Zali Steggall
Warringah · Independent · Australia
“These amendments don't prevent the government from reforming the NDIS. They don't prevent the government from managing costs and they don't prevent the government from improving sustainability, but they do ensure that participants can seek reassessment when their plan no longer meets their needs.”
“The NDIS was built on a simple promise that Australians with disability would have access to the reasonable and necessary supports they needed to live with dignity, participate in the community and exercise choice and control over their own lives. The NDIS must be sustainable. It must be well governed.”
“If a decision has a practical effect of cutting a participant's support, then it should be treated as it is: a decision that affects that participant. Put simply, if your funding is significantly cut, you should have review rights. The third amendment deals with the review rights where funding is significantly reduced.”
“I rise to recognise the incredible work of some incredibly passionate women at the Arise Foundation and to call for greater investment in recovery and healing for women leaving violence. For too many women, the crisis does not end when they leave.”
“Reform must not mean that people are pushed away from work, study or volunteering because the supports that make participation possible have been overlooked by a system that has become more and more automated. The first amendment deals with plan reassessment.”
“by leave—I move amendments (1) to (4) as circulated in my name together: (1) Schedule 1, item 21, page 9 (line 22), at the end of subsection 48A(1), add: ; and (e) alternatively to paragraphs (a) to(d), the participant demonstrates that: (i) the supports are no longer available; or (ii) the plan is insufficient to meet the participant's r…”
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“Crisis response saves lives and we must fund it, of course, but government should not stop there. Six months later, many women are still navigating trauma, housing insecurity, child care, financial abuse and work. Too often, we expect women to rebuild alone. We need a proper domestic violence recovery off-ramp, a 12- to 24-month pathway that supports women from crisis into safety, stability and economic independence. The recovery off-ramp remains underfunded. I call on the government to invest in pathways like Arise.”
“I rise to recognise the incredible work of some incredibly passionate women at the Arise Foundation and to call for greater investment in recovery and healing for women leaving violence. For too many women, the crisis does not end when they leave. Too often, they face an impossible choice: immediate safety or long-term financial security. That is not a real choice. Arise provides trauma informed employment support, financial literacy, digital skills, coaching and wraparound referrals for women escaping violence. In five years, Arise has supported 580 women and children. Around 320 women have completed its programs, and, within six months, 54 per cent of those entered employment, education or training. Arise reports that women placed into paid work or further education have not returned to perpetrators.”
“These amendments don't prevent the government from reforming the NDIS. They don't prevent the government from managing costs and they don't prevent the government from improving sustainability, but they do ensure that participants can seek reassessment when their plan no longer meets their needs. They ensure that reasonable and necessary supports continue to recognise the importance of work, volunteering and study, and they ensure that, if a participant's funding is significantly reduced, the participant has a clear right to review. As we reform the scheme, we must be careful not to strip away the very principles that made it so important in the first place. So I urge the government—rather than the campaign that, at the moment, is demonising this scheme—to actually come to the table with rational, practical support for these amendments.”
“If a decision has a practical effect of cutting a participant's support, then it should be treated as it is: a decision that affects that participant. Put simply, if your funding is significantly cut, you should have review rights. The third amendment deals with the review rights where funding is significantly reduced. It removes proposed subsection 34A(5), which risks allowing funding reductions to occur without a clear individual review pathway. It replaces that with a safeguard that, if a determination significantly reduces the funding available under a participant's plan, the participant is taken to be affected by a reviewable decision. This is just logic. If there is going to be a significant cut to a plan, it can be properly assessed as to what the real impact will be and whether everything has in fact been taken into account.”
“The NDIS should not only be about keeping people alive or keeping people at home; it should be about giving people with disability the support they need to contribute, learn, work, volunteer and engage in their communities. We all benefit from that. For many participants, support to work or study is not optional; it is core to their wellbeing. When people are supported to work, study and participate, it is not a cost to be begrudged. It is an investment in independence, dignity and contribution. Again we all benefit from that. Participants should not have their funding significantly reduced through a mechanism that avoids proper accountability. That is all these amendments are seeking to do: ensure there is proper scrutiny where assessments have clear faults.”
