Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is rushing to pass new “Digital Duty of Care” laws in October that will give the government sweeping powers to monitor, control and remove speech on social media.

This is not about safety. It is about narrative control.

What the legislation does

Under the proposed Duty, the Communications Minister — or the eSafety Commissioner at the Minister’s direction — can make binding rules to:

- Designate new categories of “harm” (with no fixed definition)

- Set compliance requirements for platforms and messaging services

- Exempt favoured services from the rules 

These rules are “disallowable” in theory, but in practice they allow the executive to expand what counts as harmful content long after the bill passes.

Albanese knows that if he can force Meta, X and others to pre-emptively remove “risky” content, he controls the national conversation. 

That means:

- Messaging of topics like immigration, gender and sovereignty could be flagged as harmful;

- Advocacy on climate, energy, agriculture and regional issues could be limited; and

- Faith-based and family organisations could lose their online voice.

Liberal Senator Alex Antic has warned publicly:

“Labor dropped the misinfo bill but their Digital Duty of Care laws are coming. This is another Trojan Horse for free speech online.” 

What you can do today:

1. Contact your MP using our template. 

2. Share our campaign on your social feeds. 

3. Forward this email to five friends and ask them to do the same.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Our country and our freedom are at stake. Albanese wants this to be his legacy: destroying free speech once and for all. We cannot allow it.