Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age)

“The commissioner is actively investigating the compliance of five platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. In considering enforcement action, the eSafety Commissioner has advised the government that it needs stronger investigative powers to build stronger evidence against potentially non-compliant platforms. This bill responds to those challenges by strengthening the enforcement framework so that platforms take their minimum age obligation seriously and do more to comply. With this bill, the maximum civil penalty for noncompliance with minimum age obligations extends from 30,000 to 60,000 penalty units, or it brings that maximum penalty up to $99 million. It's also important that the information-gathering powers of the eSafety Commissioner are strengthened so they can get the information they need from the platforms to access compliance and understand what's going on. In particular, the amendment enables the commissioner to issue notices requiring the provision of information and documents from any person where the commissioner reasonably believes they hold material relevant to compliance with the minimum age framework, including whether a service falls within its scope.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“I call on all members of Parliament to join us in supporting the urgent passage of this Bill so that eSafety holds social media platforms to account as soon as possible.”

Australian Labor Party • Senator • 01 July 2026

“I rise today to speak in support of the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026. This legislation is about one simple but vital principle: when laws are made to protect children, those laws must be strongly enforced. A law without effective enforcement is merely a statement of intent, and this bill ensures that Australia's social media minimum age laws are backed by serious consequences for companies that fail to meet their responsibilities.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“The idea behind it is as simple as it gets: keeping kids safe from these platforms should not be the job of 14-year-olds or their parents around the kitchen table; it should be the job of the people who have built the platforms in the first place. We did not undertake these measures because we thought badly of young people or we didn't trust them. We did it because they had been allowed into a world that had been designed to target them, not to support their development, and today with the Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026 we make that law stronger, and I'm very proud to support it.”

Australian Labor Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“The bill before us exists for one reason: it exists purely to frantically patch a massive ban that Labor completely botched. The coalition will always support giving regulators the strong teeth required to take on big tech, but let us be honest about exactly why those teeth are so desperately needed. They are needed because Labor's rushed implementation has been an absolute shambles from day one. Australian families deserve much better than a minister who arrogantly claims credit while leaving the regulator to awkwardly explain why these laws are simply not working. We in the coalition do not just endlessly talk about online safety; we actually built the premier global model for it. Every single major protection that the Labor Party now relies upon was originally legislated by the coalition government.”

Liberal Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“The amending bill before the House tonight is actually a confession of the Labor government. Labor is rushing to bolt on the powers it should have built in from day one. Today, as the law stands, the commissioner can only compel a platform or platform providers. This bill allows the eSafety Commissioner to compel documents from age-assurance providers, app store operators and anyone reasonably believed to hold compliance information. It provides penalties with bite. It provides for the doubling of penalties, up to $99 million for a corporation and up to $19.8 million for an individual. These are all good things, but they are late to the party.”

Liberal National Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“I certainly support the amendment put forward by the member for Lindsay in relation to the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026. Today, I spoke to and listened to the Lutheran School Wagga Wagga, a primary school of children visiting on their excursion to Parliament House in Canberra. I gave to those youngsters, as I do to all school groups, two bits of advice. One of those bits of advice is to not smoke, because it's dumb, it's unhealthy and it's expensive. The other bit of advice I always give the children—these days, the primary school ones are not or should not be on social media, but I always say this to them—is, 'When you do get on social media at a later age, don't write something about someone else that you wouldn't like said about yourself,' because online bullying is every bit as bad as every other type of bullying. Face-to-face bullying, bullying by exclusion, bullying by any means—it is unacceptable in the schoolyard, in the classroom and anywhere else. The difficulty for children these days is that bullying doesn't just stop at the school gate. It doesn't just stop a little bit after three o'clock, when the school bell tolls to end the school day. It continues online. It continues via TikTok, it continues via Snapchat, it continues via Facebook, it continues via any other social media platform for children and for adults. And it's not nice.”

National Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:”

Liberal Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“It absolutely has to be a requirement of the technology companies that they uphold the ban. Let's be very clear that, for these social media companies, there is no upside incentive to get children off their platforms. Their business model is predicated on people using their apps and people spending as much time as possible on those applications. They do not care if you are 12, 13, 17, 25, 35 or 50; they want you on there as much as possible so they can sell your attention to advertisers. That is their business model. But we have a responsibility to protect young people, particularly as their brains are forming and they are learning how to survive and thrive in the real world.”

Liberal Party • MP • 30 June 2026

“Those are sensible measures. We know that the eSafety Commissioner is actively investigating possible noncompliance by five platforms: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok. Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, has sent those platforms formal notices demanding information on how they're implementing age checks. Stronger investigative powers and higher penalties will assist that work. For that reason, I support this bill. I want Australian children to be safe in online spaces.”

Independent • MP • 30 June 2026

“But there's no question that the implementation of the under-16 ban has been questionable. The vast majority of teenagers I speak to have made their way around the ban. Studies show around 80 per cent have found their way through the ban. And part of the reason it's not working is because our eSafety Commissioner hasn't had the powers or the resourcing to properly enforce the ban. The eSafety Commissioner herself described it as trying to fence the ocean. This bill will make a difference here. It gives the eSafety Commissioner expanded powers to compel documents from digital platforms and other related stakeholders to assess whether the social media companies are actually doing as much as they can—and I have no doubt that they're not. These companies want this ban to fail. If it fails here, it means other countries won't pursue the same policy. If it works here—and we can make it work—we set an example for the rest of the world to follow. So I strongly support the greater empowerment of the eSafety Commissioner. I also support the doubling of penalties for noncompliance, although I don't think a $100 million fine is a huge deterrent for some of the world's wealthiest companies.”

Independent • MP • 30 June 2026

“When I'm talking about what I think is the failure of it so far, I've got some pretty good research to draw on. In fact, these are very recent figures. In May this year, research by Western Sydney University found that 61 per cent of under-16s who had previously been using banned platforms reported little or no change in their social media use. That's 61 per cent of under-16s who said it hadn't made much or any difference to their social media use. That's a pretty damning figure. That same research by Western Sydney University found that only 26 per cent of people under 16 who were in the research reported that their social media use had been significantly affected. That's all the evidence you need—that, up until this point in time, it has not worked. I could refer you to a University of Newcastle study in June this year. They found that, on a positive note, around two-thirds, or 66 per cent, of adolescents reported encountering some form of age-verification requirement. That's good. But, of course, we've already spoken about how easy it is to get around the age verification. For some of these platforms, you just enter a different date and you're in. But that's the end of the good news from the University of Newcastle. It generally found that the early impact on access and behaviour has been limited. It found that around 86 per cent of under-16s reported accessing at least one restricted platform in the past week. It found that most adolescents continued accessing platforms through their own accounts. That included 54 to 68 per cent of users under the age of 16. In fact, it found little significant change in daily use or time spent on social media, particularly for that younger cohort, in particular, under-13-year-olds. Now, you know, we have this ban. It's been legislated. I actually want it to work. I wish the government well, and I'll support this bill today because, hopefully, it will go some small way, at least—hopefully it goes a long way—to addressing that point I made about how we've got to stop punishing the kids and that we've got to start going after the tech companies who have the know-how to make things such as age verification or facial recognition more effective. They have so far chosen not to.”

Independent • MP • 30 June 2026