“Reform must not mean that people are pushed away from work, study or volunteering because the supports that make participation possible have been overlooked by a system that has become more and more automated. The first amendment deals with plan reassessment. As the bill stands, there are limited circumstances in which a participant can seek a reassessment of their plan. My amendment would make clear that reassessment should also be available where supports are no longer available, the plan is insufficient to meet the participant's reasonable and necessary support needs or new evidence about the participant's support needs has emerged. The second amendment goes to reasonable and necessary supports, including those required for paid employment, volunteering and study.”
“The NDIS was built on a simple promise that Australians with disability would have access to the reasonable and necessary supports they needed to live with dignity, participate in the community and exercise choice and control over their own lives. The NDIS must be sustainable. It must be well governed. It must be able to deal with waste, fraud and poor practice. Sustainability cannot become a slogan used to justify blunt instruments and poor legislation, especially when there are clear double standards of accountability being applied by this government. Rather than fix the system, the government is choosing to leave vulnerable Australians behind. Reform must not mean that participants lose supports without a proper pathway to challenge the decision. Reform must not mean that people are locked into plans that no longer meet their needs.”
“(4) Schedule 1, item 34, page 13 (after line 18), at the end of section 34A, add: I move these amendments to the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Securing the NDIS for Future Generations) Bill 2026 in the hope of putting forward some targeted, practical amendments that will complement the many other amendments that have been moved by my fellow crossbench members of parliament. The amendments I moved today seek to ensure that sustainability is not achieved by removing basic fairness, basic review rights or the individualised nature of the scheme. Procedural fairness should be a basic which is underwritten in this legislation. I simply fail to understand why the government and the minister are not agreeing to these practical, sensible amendments.”
“by leave—I move amendments (1) to (4) as circulated in my name together: (1) Schedule 1, item 21, page 9 (line 22), at the end of subsection 48A(1), add: ; and (e) alternatively to paragraphs (a) to(d), the participant demonstrates that: (i) the supports are no longer available; or (ii) the plan is insufficient to meet the participant's reasonable and necessary support needs; or (iii) new evidence relevant to the participant's support needs has emerged. (2) Schedule 1, item 34, page 13 (line 8), after "participants", insert ", and the reasonable and necessary supports required by participants, including those necessary for participants to undertake paid employment, volunteering and study". (3) Schedule 1, item 34, page 13 (lines 11 to 18), omit subsection 34A(5).”
“This parliament must listen to their stories and their experiences, invest in the research that can save lives and have greater funding for medical research. And, of course, we need wraparound care, because when diseases strike at an early onset the implications for young families is so incredibly dire for earning capacity, family security and the raising of young children.”
“The risk of being diagnosed before 40 has more than doubled since 2000, yet there is little funding for research and better diagnosis. This must urgently change. Too many young people are still being misdiagnosed or dismissed because bowel cancer is wrongly seen as an older person's disease. We urgently need stronger investment in early-onset bowel cancer research. We must understand why Australia is leading the world in early-onset bowel cancer and we need better awareness across our health system and the community so younger patients are taken seriously, diagnosed earlier and treated faster. I say to Ron, Anna, Chris and every family facing these diseases that your advocacy matters. I know there were many others here in Parliament House last week advocating for early bowel cancer detection. Thank you for sharing your incredible stories.”
“These people can still feel, think and understand what is happening while their body gradually stops responding. Every day in Australia, two people are diagnosed with MND and two people die from it. Around 2,800 Australians are living with this cruel disease, and more than half of people with MND are now under the age of 65. Recently, Ron and Anna invited me to join the Middle Harbour Public School Big Freeze and get dunked to help raise funds to fight MND. I was very happy to be dunked. The second story I want to raise is that of Chris. He's 37. He had no symptoms and no genetic history of it, and yet he has been diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer. He's a dad of young children. Bowel cancer is one of Australia's most common cancers and one of the deadliest. Australia has one of the highest rates of early-onset bowel cancer in the world.”
