() (): The incorporated speech read as follows—

I would like to speak in support of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026. This bill is about a simple but powerful principle: the companies that build the digital spaces where Australians live, learn, play and connect have a responsibility to keep those spaces safe. For too long, we have asked parents, teachers, young people and community organisations to carry the burden of online harm on their own. This legislation shifts that responsibility back to where much of it belongs—with the platforms and services that design the products, set the algorithms and profit from our attention.

In Pearce, I hear about this every week. I hear from parents in Butler, Tapping, Yanchep, Clarkson, Banksia Grove and Quinns Rocks who are worried about what their children encounter online. I sit on multiple school boards within Pearce and hear from teachers and school leaders who see the effects of cyberbullying, sleepless nights and harmful content flowing into classrooms the next morning. I hear from local sporting clubs, youth groups and community organisations who do extraordinary work keeping young people connected, active and supported but who know that the online world can undermine that good work in an instant. Pearce is one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of Australia. Our community is full of young families, new schools, new suburbs and new opportunities. That growth brings energy and optimism, but it also means many parents are navigating the challenges of raising children in a digital age while trying to work, run households and keep up with technology that changes faster than any of us can reasonably expect. They should not have to become experts in algorithms, privacy settings and platform design simply to keep their children safe.

The Albanese Labor government has already taken world-leading action to protect Australians from online harm, particularly young people. We began by establishing a minimum age for social media accounts, because we recognised that children deserve a childhood that is not shaped by endless scrolling, targeted content and commercial pressure. The early results are encouraging. More than five million under-age accounts have been deactivated, removed or restricted. A YouGov survey found that 30 per cent of young Australians aged between 13 and 15 are now spending more time playing sport. Twenty-seven per cent report better sleep. Online bullying is down nine per cent, and exposure to inappropriate and violent content has fallen by 18 per cent. These are not abstract statistics. For a young person in Pearce, that can mean more time at footy training, netball, surf lifesaving, dance or cricket and less time lying awake at night with a phone in their hand. It can mean a better night's sleep, a better morning at school and a better chance to simply be a kid.

But we also know there is more to do. There are still too many children under 16 on social media. That does not mean the law has failed. It means some platforms are failing to comply with the law. The eSafety Commissioner is currently investigating alleged noncompliance by five platforms: Instagram, Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat. Australians expect the rules to apply to everyone, including the largest technology companies in the world. This bill strengthens the framework so that safety is not treated as an optional extra or a public-relations exercise.

The next step in our mission is the digital duty of care. This bill will set basic safety standards for the digital services Australians use every day, just as we set safety standards for food, cars, medicines and children's toys. When we buy a car, we expect seatbelts, airbags and brakes that work. When we buy a cot or a toy for a child, we expect it has been designed with their safety in mind. We do not accept that a manufacturer can say, 'We built the product, but what happens next is not our problem.' Yet, for too long, that has effectively been the approach of parts of the digital economy. The digital duty of care will require platforms to protect Australian children from harmful content and harmful features. It will also give parents better tools to keep their families safe online. Importantly, it is not about telling adults what they can and cannot do online. Adults should be free to access lawful content and make their own choices. What this bill does is require platforms to give people more control over the content and features they use while ensuring that services are not designed in ways that cause serious harm.

At the heart of the duty is the creation of a safe online environment. All Australians should be protected from seriously harmful and illegal content. Children and young people under 18 should receive additional protection from content and features that can harm them. For the first time, the bill sets minimum standards for the features digital companies use. Services will need to conduct annual risk assessments of the harms their features could cause to Australians. They will need to put systems in place to prevent risky features from causing harm. And, for social media services, they will need to provide user-empowerment tools that give people over the age of 16 genuine choice about what appears in their feed. These are practical, sensible obligations. They ask companies to think about harm before it occurs, rather than waiting for a tragedy, a complaint or a headline. They ask companies to design safety into their products from the beginning. That is what we expect in every other industry, and it is what families in Pearce rightly expect from the apps their children use.

The protections for children in this bill are comprehensive. Online services, including online games and Al chatbots, will need to protect under-18s from harmful content such as pornography; material or conduct that encourages, promotes or instructs disordered eating; material that encourages hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality; content that glorifies crime or encourages dangerous stunts; and abuse, harassment or bullying. The bill also captures any other material or conduct that may cause serious harm to children. Children will also be protected from design features that have negative behavioural impacts. We know that some features are deliberately engineered to keep young people engaged for as long as possible: infinite scroll, constant notifications, streaks, rewards and recommendation systems that learn exactly how to hold attention. These features may be good for engagement metrics, but they can be terrible for sleep, concentration, mental health and family life. When a child in Yanchep or Two Rocks is losing sleep because an app is designed to keep them awake, that is not an unavoidable feature of modern life. It is a design choice, and it should carry responsibility.

