ADJOURNMENT

Senator BLYTH (South Australia) (20:05): Every generation faces a moment when a government asks for more power than it should ever be trusted with, and this is one of those moments. Let me say very plainly what this side of the chamber believes. We, like all Australians, want children to be protected online.

We want the world's biggest technology companies to be held to account. But protecting children must, in my view, never become the excuse for handing politicians sweeping control over lawful speech, over the news Australians read, over political debate and over what Australians are permitted to see. That is not child protection.

That is a blank cheque for open-ended political censorship, and no government of any colour should ever be handed it. Labor's exposure draft goes too far. It contains inadequate safeguards for free speech and for journalism, and it leaves far too much power in the hands of one minister.

The power itself, under this draft, is that the Minister for Communications may, by her own legislative instrument, determine new categories of material that are 'seriously harmful'. She may determine what is harmful to children. She may determine which design features of an online service, a recommender feature, a logged-in feature or an endless feed are deemed to have 'negative behavioural impacts'.

Minister Wells has admitted she will have the ultimate say. The reach of the digital duty of care bill is not confined to social media. It extends across the internet to any online service that might carry news, commentary or political debate.

Nowhere in this draft do we find the clear protections for journalism and democratic debate that exist in comparable laws overseas. Labor has simply left them out. Language is important.

The bill mentions material that 'encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality' or harmful practices. These are not legal tests. These are sentiments, and sentiment is how free countries lose their freedoms.

Faced with vague definitions and the threat of steep financial penalties, no rational company will wait to be told what is unlawful. It will delete first. It will censor first and it will never ask questions.

An overly cautious approach will be taken, and government will shape what Australians see without ever signing a single censorship order and without ever having to answer for it in this chamber. We are told Australians will simply be able to turn off the algorithm. But turn to the bill itself, and that guarantee is not there.

It is left to future legislative instruments at the minister's discretion, to be written later, out of this parliament's sight. A promise does not make it a law. We all know what Labor's promises are worth—nothing.

Nobody in government has weighed the costs to small and family businesses of this country, the ones who rely on digital platforms simply to find their customers at a time when they can least afford another blow from an overreaching, overregulating government. I judge this government by its record. Labor's own under-16s social media ban has fallen well short of its promise.

Three months after commencement, the proportion of under-16s still using social media has fallen just 4.4 percentage points. Some say that five million accounts closed but seven million opened. I did not enter this chamber to hand governments more power over what free people may lawfully say, read or see.

I entered it to defend these hard-fought freedoms. Minister Wells has admitted, when pressed, that the test of what counts as serious harm will be made by her. Labor and the Greens hold the numbers in this place, so let's not pretend that a disallowance motion is a safeguard worth the paper it is written on.

We will always engage in good faith on measures that genuinely seek to protect children, but this bill does not do that. I will not trade liberty for the illusion of safety, and I will not support this bill in its current form. Australians did not send any of us here to make that trade on their behalf, and I for one will not make it on this bill.