“Two young dads in Warringah have sat with me in recent times and shared diagnoses no family should have to face. They are two different diseases with different stories, but the same problem: more medical research funding is desperately needed. One urgent question: why are more young people being diagnosed with diseases we still do not properly understand? The first is Ron, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease at just 35. He and Anna are raising two young children while facing a disease that is aggressive and progressive and currently has no cure. MND affects the nerves that control movement. As the messages from the motor neurons stop reaching the muscles, people gradually lose the ability to move, speak, swallow and breathe.”
“The proposed digital duty of care must be the centrepiece of the next stage of reform: a best-practice framework that requires platforms to design for safety, gives regulators visibility over the algorithms shaping children's lives and backs prevention with proper enforcement, education and support. If not, it is just more window-dressing. (Quorum formed)”
“I support higher penalties where companies fail to comply. I support holding big tech accountable. But I do not accept the fiction that the original scheme was well designed and now merely needs some heavier penalties. The obstacles were obvious then: vague obligations, unsettled technology, privacy risks and the absence of a proper digital duty of care. Parents deserve better than being told that the problem has been solved when they can see every day that it has not. Young people deserve better than a policy that treats them as the problem rather than focusing on the platforms that profit from harmful design.”
“If the Prime Minister thought a royal commission into domestic violence would be a lawyer's picnic, let me tell you that this bill is a lawyer's picnic, especially when you're talking about social media platforms with extremely deep pockets and an extremely well-developed desire to contest these kinds of restrictions. Without a clearer definition of 'reasonable steps', the government is simply inviting exactly the kind of litigation it says it wants to avoid. Platforms will argue over what was reasonable, lawyers will test the boundaries of the act, and the courts will be left to do what the parliament should have done in the first place. The government should not mistake stronger enforcement powers for a stronger policy. I support giving the eSafety Commissioner the tools it needs to investigate powerful platforms.”
“There are also now live constitutional challenges in the High Court—one by Reddit, another by teenagers—arguing that the scheme burdens the implied freedom of political communication and that less restrictive alternatives were available, including safety-by-design tools. That doesn't mean the challenges will succeed, but it does show the legal risks were foreseeable in the event they do. The constitutional challenge to the social media minimum age scheme cannot be viewed in isolation from the enforcement issues this amendment bill seeks to address. They're linked by the same unresolved problem: the act still does not clearly define what reasonable steps are actually required of the platforms.”
“The recent evidence bears all of those concerns out two years on. A University of Newcastle study found little immediate evidence that the restrictions had reduced access, with more than 85 per cent of surveyed under-16s still using restricted platforms after the policy began. Young people reported bypassing age checks through fake accounts, friends or family, incognito browsing and other workarounds. Experts have made the same point: a simple ban is unlikely to be enough if the underlying causes of harm, including platform design, algorithms and age-inappropriate features, are left untouched.”
“The Senate inquiry into the original bill recommended that the government legislate a digital duty of care, meaning a positive legal obligation on platforms to proactively identify, prevent and reduce online harms. Instead, the government rushed through a blunt age based scheme before the age assurance trial had reported, before the practical enforcement model was clear and before the parliament had properly tested for unintended consequences. I said at the time that the bill was misguided, that it was window dressing and that it risked driving harms underground while failing to hold platforms properly accountable. I also said the government was putting the cart before the horse by legislating first and working out the detail later. But, of course, here we are, fine-tuning some detail.”
“This amendment will allow eSafety to compel evidence from platforms and third parties, including age assurance and app store providers. That is what this bill provides for. These are simple changes and fine in their own right if one believes that the system actually works. But the context of this debate does go back to the original bill in 2024. Then, crossbenchers and experts noted that it did not specify how the ban would be implemented and that 'reasonable steps' was not defined in the legislation. It continues to not be defined. I've asked that of the minister, and the explanation was, 'We don't want to be held to it now and to allow for that to continue changing.' But what it does do is create a huge legal grey area.”
