Few bills that hit the floor in this place elicit the same level of response, not only from the Australian public but from international commentators, as the one we see before us today. That is because this bill, the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, is a unicorn of some sort. It's a piece of legislation that simultaneously represents both an overreach and an underreach of government controls, which is quite a feat in itself.

My inbox, social media pages and office phones have been flooded with messages from my constituents concerned that the bill in its current form will pass. They're imploring me to ensure that their voices are heard. Protecting Australians online should never come at the expense of the fundamental freedoms that underpin our democracy. Nobody in this chamber wants to see children exposed to exploitation, bullying, pornography or dangerous online material. Nobody wants Australians subjected to threats, intimidation, harassment or abuse. Nobody disputes that multinational technology companies are making billions of dollars from Australian consumers and they should be held accountable.

The coalition supports strong protections to keep Australians safe online, particularly children, and holding big technology companies to account. That's why the coalition established the world's first eSafety Commissioner. That's why we enacted the Online Safety Act 2021. That is why we established mandatory industry codes and standards strengthening protections against cyberbullying and image based abuse and gave the eSafety Commissioner powers to investigate, issue removal notices and enforce compliance. There's more action required to keep children safe online, and we agree on that entirely.

I'm going to divert from my prepared comments for a moment. I spent 12 years as a police officer—three on general duties, five as a detective, four as a prosecutor. During that time I saw carnage, murders, suicides, cot deaths. You name it, I saw it. Then I left the police force and decided to become a lawyer. There was one thing that stuck with me over that 12 years: the material that I had to investigate on child abuse and child sexual assault. That was the only thing that ever, ever kept me awake at night. Because of that, I swore when I became a lawyer that, as a defence lawyer, I would never take on child abuse material or child sexual assault—and I never did, in 18 years. So it enrages me—and I don't use that word lightly—to hear contributions from members across the floor saying that if we do not support this bill then we do not support keeping our children safe. For those to stand up, from the Prime Minister down, and say, 'The coalition does not support keeping children safe if they do not support this bill,' exposes the filthy underbelly of partisan politics. We all know what this bill is about. We don't have to agree on it. To go down that road to suggest that members of parliament don't care about keeping our young people safe online is a disgrace. I hope these comments are passed on to the Prime Minister, because every person in this parliament cares about our children and would do everything to protect them.

Australia is a liberal democracy. We have a proud tradition of robust debate, political disagreement and the right to challenge those in authority. Those freedoms are not always comfortable. Sometimes people say things that offend us. Sometimes they express opinions we find objectionable. Sometimes they challenge the prevailing political or social narrative. But that is exactly why freedom of expression matters. Labor's bill is a blank cheque for political censorship. It relies on vague definitions of online harm and compliance with the proposed digital duty of care. Those definitions give the government and the eSafety Commission wide-ranging powers to determine what material and conduct may cause harm to children. While the minister's discretion to prohibit any category of online harm may have been removed, the regulator is still given an extraordinary power to determine what material or conduct may be harmful.

The bill creates new categories of regulated speech that are not linked to established legal standards. There is no developed body of law or judicial decisions to guide how those categories will apply. One example is 'material or conduct that encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality'. That language raises serious interpretive questions: What is the distinction between genuinely harmful material and lawful disagreement about sex, gender equality or public policy? What happens to robust debate about social policy, education, religion, crime or cultural values? These are matters on which Australians hold deeply different views, and we have to ensure that disagreement, even strong disagreement, is not confused with unlawful or serious harmful conduct.

The Australian Human Rights Commission has identified significant areas requiring improvement, including clearer definitions of harm, tighter restrictions on rule-making powers and stronger protections for human rights. When Australia's national human rights institution identifies risks to freedom of expression and privacy, the appropriate response is to address those concerns before the legislation becomes law. We cannot have a system where the boundaries of acceptable public discussion are left uncertain. When the law is uncertain and penalties can reach $109 million, the safest option for a technology company may be to remove content rather than risk regulatory action. That creates a real danger of lawful speech being suppressed, not necessarily because the government directly orders its removal but because the regulatory framework encourages excessive censorship. The Australians who pay the price are ordinary citizens.

This brings me to the most important question surrounding the legislation. Who decides what constitutes harmful material, and who decides when something crosses the line from being offensive or controversial to being unacceptable? Credible threats of violence and serious harm should never be tolerated, but the bill replaces a targeted regulatory framework with a broader obligation, requiring platforms to identify and minimise vaguely defined terms. The duty is defined by content. Risk assessments must identify the content services are seeking to manage. Compliance is measured by how services respond to that content. Platforms are therefore given every incentive to remove material that is lawful but controversial, politically contentious or difficult to assess.

Another deeply concerning feature of this legislation is the scope for significant regulatory obligations to be shaped through delegated legislation and regulatory guidance. The bill gives the eSafety Commissioner sweeping powers to issue guidelines and directions about how online services must comply with the digital duty of care. Those powers are not subject to the same consultation and disallowance safeguards that should apply to rules affecting fundamental freedoms. Members of this House are elected to scrutinise legislation, debate its consequences and ensure that laws affecting rights and freedoms receive proper democratic oversight, yet governments increasingly introduce broad legislative frameworks and leave significant details to the regulators, leaving the guidelines and administrative decisions to the bureaucrats. That is not how important questions of individual liberty should be settled.

There's another reason why Australians should be concerned about this bill. It appears to be a Trojan Horse for the Labor's failed misinformation and disinformation laws. The Prime Minister has said, after protecting children, the next phase of digital duty of care will be to combat misinformation, disinformation and political polarisation. That reveals the direction in which this framework will travel. The government says this bill is about online safety, but the Prime Minister has already identified misinformation, disinformation and political polarisation as future targets. Australians should always be wary of any framework that begins with protecting children but then can later be expanded to regulate political disagreement, contested facts or views that this government considers harmful.

Shockingly, this bill will potentially put Australians' online safety at risk. After 12 months, it will remove the 17 mandatory codes and standards that currently govern unlawful and age-restricted material. Those codes and standards impose specific obligations to prevent, detect, report, remove and restrict access to sexual abuse material, terrorist material, extreme violence, material promoting illicit drug misuse, pornography, graphic violence and material promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. The existing framework is targeted, specific and legally enforceable. It imposes different obligations according to the type and risk of profile service. This bill would dismantle that framework and replace it with a general duty built around broad concepts of harm. That is not necessarily stronger regulation. It may be weaker regulation where specific protections are most needed. The government has claimed it is putting the 17 codes and standards into law, but those instruments are already legally enforceable under the Online Safety Act.

The government wants parliament to believe that opposing this bill means opposing online safety. That is not true. We support protecting children. We support holding technology companies accountable. We support strong action against child exploitation material, terrorist material, extreme violence, serious cyberabuse and other genuinely harmful content. But, once governments are given excessive powers over the digital public square, reclaiming those freedoms will be extraordinarily difficult. The burden is on this government to demonstrate that these powers are necessary, proportionate and accompanied by appropriate safeguards. For those reasons, I will not support this bill.

The House transcript was published up to 20:55 . The remainder of the transcript will be published progressively as it is completed.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( M s Payne ) took the chair at 12:38.