The bill also protects adults from seriously harmful content. It addresses child sexual exploitation and abuse material, grooming, sexual violence, non-consensual intimate images and fake nude material, extreme violence and cruelty, explicit threats of physical violence, gender based violence, menacing or harassing conduct, content encouraging suicide or self-harm, animal cruelty, terrorist content and violent extremist material. These harms are not hypothetical. They affect real people, real families and real communities. Every member in this place will know of constituents who have been targeted, threatened or traumatised online. The digital duty of care is not about controlling adults. It is about choice. When someone buys a new appliance, government sets minimum safety standards, but the consumer still chooses what to buy. In the same way, this bill sets minimum safety standards for digital services while preserving lawful choice for adults, provided that choice does not cause serious harm to others.

One of the most important reforms is My Feed, My Way. Algorithmic recommender systems and doomscrolling cause real harm to young people, which is why we have set a minimum age of 16 for social media. But, for people over 16 and for adults, social media platforms make substantial profits from using our information and shaping what we see. They should give us choice and follow basic rules, just like every other industry. Under this bill, social media platforms will have to give Australians choice over the primary feed they see when they first open an app. People should be able to opt in or opt out of the algorithm. If someone wants a feed made up of friends, family and creators they have chosen to follow, the platform must allow that by default. No-one should be forced into an algorithm filled with content from people they do not follow or subscribe to. And, if someone is happy to receive recommended content, they should be able to choose the kinds of content they do and do not want to see. This is a meaningful change. It recognises that people are not merely products to be sorted, targeted and monetised. It gives users back a degree of agency over their own attention.

The bill also takes decisive action against nudify apps. There is no place in Australia for tools designed to create non-consensual deepfake images or child sexual abuse material. These tools are abhorrent. The bill empowers the eSafety Commissioner to take down apps and websites that are predominantly designed or used to generate fake nude material. It also defines fake nude material as seriously harmful, requiring platforms to protect all Australians from it. The scale of this problem is deeply concerning. On average, one in 33 children have reported that someone has created a nude image of them using Al. On average, one in 25 Australians have reported being victimised by deepfake pornography. Behind those figures are young people who feel humiliated, frightened and powerless. In a connected community like Pearce, where young people know one another through school, sport and local networks, the damage can spread quickly and be devastating. This bill sends a clear message: technology that facilitates this abuse has no safe harbour.

The bill also strengthens complaint and accountability mechanisms. It reduces the required response time for cyberbullying and abuse complaints from 48 hours to 24 hours. It empowers the eSafety Commissioner to set minimum standards for complaints and dispute processes, because too many people have submitted an online form only to receive no meaningful response. It allows the commissioner to use sock-puppet accounts to test whether services are complying with the law, and it gives university-accredited researchers access to data about online safety. Better evidence means better policy, better enforcement and better protection. Failure to comply with the digital duty of care will attract penalties of up to $109.2 million. That is consistent with other Australian penalties designed to protect consumers. It is not about punishing companies for the sake of it. It is about ensuring that safety obligations have consequences. A fine that is too small becomes merely a cost of doing business. A meaningful penalty changes corporate behaviour.

This legislation is not anti technology. It is pro safety, pro family and pro choice. It recognises the enormous benefits of digital connection while refusing to accept serious harm as the price of innovation. It supports parents who want their children to benefit from technology without being exposed to its worst excesses. It supports young people who deserve to learn, create and connect without being targeted by predators, bullies or harmful algorithms. And it supports adults who want transparency, control and basic safety from the services they use every day. For the people of Pearce, this bill is about dignity and protection. It is about a parent in Alkimos being able to trust that the apps on their child's phone meet basic safety standards. It is about a teenager in Butler having more control over what appears on their screen. It is about a local sporting club knowing that young members are less likely to be drawn into harmful online content after training. It is about a community that wants technology to serve people, not exploit them.

The Albanese Labor government is taking world-leading action because Australians deserve nothing less. We have started with a minimum age for social media, and we are now building the next layer of protection through a digital duty of care. This bill asks digital services to do what every responsible business should do: identify foreseeable risks, act to prevent harm, respond when things go wrong and put people before profit. I commend the bill to the House.