“The platforms covered include major services such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, X, Threads, Reddit, Twitch and others subject to the statutory criteria. Keep in mind, there are a lot of concerns around gaming platforms that also create cause for harm. What it's really important to understand is there is no narrowing of that definition around reasonable steps, and I'll come back to that in a moment. The government says this new bill will strengthen eSafety's information-gathering powers and double maximum penalties for systemic breaches from $49.5 million to $99 million. Again, I say, for companies that are making billions of dollars of profit, there is the question of whether that is even meaningful in terms of a stick or a penalty.”
“The answer is not a blanket ban on social media. It is to make social media socially safe by design, fit for the digital age and for young people like Lucy to pursue their passions and find their tribes. A cynical hypocrisy exists when a government lets gambling ads harm the wellbeing of Australian children—children as young as six can identify gambling company brands—while posturing here in this place to be cracking down on social media tech giants with an ineffective and, I would say, disingenuous age ban for social media platforms. The social media minimum age scheme requires age restricted platforms to take reasonable steps—this is important for people to understand what this legislation actually does—to prevent children under 16 from creating or keeping accounts.”
“But young people have also told us something else: that social media is not only a space of harm. It is also where they communicate, organise, seek, help, build communities and have a voice. When I spoke to the original legislation in 2024, I referred to Lucy Flynn, a 14-year-old from Warringah who had recovered from an eating disorder and used social media to petition for more public hospital beds for eating disorder treatment. Lucy harnessed the power of social media to tell her story and amplified the issues in the eating disorder funding. Online platforms can provide a platform to reach people outside their geographical communities, provide an avenue for youth leadership on issues that matter to them and provide the ability for young people to feel that they have control over their future. So I disagree with the government.”
“This will be what I'll be looking for when the government introduces its long-awaited promised digital duty of care framework later this year—a best practice framework not watered down as we have seen and has occurred in other jurisdictions. A ban can only ever be one part of the answer, or you just push the problem underground. In Warringah parents, teachers and young people have been very clear with me in their feedback. They're worried about what children are exposed to online. They're worried about the addictive design. They're worried about the algorithms pushing harmful content. They're worried about cyberbullying, eating disorder content, misogynistic material, scams, AI deepfakes and the relentless pressure children feel to post their lives online.”
“The Prime Minister and the Minister for Communications are already spruiking this social media age ban as a success on the international stage despite the evidence showing that it has had limited effect in terms of actually keeping young people off and protecting them from harm. We have other countries now following Australia's lead whilst we're still working on the legislation that would actually make social media safer: a European Digital Services Act-style model focused on platform accountability and safety by design. The government continues to promote this bandaid fix internationally when the evidence so clearly points to a systems focused European Digital Services Act-style model as being far, far superior.”
“Even the doubling of penalties of maximum penalties may be such an insignificant consequence that they are more than likely to want to continue to risk it or use their very deep pockets in circumstances of litigation. I have strong reservations around how much more of a bandaid this is to a bigger problem. What we know is that this legislation and these amendments do not fix the central weakness in the scheme: what 'reasonable steps' for age verification actually means in practice. The government calls this a world-leading ban. Well, a world-leading child safety framework would start with safety by design, safer algorithms, safer default settings, stronger privacy protections, transparency over recommender systems and a real statutory duty of care on platforms.”
“But let's also be really clear about how Online Safety Amendment (Strengthening Enforcement for the Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2026 came to play and the selective approach the government is taking in what harms they're protecting children from and what ones they are turning a blind eye to. I also want to thank the eSafety Commissioner. I know she works incredibly hard in this space as a local constituent. I've met with her many times, and I know how hard she worked in this space. This bill gives the eSafety Commissioner bigger sticks and better evidence-gathering powers. It doubles maximum penalties and allows the regulator to compel documents from platforms and third parties. Those are important tools. The bigger question remains, though, in the billions of dollars of profit these platforms make.”
