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

Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia—Manager of Australian Greens Business in the Senate) (10:08): I wanted to come back to the issue that is currently before us, and that is the need to ensure that when implementing any rules and regulations around how big tech engages users and treats members of the public, their users, their customers—it's very hard to implement any of these rules if these companies can keep their tricks and their tactics locked down in secret.

That's why we need proper transparency when it comes to exactly what is going on, what is happening under the hood of these toxic algorithms and the techniques that these industries use to keep people addicted. We've heard testimony after testimony after testimony from whistleblowers who work within some of the biggest social media companies in the world about how deliberate their tactics are to undermine the very safety of their users.

We also know whistleblowers have been very clear about the tactics that are used to undermine the very information that government agencies and authorities around the world can access. No only do these companies design products that are deliberately addictive and that they know harm people but they then find ways of keeping that exact harm and addiction and the deliberate nature of that as secret as possible.

They manipulate their own libraries. They manipulate their own public release of data. In the social media big tech bro world, they write their own rules and they'll follow them if and when they choose to do so.

If we're going to introduce a whole new raft of regulations, we need to make sure that government agencies and independent experts and researchers actually have access to this information. I'm concerned that, unless we have proper commitments from the government to do this, big tech will just get to continue railroading not just civil society and not just the general public but also the very authorities and agencies that are meant to hold them to account.

I'd like to ask the minister what commitments the government can give to ensure that independent researchers are going to be able to also get under the hood and have a good look at what's going on. I'd like to seek leave to table a letter I received this morning from Minister Anika Wells that goes to some of these issues and a commitment to implementing proper transparency rules.

Leave granted. Senator HANSON-YOUNG: I'll table that letter now so that everybody can see that the government has given a commitment to working with this place to implement proper transparency rules to ensure these big tech companies can't keep their dirty, nasty, dangerous tactics secret. In saying that, I want to say we will hold your feet to the fire on this.

We are absolutely determined. The Greens' perspective is that the general public deserve to know what these companies are up to and the best way they can do that is by ensuring that independent researchers and experts have access to information and can interrogate it. I say that because it can't just be government agencies or authorities; you actually need the experts in the room.

You need the experts and the researchers to be there for the public interest and to be able to predict the next step and predict what these companies are going to do to try and avoid sticking by these rules and regulations. We know that, if you give big tech an inch, they'll take a mile. So you need tough laws and you need tough penalties.

But you need transparency, because they get away with this only because, at the moment, it is so secret, kept in the dark, that no-one can really hold them to account. So you need sunlight, you need transparency, and you need the people who actually understand how these companies operate to be able to get their heads under the hood and give advice properly—not just to the government but to the community as well.