JOINT MEDIA RELEASE with The Hon Angus Taylor and Senator the Hon Matt Canavan
The Coalition will oppose Labor’s exposure draft of the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 in its current form.
Australians want their children protected online and the world’s biggest technology companies held to account.
But protecting children cannot become an excuse to hand politicians sweeping powers over lawful speech, news, political debate and what Australians are allowed to see online.
Labor’s exposure draft goes too far, contains inadequate safeguards for free speech and journalism, and leaves too much power in the hands of the Communications Minister.
The Leader of the Opposition said the Coalition will continue to engage constructively on measures that genuinely make children safer online, but we will not support this bill in its current form.
“This exposure draft is unacceptable in its current form because the reality is it’s providing a blank cheque for political censorship to the minister and to the government,” Mr Taylor said.
“This Minister has admitted Australians don’t trust her, and this government has repeatedly broken its word on tax and power prices. Handing them a blank cheque for political censorship is unacceptable.”
Leader of The Nationals Matt Canavan said Labor should be focused on fixing the problems Australians are already facing, not expanding Canberra’s power over the internet.
“I don’t trust Big Tech, but the answer is not to trust the Labor Party instead. No politician should get to decide for themselves what lawful speech is harmful and then pressure platforms to make it disappear,” Senator Canavan said.
“Labor has given up trying to lower prices, cut taxes and bring migration under control. Now they want extraordinary powers over the internet where Australians go to complain about how badly they’re being governed. That should worry everyone.”
Our concerns include:
- Ministerial power to define new harms. Anika Wells has given herself unfettered powers to make regulations governing categories of harm, including material that may be completely lawful, representing a significant threat to free speech. The draft separately allows the Minister to determine additional material that may cause harm to children and additional platform features deemed to have “negative behavioural impacts”.
- The risk to free speech and journalism. The duty is not confined to social media. It applies across a wide range of online services, including potentially websites carrying news, commentary and political debate. The exposure draft does not contain the clear protections for journalism, democratic debate and freedom of expression found overseas.
- Vague and subjective tests. The draft includes concepts such as material that “encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality” and “harmful practices”. Protecting children is essential, but poorly defined tests risk catching legitimate political, religious, cultural and social debate.
- A powerful incentive to censor first and ask questions later. If online services face legal duties to identify and mitigate broadly defined harms, the obvious commercial response will be to remove, suppress or restrict borderline lawful material rather than risk regulatory action.
- The algorithm promise is not actually guaranteed. Labor says Australians will be able to turn off personalised recommendations for their social media feeds. But the exposure draft instead gives the Minister power to specify “user empowerment tools” through future legislative instruments. The law Parliament is being asked to consider does not itself guarantee the precise choice Anthony Albanese and Anika Wells are promising Australians.
- The impact on small businesses has not been considered. Thousands of Australian small businesses rely on content recommendations and digital platforms to find customers. At a time when family businesses are already battling rising costs, Canberra should not rush major changes without understanding the consequences.
- Labor’s record should give Australians little confidence. Its under-16 social media ban has fallen well short of the government’s rhetoric, with eSafety finding the proportion of under-16s still using social media had fallen by just 4.4 percentage points three months after commencement. Now, before it has made its existing regime work properly, Labor wants Parliament to hand it a much broader set of powers over the online world.
Shadow Minister for Communications and Digital Safety Sarah Henderson said the Coalition has consistently supported stronger protections for children online and tougher accountability for Big Tech.
“Protecting children online is one of the most important jobs we have, but it does not give Anika Wells a blank cheque to determine what lawful material Australians should be protected from seeing. These powers are far too broad and the safeguards are simply not good enough,” Senator Henderson said.
“We need to protect children, empower parents, force greater transparency from Big Tech and protect free speech. Labor’s approach is to give unfettered powers to the Minister and ask Australians to simply trust that it won’t be abused.”
That is why Australians deserve absolute clarity about the powers Labor is seeking and how they will be used.
Australians should be deeply concerned that the Minister asking Parliament for these powers could not clearly explain them herself.
In a trainwreck interview with Laura Jayes on News 24, Anika Wells confirmed that she would ultimately determine new categories of serious harm, before appearing to contradict herself over whether news websites could be captured by the regime.
Asked who would determine what constituted a new serious harm, Minister Wells conceded: “the test for what would constitute a new serious harm would ultimately be made by me”.
When questioned about whether the laws applied to news websites, she first said: “sorry, yes, it does go to all online services,” before later insisting: “It is not captured by the Digital Duty of Care. It’s just not.”
If the Minister responsible for the bill cannot clearly explain the reach of these powers, Australians should not be expected to simply trust her with them.
Labor’s failed misinformation legislation showed the danger of giving governments a role in deciding what Australians should be allowed to see and hear.
Changing the language from “misinformation” to “harm” does not remove that danger.
The Coalition will oppose the bill in its current form and will fight for genuine safety measures that protect children, hold Big Tech accountable and protect the basic freedoms Australians expect.