“Well, the government is now back in the parliament trying to strengthen enforcement for its social media age ban. The central problems were obvious when the first bill was rushed through this place in 2024: the technology was not settled, the age assurance model was not settled, the privacy implications were not settled and the core legal test of whether the platforms would take reasonable steps was certainly not properly defined. Those problems remain. I support strong enforcements against big tech. Platforms should not be allowed to hide behind vague community guidelines or the usual Silicon Valley playbook of delay, denial and minimal compliance.”
“My question is to the Prime Minister. Australians want truth-in-political-advertising laws. The bills I've tabled will require AI content watermarking, establish an ethical political advertising code and an independent political advertising standards board to regulate complaints, and introduce penalties for misleading and deceptive political content. At the 2025 election voters saw fake signs, false affiliations, AI content in Goldstein and politically motivated complaints to the NACC, then used in political advertising to imply wrongdoing. When will the government act to protect our elections?”
“It means sharing the productivity gains from the technology and building domestic sovereignty. We can't hold back AI; we need to build with it.”
“That temporal mismatch is where the anxiety lies. If it isn't closed, Australians will pay through higher emissions, higher prices or both. Unlike approval, global demand for compute cannot be paused. Refuse the investment and it simply moves beyond Australia's reach. The answer is faster infrastructure approvals, locational price signals that guide investment to where the grid really can support it and the discipline that supply must precede demand, not chase it. Australia has been here before. We've extracted gas, exported it and watched Australian industry pay some of the highest gas prices in the world for a domestic resource when we had expanded supply. We must not make the same mistake with compute. Australian energy should benefit Australians. That means energy abundance, with industry that follows, not competes with, households.”
“The treatment of new versus existing industrial demand is equally arbitrary when it comes to electricity. Tomago Aluminium draws close to a gigawatt—roughly 10 per cent of New South Wales electricity supply—and not only faces no BYO requirement of renewable energy but will actually have its energy use subsidised. There may be good reasons for these distinctions, but the government hasn't articulated them, and we do need a coherent approach in terms of industrial-scale energy requirements. The deeper problem is that the government is approving demand that, at the moment, we cannot supply. New South Wales solar projects now average 1,384 days to clear planning—almost double 2023 levels and more than 10 times Western Australia's 94-day average. Data centres can be built far faster than the renewable energy to power them.”
“I note the minister's comments that this is partly because of the different jurisdictional challenges in Australia and the roles of local, state and federal government. But businesses need certainty, and so do Australians. The work that the government is doing in this space needs to speed up so that we have greater certainty about what we are going to get as a nation when these data centres are being put in every single day. The point that we also need to make is that the broader energy framework is not coherent, and that is a problem too for data centres. Centralised data centres must bring their own renewable energy under the statement of expectations, but the same compute distributed across office buildings carries no equivalent obligation, despite being less efficient.”
“It's a dominant driver of new electricity demand, and there are many people concerned that we can have the clean energy transition, or we can have data centres, but we can't have both. But we need to have both. AI has voracious appetite for land, energy, water and construction. Other countries have acted. Singapore imposed a moratorium. The US had tech companies sign a ratepayer protection pledge. Ireland now requires data centres to source 80 per cent of demand from new renewable energy. The public is right to be concerned. No-one wants big tech put before the planet or corporations put before Australians. Trust that the government will defend Australia's interests is fraying. Let's start with energy consumption. I recognise that the government has put in a statement of expectations and that this sends an important signal.”
“And be honest: megabytes are far easier to export than hydrogen. Unlike our earlier superpower ambitions, digital infrastructure doesn't need a port, but it still needs power, and there is a strong sovereign capability case for having AI training and inferencing happening here on Australian soil. This case was made sharply when the US issued an export-control directive to Anthropic, cutting off Australia's access to frontier AI models overnight. Australia already has more than 160 operational data centres, and there are more than 90 in the pipeline. In New South Wales alone, there are 44 projects totalling 11.4 gigawatts, equivalent to nearly four Eraring coal stations.”
