Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the intent behind the Online Safety and Other Legislation Amendment (My Face, My Rights) Bill 2025. At its heart is a genuine concern that every person should have control over their likeness, their face, their voice and their identity, and that, when that control is taken away, there must be consequences. That is something that we can all agree on. This chamber must ask itself: how do we respond in a way that actually works, not just for one form of harm today, but for the many forms of harm that we know are coming tomorrow, the next day and the next day? The reality is that online abuse does not sit neatly in one box. It crosses platforms, content and technology. That is why the Albanese Labor government is taking a comprehensive and proactive approach to online safety reform. We are not standing still—far from it.

Already Australia has some of the most world-leading protections through the Online Safety Act, including schemes that allow harmful, image based abuse, including AI generated content, to be rapidly addressed. We have strengthened the role of the eSafety Commissioner, ensuring Australians have somewhere to turn when harm occurs, and, importantly, we have begun modernising our privacy laws, including creating new avenues for people to seek redress when their privacy is seriously invaded. We also recognise that responding after harm occurs is simply not enough, and that is why we are progressing a new digital duty of care, a reform that goes to the heart of where the responsibility lies, because, for far too long, the burden has been on individuals, on women, on migrants, on people with a disability and on victims to report, to fight and to chase down harmful content after it has already spread online. Quite frankly, the internet should not be the Wild West. But it is, and the harms Australians are experiencing online are real. The same standards of decency, responsibility and respect that exist offline should apply online. This Labor government believes Australians deserve a comprehensive response to that harm, not a fragmented response but a comprehensive response. We need to respond as online harms continue evolving. Technology is evolving, and our laws too must do the same.

Australia is already leading the world on online safety. Under the Online Safety Act, the eSafety Commissioner already has strong powers to address image based abuse, including AI generated material. Under Australia's unlawful-content codes and standards, online service providers are required to take proactive steps to prevent the generation and distribution of the most harmful material online, including child sex abuse material, terrorist material and AI generated material. We have ensured the eSafety Commissioner is properly resourced to help Australians, to educate Australians and to hold online platforms to account.

We have legislated a social media minimum age of 16. Already, millions of accounts have been deactivated. We want children to know who they are before platforms assume who they are. We want children to build resilience. We want children to build real world connections. We want them to be safe, and so we have strengthened privacy protections. We've introduced a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, giving Australians stronger rights and stronger remedies when their privacy is violated, and we're continuing the work of modernising Australia's law for the digital age. That is why this government remains committed to introducing a digital duty of care.

It's a simple principle: if a company profits from Australians being online, it should take responsibility for keeping them safe online. Big tech companies have the resources. They have the technology. They also have the responsibility, and the burden should not fall solely on individuals after harm has occurred. The focus should be on preventing harm before it occurs, and that is exactly what this government's digital duty of care will do. It will require online services to design for safety from the outset. It will require platforms to identify risks, to mitigate risks and to protect users, including users of AI platforms and chatbots. This is a significant reform, and it is being developed as part of a broader framework, because privacy reform cannot be done in isolation, online safety reform cannot be done in isolation, and a regulation cannot be done in isolation. We must get the whole framework right.

The government is concerned that this bill would create overlap between regulators, overlap between enforcement bodies and uncertainty about responsibilities. Australians deserve clarity, Australians deserve consistency, and Australians deserve laws that work together. As a woman in politics, I know this personally. Every day, I see the abuse. Every day, I see the intimidation that women face simply for participating in public life, not because of what they say and not because of what they do but simply because they are women. I know some of my colleagues have personally fallen victim to deepfakes.

I acknowledge Senator Pocock's intentions. This parliament contains a record number of women. This is something Australians should be proud of, but the personal abuse and the negativity directed to women online is not. If this is happening to women in politics, what is happening in our community is far worse and far more damaging to people who have no voice and no recourse. The women who see this happening in public life—it discourages them from wanting to pursue a life in public life, and that matters, because, when good people decide public life isn't worth the abuse, our democracy is weaker.

The internet has become our modern public square. It's where Australians work. It's where they learn. It's where they connect. It's where Australians participate in democracy, and Australians should be safe there. Just as we work to make our streets safe, just as we work to make our community safe, we must work to make the digital world safe as well, and that is why the Albanese Labor government is taking action. So while the government will not be supporting this particular bill, I want to be clear that we share the objective. We recognise the challenge and we are acting in a comprehensive manner, not with a single measure but with a comprehensive framework, a plan that puts responsibility where it belongs—on the platforms, on big tech, on those who profit from Australians being online.

The Albanese Labor government will continue to lead the world on online safety. We will continue to hold big tech to account and we will continue working to ensure Australians are safe online, just as they should be safe everywhere else, because safety should not stop when you log offline.