Last month we warned you about the government’s latest attempt to censor the internet, via the Digital Duty of Care Bill. That piece of legislation has now passed through the House of Representatives with support from the Greens and Teals, though it hasn’t yet passed the Senate.
The government learned from their failed attempt to introduce the ‘Misinformation and Disinformation Bill’ in 2024. Back then they were brazen enough to bluntly say they wanted to control truth on the internet, which provoked enough outrage and political opposition that the government had to back down.
This time around the government has been more tricky and fallen back on Helen Lovejoy’s famous refrain to ‘think of the children’.
The new laws would require online service providers to ensure that people under 18 are not exposed to a range of things including bullying, arguments against gender equity, glorification of crime, or anything that may cause serious harm.
Since it is nearly impossible to perfectly segregate the internet by age, and the punishment is over $100 million per mistake, the most likely outcome is the restrictions will apply to everybody. And since ‘may cause serious harm’ is a vague criteria, the restrictions are likely to be severe.
As usual, there are carveouts for the mainstream media, academics, and bureaucrats.
The new laws haven’t passed the Senate yet, but the situation doesn’t look good.
Following the 2025 election the Greens have the balance of power in the Senate, and not only do they support these censorship laws, they actually want them to be stricter.
The only small mercy is that the laws have been sent to a Senate committee, which will report back on November 20. That Senate committee has a majority of Labor/Green members, so it will almost certainly support the bill, but at least we have a couple more weeks to push back against the changes.
To their credit, both the Liberal-Nationals and One Nation are opposing these laws, but they don’t have enough votes to block them.
Our only hope is to ramp up the public pressure so that Labor is worried about the political consequences and decides to back away from these changes.
Here’s what you can do:
Speak up now. Tell your family and friends, share this story, and share social media posts that are critical of these laws.
Reach out to your local Labor MP or Senator and (politely) let them know what you think about these laws.
Publicly support a constitutional amendment to enshrine free speech in Australia, and support any organisations that share that goal.
This may seem like a hopeless cause at the moment, but free speech is fundamental to a free society and so we will fight on regardless, and we hope you will join us.
This was first published to Substack. Follow and subscribe here.
The post Digital Duty of Care (censorship) laws pass the Lower House appeared first on The Spectator Australia.
