I indicate that, whilst Minister Farrell would ordinarily represent the Minister for Communications in this place, Minister Farrell is otherwise engaged in ministerial business, and I am attending in his place. I thank the chamber for their understanding.

I would first note that in his letter to the Chair of the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee Mr Jim Betts, the Secretary of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, expressed that the department and its officials take their obligations as public servants and to the parliament very seriously. That correspondence explains that at the 14 August 2026 committee hearing, department officials provided evidence consistent with their understanding at the time, informed by advice from the authors of the Age assurance technology trial report, Age Check Certification Scheme, ACCS, in the days prior. I reiterate today the secretary's assertions that department officials made representations to the committee based on information available at the time that was honestly and reasonably held, following assertions made by the ACCS. Following the hearing, the department conducted a detailed review of the concerns and has since published a corrigendum from the ACCS correcting the reference errors.

I would, however, make clear that the identified reference errors do not materially affect the substance of the report and do not undermine the credibility of the report's conclusions. They are isolated to section D.16, which discusses potential future age-estimation techniques that remain in early stages of development. None of these potential techniques were tested as part of the trial, and the commentary in this section is speculative. Further to this, the reference errors have no bearing on the eSafety Commissioner's social media minimum age regulatory guidance. The guidance directly references findings from the report on 12 occasions, none of which refer to part D section D.16.

I would also note that the minister's team has offered to brief Senator Payman on the relevant material. I understand that that offer has not been taken up at this point. It may be helpful to the Senate if these matters were able to be dealt with efficiently and effectively outside the chamber.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

When you make a mistake, you should own up to it. In August, officials from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts told the Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee that certain broken links in the Ageassurance technology trial report were not broken at the time the report was handed over. This evidence, the department said, was based on evidence from the company behind the report, the UK-based Age Check Certification Scheme. It was later revealed that ACCS had lied to the Guardian Australia and Australian age-check provider KJR by claiming that AI had not been used in the preparation of the report when, in fact, it had. When asked whether the department had verified that the links had only become broken after the report was presented, an official grumbled, 'It's very difficult to go back and check what may have been replaced a year ago.'

Now, I'm not normally one to put on the tinfoil hijab, but there was something off about all this. So I took on this 'difficult task' and investigated the department's claim. Using a digital library of archived webpages, I was able to confirm that these links pointed to the wrong papers when they were supposedly accessed and when the report was handed to government. Dr Reuben Kirkham, a former computer science academic, told the committee that the existence of this archival evidence 'puts the position beyond any real doubt'.

I noted in a dissenting report that, on evidence I had seen, ACCS had misled the department and that, based on this misleading advice, the department had misled the committee. I do not believe that the department set out to mislead the committee, but I did describe the failure of the department to verify ACCS's claim as a serious dereliction of duty and recommended that the department review the incident to determine whether a breach of the APS Code of Conduct had occurred. Not only was I able to disprove the department's claim but I was able to do it so very easily. Aren't these guys supposed to be the experts? I understand that these are very serious allegations, and I do not make them lightly.

In response, the secretary of the department wrote to the chair of the committee about this issue. The secretary wrote:

I do not accept the conclusion that officials are failing in their duties if they give evidence to a committee based on advice provided to them that, at face value, can be accepted as accurate.

The representations made by officials were based on information available to them at the time and were honestly and reasonably held.

There was not one word contesting what I had said, but nor was there one word taking accountability for providing misleading evidence to a committee of the Senate. There was no acknowledgement that these officials had provided false evidence based on advice from ACCS, who have lied to multiple parties, including the government, about this report. It doesn't seem like ACCS will be penalised for this, which sends an unacceptable message: you can win contracts paid by the taxpayer, deliver shoddy work, lie to the government about it and get away with it. There won't even be a departmental investigation. It just isn't good enough. It's inevitable that the department's evidence will be revealed to be, without a doubt, incorrect. Despite this, the department has yet to acknowledge its misleading evidence, let alone apologise to the committee. Even the liars at ACCS have come out and apologised for what they now describe as 'outdated or incorrect links'. This saga of obfuscation will be for nothing.

