Digital Duty of Care Bill – what has changed?

The Federal Government has now introduced the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026, following consultation on the September exposure draft.

There have been some important improvements. Several of the broadest provisions we were concerned about have been narrowed or removed. However, significant religious-freedom concerns remain – particularly around how private technology companies may treat lawful religious teaching, and how the new obligations could apply to churches and other religious organisations operating websites and online services.

• The Minister can no longer simply add new categories of “harmful” speech. The exposure draft gave the Minister broad powers to declare additional material harmful. Those powers have been removed. The categories are now set out in the Bill itself. This is a significant improvement because any major expansion of the regulated content categories would now require Parliament to change the law.
• The criminal-offence provision has been substantially narrowed. The exposure draft potentially captured material encouraging any criminal offence. The Bill now limits this to a serious Commonwealth offence, punishable by at least three years’ imprisonment, and only where the material is reasonably likely to cause serious harm. This significantly reduces the risk that relatively low-level speech offences under State laws will automatically flow into the Digital Duty of Care.
• There is now an express list of protected or “excluded” material – but religion is missing. The Bill protects professional news, academic and historical research, certain artistic and educational material, public-health material and material that is in the public interest. However, there is no specific protection for religious teaching or discussion. Educational material is protected only where it is “not contrary to the public interest”. That leaves an important question: why should journalism, academia, art and education receive express protection, while lawful religious teaching does not?
• The provision on harassment has actually become broader. The exposure draft required material to be intended to cause serious harm by menacing or harassing someone. The Bill now applies where material is reasonably likely to cause serious harm by menacing or harassing an individual. The intention requirement has been removed. This makes it even more important that lawful religious teaching is not confused with harassment simply because it is controversial or strongly disagreed with.
• The controversial “gender equality” provision remains. Material that “encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality” is still automatically treated as harmful to children. The Bill does not define “hostile attitudes” or “gender equality”. This remains a concern for religious communities whose teachings about sex, marriage, family or religious leadership may differ from contemporary views of gender equality.
• The Bill still creates strong incentives for private companies to over-censor. Providers must take “appropriate action” and “effective measures” to create a safe online environment, backed by penalties of up to 60,000 penalty units. In deciding what action is proportionate, providers must consider the likelihood and degree of harm – but the Bill still does not expressly require them to consider freedom of religion or freedom of expression.

One concern has also been reduced significantly: the Bill now confines mandatory age assurance and access controls to pornography and material depicting specific fetish practices or fantasies. The earlier concern that age verification might become a general gateway for all supposedly harmful content therefore needs to be reconsidered.

The position of churches and other religious organisations as online service providers also remains unresolved. The Bill still applies broadly to online services and allows low-risk services to be exempted only by Ministerial instrument. It has narrowed personal responsibility somewhat by referring to the person exercising the greatest degree of day-to-day control, but ordinary church, school and charity websites may still need clarity about whether and how the regime applies to them.

Overall, the introduced Bill is better than the exposure draft. The Government has removed some of the broadest discretionary powers and narrowed some of the most concerning provisions. But the central religious-freedom question remains:

Will lawful religious teaching be protected when private platforms are given strong legal incentives to suppress anything they consider risky?

Freedom for Faith will continue to argue for an explicit protection for lawful religious expression, alongside clear and proportionate treatment of low-risk church, school and charity websites.