“Thank you to the member for Warringah for bringing forward this matter of public importance to the parliament. The National AI Plan commits to capturing the opportunity of AI, spreading the benefits and keeping Australians safe. My concern today is whether we really have the policy settings to achieve all three, or whether we are trading long-term sovereignty for a short-term sugar hit. Let's be honest: the opportunity is real. Australia has genuine competitive advantages, abundant renewable energy, land, geopolitical stability and proximity to the Indo-Pacific market. In 2024, we ranked second globally as the most attractive destination for data centre investment. Data centre investment has kept GDP out of negative territory, so this really matters, and AI data centres have been and will be an important part of our economy.”
“It will shape how people learn, work, trust, form relationships and participate in civic life. The lesson from social media is that a non-independent AI Safety Institute with inadequate separation from the department of industry and far less technical expertise than its US and UK counterparts leaves Australia dangerously exposed. That is why Australia must ensure that the AI age is built on our terms, with safeguards and for our people, not just focusing, as I understand the minister has, in roundtables, on seeking to ensure investment but not the protections necessary for the Australian people.”
“We cannot let this become another situation where an Australian resource—our public data—is used for profit by others without proper remuneration domestically. So, that practical licensing or levy framework must be established. As a high-skill, service based economy, Australia is particularly exposed to AI-driven disruption across professional industries. If we get this wrong—and this is on the Albanese government—productivity gains will flow to a smaller number of global technology companies while Australian workers carry the disruption. The challenge of AI is that, by the time regulators understand today's technology, tomorrow's technology has already arrived. We should be honest that the social impacts of AI are not yet fully knowable. AI will affect more than productivity.”
“The other question is of sovereignty and the right to scrape public data and make sure that appropriate remuneration and sovereign control over our Australian data is ensured. Foreign laws such as the US CLOUD Act can extend beyond national borders. Australia should welcome AI investment, but critical data and infrastructure must remain governed by Australian law. This means stronger standards, audit rights and encryption controls. AI is also built on data, much of it created through human effort—journalism, writing, creative, music, film, image and culture. A practical licensing or levy framework can support innovation while ensuring that creators share in the value they help generate.”
“Communities are also raising legitimate concerns about land use, noise and environmental impacts. The key question is whether Australia is prepared to set the rules before the concrete is poured on new centres and the cables are laid. There currently are simply insufficient protections in place for Australian communities. The government's expectations document points in the right direction, but it is an expectations document. It has no bite and no real strength to it. It doesn't actually provide any protections to the Australian people. Major AI data centres should proceed only where developers can demonstrate they will bring the necessary infrastructure with them. Households should not subsidise hyperscalers. This debate is also about more than just energy, water and planning approvals.”
“Demand is accelerating rapidly as generative AI expands and more advanced, agentic systems emerge. This presents a genuine opportunity for Australia. We have abundant renewable resources and world-class research institutions. If AI infrastructure is built here, we gain a seat at the table where the rules, standards and governance frameworks of the AI age are being written, rather than leaving those decisions to others in other nations. The risks are equally real. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has warned data centres could account for up to 11 per cent of Australia's electricity consumption by 2035. Without matching investment in new generation, storage and transmission, households and businesses will face higher costs and our net zero ambitions will become harder to achieve.”
“AI data centres are not just warehouses full of servers. They are the physical infrastructure of the future economy. Like all transformative technology, AI presents extraordinary opportunities alongside significant risks that must be managed. Data centres draw on our energy system, water resources and local communities. If global hyperscalers want access to Australian resources, they must help build the clean energy, transmission and water infrastructure their projects depend upon. The government's data centre voluntary expectations document is a start, but expectations are simply not enough. They should be mandatory, enforceable and transparent. AI is often viewed as software, but the technology that enables it has profound impacts on the physical world.”
