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

Senator GREEN (Queensland—Assistant Minister for Tourism, Assistant Minister for Pacific Island Affairs and Assistant Minister for Northern Australia) (19:20): First of all, we are traversing between two pieces of legislation, so I'm going to address the amendment to this bill that is in front of us. Out of respect for senators, I want to give some indication of the government's approach to digital duty of care.

But I cannot, for the remaining 10 minutes, do a rule-in, rule-out game around a piece of legislation that has not been introduced to the parliament. What I will say is that the government doesn't support this amendment to this bill, because it does not meet the core objectives of the social media minimum-age law, which is to delay children's access to a social media account and, in turn, prevent children from being sucked down toxic rabbit holes, as being suggested, of harmful content.

The social media minimum age bill and the amendments we seek to make are not about the algorithm being more transparent. This is about protecting vulnerable children from it altogether. Making the algorithm more transparent, though, and giving adults more choice over how algorithms work is an issue where the government is willing to work with the coalition, with the Greens, across the chamber on our digital duty of care bill.

Digital duty of care will include an Australian first, the My Feed, My Way initiative, which gives Australians control over their social media algorithms. This will ensure that children are protected from harmful content and features, including chatbots, gaming platforms, apps and messaging platforms. And users can choose to opt in to have their default feed include personalised content recommended by the algorithm.

What we will seek to do, as we consult on this bill in the consultation process on the draft legislation, is help to ensure that the law is developed and that Australians can benefit from better protections from seriously harmful illegal content across digital services and social media. Users will be afforded more choice. So we will seek, through the consultation process, to understand those issues around transparency.

We will work with other senators. We will work with stakeholders. We will work with researchers.

I understand that there's a researcher named Rys Farthing who has developed quite a lot of research around this issue of transparency. But what I'd say to you, through you, Chair, is that the bill before us is not the right place for this amendment. The bill in front of us is about increasing the powers to an obligation on big tech companies to ensure that under-16s cannot access their services at all.

There is no access to the algorithm at all under the social media ban. What we will seek to do under digital duty of care, particularly through the My Feed, My Way initiative, is work with stakeholders, with people around the chamber, on what that transparency and accountability should look like, but ultimately ensuring that social media platforms will be required to send a notification to new and existing users, offering them a choice over their default feed.

That is a very important step forward. But of course, as I said at the beginning of my contribution, it's not appropriate for me to rule in or out what particular provisions will be in a piece of legislation that has not yet been introduced and that we are still consulting on. But I want to give an indication to senators who have a very deep interest in this area that we will obviously consider any amendments or any proposals put forward through that process.

It is very important that we pass this bill. This bill relates to stronger powers for the eSafety Commissioner to implement the social media age restrictions, ensuring that children don't have access to social media accounts and are prevented from being impacted in any way by algorithms. We've recognised the harm that they cause.

We've recognised that children need more time to form digital literacy, and that's why we've brought this bill forward. But, of course, the digital duty of care bill looks at the broader scope of that content for children and for adults and at how we can hold those big tech companies to account to ensure that their platforms are safe for Australians to use. That is how we'll approach this.

That's why we're not supporting this amendment. In saying that, I appreciate that senators will have times when they want things done expediently and times where they want full scrutiny. I don't think it's fair to say that this particular type of amendment would have been fully scrutinised.

At this point, we would want to consider a number of issues, particularly in relation to significant challenges around international intellectual property law. These are all the things that we will take into account, but we will make sure that our new laws deliver for Australians, that we consult on them over the next few weeks and that we have an opportunity for this parliament to debate those laws.

This legislation before us, though, is all about making sure that the laws passed by this parliament require social media companies to do the right thing and to take the right steps, and there will be arguments across this chamber criticising the government's approach. Those are political points that are allowed to be made, but, at the end of the day, these big platforms and big tech companies, I believe, do have the ability to prevent under-16s from using their platforms, and what we need to do is give the eSafety Commissioner the powers to enforce those laws.

This amendment in front of us is not about giving the eSafety Commissioner more transparency or more accountability; the bill before us does that. It provides those information-gathering powers. It provides examination powers.

It provides powers that are very similar to the original bill that was championed and introduced by the coalition. We want to make sure that the eSafety Commissioner has all of the tools that she needs to bring big tech companies to account, and that is what the bill before us does.