QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Senator WONG (South Australia—Minister for Foreign Affairs and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:06): I thank Senator Dowling for the question. For the first time, tech companies will have a legally enforceable duty to prevent harm on their services, and that's why the government's plan to implement a digital duty of care is so important. All online services, from chatbots and apps to online gaming, will need to protect children from harmful content and features.
It will also give Australians a choice—a real choice—over their feeds, with My Feed, My Way. Users will have a choice to opt in or opt out of the algorithm, a choice social media platforms will have to respect. This is not about controlling what adults see online, and it will not control what people post.
But, as all parents know, when new harms emerge online and it's your child in the firing line, you want the government to act as swiftly as possible. Remember when, in December of last year, Grok started allowing users to nudify photos of children. Australians were rightly horrified.
It's instances like that, alongside other evidence we hear. These include AI chatbots telling girls how to subsist on 600 calories a day, algorithms which serve up misogynistic content to boys in under 13 minutes or the insidious grooming that has occurred on Roblox. When we on this side hear that evidence, we know there is a choice to be made, and we are choosing to act.
We are choosing to act now and we are consulting on the digital duty of care, and we will work with this parliament to give Australian adults more choice and protect Australian children from harmful content online. Opposition senators interjecting— Senator WONG: If Senator Henderson were actually concerned about children instead of One Nation, she might not be interjecting in the way she is, because this is about— Senator Henderson: This is outrageous.
Senator WONG: What is outrageous, Senator, is the fact that you, after 13 days, changed your position because you're worried about Senator Hanson. That is outrageous. (Time expired) The PRESIDENT: Senator Dowling, first supplementary?