self-incrimination. While it does say the evidence can't be used in a court of law against a person, there is a known backdoor entry to this.

The amendment does not protect young people, which is ironic, given it sits in a bill supposedly designed to protect young people. The subject of an examination order can be a person of any age. There is no age restriction on that power.

There are no protections requiring a minor to be legally represented or have a parent present—none. There is a right to have a lawyer and not the requirement for one. We know how that works in practice.

In short, turn up and get done over or go to jail. That's life in the 'Soviet Republic of Australia' under this Albanese Labor government. One Nation will oppose the amendment.

We will oppose the bill and, when in government, we will abolish the position of the eSafety Commissioner. The role was intended all along to be a political appointment, and the incumbent is proving the truth in that statement. One Nation will not, though, throw the baby out with the bathwater.

We will maintain the functions of the office of eSafety and move the staff back into the department of media and communications. The staff are doing very good work taking down abuse material, revenge porn and deepfakes and must be allowed to continue that work. Other provisions of the bill include a doubling of fines on social media companies for failure to demonstrate reasonable steps to comply with the ban.

The problem with the legislation is and continues to be the definition of 'reasonable steps', which is—hang on, there is no definition. The commissar sets the rules in a legislative instrument titled 'Social media minimum age: regulatory guidance'. Then the commissar enforces them as the commissar sees fit.

Reasonable steps is anything the commissar decides it should be. Defy the commissar, and you will cop a fine that's been increased from $48 million to almost $100 million in this bill. What next?

How about $200 million fines? No, $500 million fines. Do I hear a billion?

That's not how legislation is supposed to be drafted, and this is not how government power is supposed to be used. This is power over the people. They should be serving the people.

The real problem around compliance from social media companies, though, is the inconvenient truth that the eSafety commissar has lost all except one court case her office has started. Perhaps strengthening the legal basis for these fines in the first place would have been more important than simply allowing the commissar to threaten a larger fine. I say 'threatened' because no social media company has been fined under legislation relating to age verification—not one.

So why increase the fines—the ones that haven't been used yet? The government continues to pursue a strategy it can never win. Harsher penalties are a typical bureaucratic response to being defied when in fact the defiance is because the ban is not technically feasible.

Moving on, the bill enables the commissar to compel the production of information or documents from any person. All that's needed is for the commissar—or the commissioner—to believe on reasonable grounds that the person has information or documents relevant to compliance from a provider of an electronic service that is or may be—notice the opening of the envelope!—an age restricted social media platform.

If this looks like unchecked power, it is—unchecked power over not just children and social media platforms but over every Australian, adults included. For example, information from third parties, such as age assurance providers or app store operators, may assist in validating or testing claims platforms made about their compliance with the minimum age obligation.

Once again, these powers are not limited by age. An individual who discovers a workaround may be compelled to provide information around how they did that, no matter the age. The committee report recommended the bill pass as written.

There were concerns from submitters whether the measures imposed, increased discovery and higher penalties, were necessary and proportionate to enforce the social media minimum age framework, the SMMA ban. the office of the information commissar made a great point that the information-gathering powers in the bill should be extended to their office. This would allow them to determine if the information that age-verification companies are collecting was being dealt with according to Australian privacy legislation.

The Law Council of Australia criticised the new information-gathering powers under section 63G as being too powerful for the stated outcome, as did Free Speech Union, and X sounded like they were lining up to challenge them in court. Multiple submitters complained about the very high fines, up to slightly over $100 million, depending upon the state. The Australian Human Rights Commission recommended a review after 12 months into the effect of the social media minimum age framework, SMMA ban on children, which is faster than the statutory two-year review.

I would recommend that submission to the government. How much government is too much government? This is too much government and too much control over the people.