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The Albanese Government wants to pass its Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 by the end of this year.

The Government says the Bill is about keeping Australians safe online. But it raises serious concerns about who will decide what Australians can say and hear online.

If passed, the Bill will almost certainly lead to censorship of Bible-based convictions about marriage, abortion, gender, Islam and more.

A Senate committee is accepting public submissions on the Bill, but submissions close tomorrow, Midnight Friday, 30 October.

Please make a submission asking Parliament to reject the Bill.

Recently TV host Rowan Dean gave a scathing takedown of Labor’s ‘disgraceful’ Digital Duty of Care Bill, calling it gross government control and interference. Check it out below.

Central Concern with the Digital Duty of Care Bill

Some improvements have been made since the Bill was first released in September. But the central concern remains: Who decides what is harmful?

Considering the ever-increasing list of laws restricting Christian convictions, we simply do not trust the government to decide that answer for us.

If passed, the Bill would require the removal of “any other material or conduct, or combination of material and conduct, that may cause serious harm to children.”

It also targets material or conduct that “encourages or promotes hostile attitudes towards women or gender equality”.

What exactly do these words mean? The Bill does not clearly explain.

These vague definitions would give the government, bureaucrats and tech giants the power to censor material they consider potentially harmful.

Faced with fines up to $109 million, will platforms carefully defend legitimate debate — or simply remove anything that might attract a complaint?

Consider how these definitions could be applied:

• A Christian explains why abortion takes an innocent human life and is accused of being “hostile towards women”.
• Someone defends biological sex in women’s sport and is accused of opposing “gender equality”.
• A social media post stating that men cannot become women or that men cannot breastfeed is banned because someone says it makes them feel “unsafe” and could lead them to self-harm.
• A person argues that COVID vaccines are unnecessary for children and is censored because officials consider the statement material that “may cause serious harm to children”.
• Someone says children are best raised by their biological dad and mum, and the statement is deemed potentially harmful to children being raised by same-sex couples.

We encourage you to watch this interview on News24 further discussing censorship concerns with the Bill.

How to Make a Submission

We recommend urging Parliament to scrap the Bill in its entirety and explaining your concerns in your own words. You could raise any of these concerns:

• Who gets to decide what is “harmful”? The Bill leaves too much room for subjective judgments about what people can say online.
• What stops these powers growing? The government could add new kinds of “harm” later, giving censorship powers an ever-widening reach.
• Could unpopular opinions be silenced? Lawful views on gender, abortion, marriage and other controversial issues could be branded “harmful”.
• Where is the protection for public Christian and political speech? The Bill does not clearly protect what Australians say publicly about matters of faith and public life.

Please make your submission by Friday, 30 October. It can be as simple as one or two sentences.

You are always encouraged to do your own research and draw your own conclusions. The ACL has come to a different position on the Bill (which you can read more about here). The Daily Declaration has many articles covering this Bill, which you can read here.

You can email your submission directly to ec.sen@aph.gov.au. Your submission can be short and sweet. One sentence or 100 sentences. We recommend using the Australian Christian Lobby’s (ACL) excellent submission tool by clicking the orange button below. You can edit the wording to express your own concerns.

Politics is all about numbers. It’s critical that as many people as possible express their concerns before Friday’s deadline.

Please share the contents of this email with your friends and family because numbers are everything.

Yours for Christian faith, freedom, family, and life,

Samuel Hartwich & Warwick Marsh