“Nestory Irankunda's journey is a remarkable Australian story, as are so many others: born in a refugee camp in Tanzania after his family fled conflict in Burundi and now scoring for Australia on the world's biggest stage. This is the Australia we celebrate—confident, open, united and proud of the people who help make this country what it is. Congratulations to the Socceroos, regardless of the results, not just for the goals, grit and performances but for reminding us of our real values and who we are when we at our very best. Thank you for being such phenomenal ambassadors for Australia.”
“Australia is off to a cracking start at the World Cup—and that makes us so proud, of course—with the two-nil win over Turkiye and huge effort against tournament hosts the United States. Congratulations to Connor Metcalfe and Nestory Irankunda, who both scored goals on their World Cup debuts. At a time when some seek to divide Australians by where they come from or what they believe, the Socceroos remind us that this country is strongest when we stand together. We see it in packed pubs, school playgrounds, local sporting clubs and living rooms right across the country. This Socceroos team reflects modern Australia, one that represents families with roots from across the world, united by a shared commitment to our incredible nation.”
“Prebunking is currently the only approach available, where communities have to be warned of a complete lack of standards and truthful disclosure requirements for any content they receive during election periods or in between. That is appalling. I commend this bill to the House, and I thank the member for Bradfield for her support in this legislation.”
“They know this is happening. Voters are ahead of the government. Recent Essential Research polling from the Australian Democracy Network found 70 per cent of Australians want truth-in-political-advertising laws, while only seven per cent oppose them. Australians know the difference between a fierce debate and deliberate deception, and they want parliament and this government to act. Either the major parties need to find the courage to step up and put these guardrails and standards in place—standards that have overwhelming support from voters—or the move away from the major parties will continue and communities will keep looking for alternatives.”
“The modern information space is abundant with misinformation and disinformation. Still, political advertising remains a free-for-all in this country. We're witnessing a fundamental shift in how political information is created, distributed and consumed. For most of Australia's democratic history, political messages passed through institutions that exercised some degree of editorial judgement and accountability. Today, increasingly, information is selected and amplified by opaque algorithms whose operation is invisible to voters, regulators and governments. They have the power to push particular content to target voter profiles. That shift has profound implications for democratic accountability. This is a standards-free zone, and it urgently needs fixing. That's why I'm reintroducing this bill. Voters have had enough of this status quo.”
“This addresses directly the concerns previously raised by the AEC commissioner that, if the AEC held this power directly, it could undermine confidence in the commissioner's impartiality. So I say to the government: we've addressed that excuse. Fourth, it provides that content that is misleading or deceptive will attract criminal consequences and fines. This bill is targeted at false factual claims. It prohibits electoral or referendum material from including an express or implied statement of fact that is material, misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive. Truth in political advertising is not about stopping robust debate, opinion, satire or criticism. It is about stopping false statements of facts, deceptive impersonation and advertising that misleads voters while they are forming their choice.”
“Any content that has been substantially created through AI has to bear a watermark, so the viewer is at the very least on notice that this is AI generated. It also safeguards future elections from the risk of electoral AI agents. Second, political advertising must comply with the Ethical Political Advertising Code. All other consumer advertising has to comply with codes. Political advertising is the only one that is not covered currently. The political advertising code will require political advertising to be truthful and accurate. Claims must not mislead by omission, opinions must be identified as such and scientific claims should reflect the full body of evidence. Third, this bill creates a political advertising standards board separate from the AEC commissioner to consider complaints and referrals and to take action.”
“It doesn't take a genie to see that there could be floodgates at the next election of politically motivated referrals to the NACC, which then just happen to be leaked to the media, with third parties linked to the opponents running advertising without any proper basis, making allegations that are incredibly false and damaging. We have longstanding consumer protections to protect people from being scammed out of their money by misleading and deceptive advertising for goods and services. Yet we continue to allow voters to be scammed by misleading and deceptive political advertising. We allow different rules for politicians than for the rest of Australians, and it has to stop. This legislation does four clear things. First, it requires AI watermarking.”