Digital Duty of Care
Australian Christian leaders have written to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells expressing serious concerns about the Government’s Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026.
The letter supports appropriate action to protect Australians, particularly children, from seriously harmful online material. However, the Bill as presently drafted is much broader than necessary to achieve the goal of protection from genuine serious harm. It will have significant adverse consequences for freedom of religion and freedom of expression.
The letter urges the Government to withdraw this Bill and return with a more sharply focussed Bill which:
- targets only material which is both widely agreed to be seriously harmful and is very tightly defined,
- in all places requires that any duty and any action to reduce online harm must be balanced against the right to freedom of expression (including freedom of religious expression) and lead to no greater restriction than is necessary on that freedom of expression
- provides transparent notice to content creators/posters as to when content has been restricted and why; and
- provides an effective and speedy legal right of review of decisions to restrict content.
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