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When Communications Minister Anika Wells sat down for ABC’s Insiders on Sunday, she knew the questions were coming. The Albanese government had just released the exposure draft of its sweeping new internet law, the Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill, and the political atmosphere was thick with suspicion. Two years earlier, Labor had quietly walked away from its own misinformation and disinformation bill, a policy that had sparked intense free speech debates and drawn fire from civil liberties advocates. That bill was never resurrected, but it was never formally buried either, and on Sunday Wells was given six opportunities to declare it dead. She declined every single time. With the government now pushing a broader “Digital Duty of Care” regime that would force social media platforms and other online services to take responsibility for algorithmic harms, critics immediately began wondering whether this was simply a backdoor way to reintroduce content regulation under a new name. Wells insisted the two projects were entirely separate, but her repeated refusal to rule out reviving the old misinformation policy left the door open just enough for her opponents to walk through. In a political environment already anxious about censorship, digital rights, and the power of Big Tech, that small crack suddenly seemed very wide indeed.
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The interview itself was a masterclass in political evasion, and Wells’ language revealed how carefully the government is trying to navigate this issue. When asked whether the Digital Duty of Care was motivated by a desire to make governing easier by cleaning up misinformation, she replied, “No, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time here,” before pivoting to a broader concern about the decline of public trust in institutions. She tried to shift the focus to the structural loss of faith in democratic systems, framing the question as something affecting every parliamentarian, not just her. But when pressed again on whether Australians should be suspicious after Labor’s 2024 attempt to regulate misinformation, she pivoted again, insisting that the Digital Duty of Care is about “systems, functions and features,” not content. That claim, however, sat awkwardly with the actual draft legislation, which repeatedly refers to “content,” including “content giving rise to risks.” The push continued. Would the government return to the separate issue of mis- and disinformation? “At the moment, I am highly focused on introducing the digital duty of care to the parliament,” she said. Then came the further question, and the more revealing answer: “That’s not what I’m saying.” Asked directly, “Well, will you?” she again stopped short of a no, saying it “is not part of the agenda that I need to deliver this term.” That phrasing leaves a massive loophole, one that extends beyond the next election. When that was pointed out, Wells dismissed it as hypothetical, adding, “I tell you what, I’m up to pussy’s bow delivering all the other parts of the portfolio.” For anyone listening closely, the takeaway was clear: no commitment, no denial, and no comfort for those who hoped the misinformation bill was gone for good.
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Opposition Leader Angus Taylor wasted no time in declaring the Digital Duty of Care a “political censorship bill,” and the Coalition has already said it will oppose the legislation in its current form. Taylor was careful to acknowledge the government’s social media ban for under-16s, which the Opposition supported, but he drew a sharp line between protecting children and allowing the state to police political speech. “What we don’t support is a political censorship bill and sadly that’s what we have in front of us right now,” he said. This attack has forced Labor into a defensive crouch, with Special Minister of State Don Farrell dismissing the accusation as “nonsense” and praising Wells for leading the world in internet regulation. But the critics’ concern is not entirely abstract. Under the proposed laws, the Communications Minister would have significant power to define what constitutes “serious harm” online, guided by technical advice from the eSafety Commissioner. Wells defended this by noting that such rule-making powers already exist in the Online Safety Act and that the rules would be “disallowable instruments” subject to parliamentary deliberation. Yet the Parliament she is asking to act as a check is one where Labor holds a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives and only needs the support of the Greens in the Senate. In practice, that means the government can likely push through whatever definition of harm it chooses, leaving the supposed safeguards feeling less like protections and more like politeness.
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One of the most striking aspects of the draft legislation is how far its reach extends. Wells told News24.com.au that the Digital Duty of Care would capture not just social media platforms but also news websites, online games, and AI chatbots. This admission immediately raised alarm bells among press freedom advocates. How could a law grounded in algorithmic “systems and processes” also sweep in the digital pages of newspapers and broadcasters? Wells tried to reassure by explaining that the law is not about editorial control. “News websites are not a function and feature of an online platform,” she said, arguing that the duty falls on the technology systems, not on the content produced by journalists. But the logic becomes muddier when you look at the “My Feed, My Way” proposal, which would give users the option to turn off algorithmically recommended content and instead see posts from accounts they explicitly follow. If a user switches to their following feed, they would still see news content from media companies they have chosen to follow. But for everyone else, the default experience would no longer surface news stories from sources they haven’t selected. In effect, the algorithm switch could reduce the visibility of journalism across the internet, making news less discoverable even as the law insists it is not targeting news. Wells’ spokesperson tried to close the gap by saying, “There is no change to how journalists can report news under the Digital Duty of Care,” but that statement ignores the quieter threat: the change is not about reporting, it is about reaching an audience. A law that shapes the distribution of news may end up shaping the news business itself.
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At the heart of the debate is the question of who decides what is harmful. The proposed Digital Duty of Care hands significant discretion to the eSafety Commissioner and the Communications Minister. Under the new framework, the minister and the eSafety Commissioner would work together to identify categories of content or platform functions that create a “serious harm” risk. Wells described this test as a standard that would ultimately be made by her “on the expert technical advice of the eSafety Commissioner.” When challenged that this could amount to censorship, she insisted that wouldn’t happen because the parliament would have the final say on whether the minister made the right call. But given the government’s control of the parliamentary arithmetic, that reassurance is weak. Labor’s majority in the lower house and the likely support of the Greens in the Senate mean the “check and balance” is more theoretical than structural. Wells also defended her personal role by pointing to her previous decision to include YouTube in the social media minimum age laws, as if using the power responsibly once proves it can always be trusted. Yet the reality remains that a minister with a strong ideological agenda could use these powers to craft definitions of harm that quietly push political speech into the shadows. It is easy to imagine the first test case: a viral video, a misleading article, a provocative post, and suddenly the “systems and features” debate becomes a copyright dispute for the digital age, with the state as the final arbiter of truth.
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In human terms, this entire controversy reflects a deeper anxiety about how democracies should govern the digital public square. There is no serious person who denies that online platforms can be toxic, that children face real dangers, or that misinformation can undermine public health and democratic confidence. The problem is that the solutions being proposed are so broad and so open to interpretation that they could easily become tools of political control. Anika Wells may genuinely believe she is protecting Australians from algorithmic harm, and Don Farrell may genuinely believe the censorship accusations are nonsense, but intent does not erase effect. The worst mistakes in internet policy are rarely made by people trying to suppress speech; they are made by people trying to clean up a mess and accidentally sweeping away the protections that keep society free. Wells’ refusal to rule out reviving the misinformation and disinformation bill, combined with the sweeping powers in the Digital Duty of Care, leaves the public with a troubling uncertainty. Whatever Labor says about systems and processes, the draft law is filled with references to content and harm, and the minister’s language is carefully elastic enough to accommodate almost any future policy direction. By the time the government explains exactly where the line is drawn, the line may have already moved. Australians are being asked to trust that a government which controls both houses of Parliament will exercise restraint, that the eSafety Commissioner will remain independent, and that the “My Feed, My Way” algorithm choice will empower rather than manipulate. But trust is exactly what has been eroding, as Wells herself acknowledged in that Sunday interview. The problem is that she offered no concrete reason for that trust to be restored. Instead, she left the door open to a policy that many Australians feared, and the only thing certain is that the fight over the future of online speech is far from over.