When I brought to the attention of the Commonwealth Grants Commission that it appeared to have provided misleading evidence to the Economics Legislation Committee during estimates, it was quick to not only clarify what its evidence should have been but apologise for the error. This is the gold standard for APS accountability. Meanwhile, the department has provided incomplete responses to questions on notice and dragged out FOI timelines. It has failed to take accountability for the mistakes it has made. Years from now, these actions will make for an unseemly tale of resistance to scrutiny.

This motion is necessitated by the Minister representing the Minister for Communications failing to comply with order for the production of documents No. 711, which was agreed on 15 September 2026. This OPD was following up on an answer to a question taken on notice as part of the environment and communication committee's inquiry into the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026. I think the concern that Senator Payman brought to the Senate this morning is that, when there is misleading evidence given to our committee, we expect that evidence to be corrected. We saw that, of course, with Australia Post misleading our committee in relation to its secret report for Post Office closures. When in budget estimates we were asking about Australia Post plans, we were actively misled by the managing director and CEO of Australia Post, Mr Graham. In a subsequent hearing during the Australia Post references inquiry into the retail network, we again were misled, and that has now been corrected by Mr Graham when he talked about the fact that, essentially, the board in May did not agree to any sort of trial. which was contradicted by his general counsel.

On this committee we are sick to death of not being given transparent answers, and that's the subject of this motion this morning. I think it would have been really appropriate for the secretary, when the secretary wrote to the committee to make it very clear that they were concerned about the fact that the committee was misled in relation to these broken links to the age assurance technology trial report, to simply say, 'Yes, we accept that we did not provide the correct evidence, and we apologise.'

But I have to say this is small fry. When you look at how this government has misled Australians, the biggest offender is, of course, the Prime Minister. This Prime Minister continues to lie to the Australian people over and over again.

Resume your seat. Minister?

The standing orders prohibit reflections on a person in the other place as Senator Henderson has just done.

Yes, that's a good point. Thank you, Minister. Senator Henderson, I will get you to reword or withdraw to assist the Senate.

It's not a reflection on the Prime Minister, but I will say that Australians are—

No, Senator Henderson. The point has been raised. You did use the word that many times in this chamber—many times I've been sitting in this chair and a couple of times I've even been pulled up. So I'll get you to withdraw that word and choose your words.

I will withdraw the word beginning with 'L' so there's no confusion and I will say that Australians are sick of not being told the truth by this Prime Minister. In relation to the social media ban, which has been an utter failure under the leadership of Minister Anika Wells, the Prime Minister continues to tell all Australians that more than five million—maybe up to six million—under-16 social media accounts have been closed, discontinued, deactivated or all the other words that they've been using. In fact, that is a complete and utter untruth. We know that, of those accounts, approximately half—we're talking about millions—relate to Google's Gmail accounts, which have got nothing to do with the social media ban. When it comes to truth before this committee—and we're about to go into estimates again—I demand that this government and the minister, starting with the Prime Minister, start to tell the truth about the under-16 social media ban.

And while we're at it, on the hopelessly and deeply flawed proposed digital duty of care exposure draft, I am shocked and we are shocked that the government and the minister are proposing to remove the mandatory codes and standards which require digital platforms to detect and remove unlawful material and age restricted material—material like child sexual exploitation, terrorism, violence and other unlawful materials. There are 17 codes and standards that have been worked on over a number of years to provide very clear, prescriptive obligations on digital platforms and other online service providers. Now, in an absolute shock—which of course would dramatically reduce the safety of Australians online if ever this were to be passed—these codes and standards have been removed from the exposure draft. That shows that not only is this government not capable of telling the truth; this minister is not capable of doing her job.

Question agreed to.