The tech industry has never been more powerful. How do the government's policies stack up?

The Guardian

16-02-2025

There's never been a more important time to care about technology. Many Australians are watching in horror as tech billionaires wield unbridled power in the US. Understanding how tech – both the tools and the industry – is changing, and working to fight the worst of it has become a key responsibility of any government worth its salt.
This is what makes Australia's track record on tech so disappointing. Looking back over the past three years of tech policy under the current Albanese government, it's hard not to cringe. It's been a period of huge technological upheaval; what do we have to show for it?
Online misinformation is often cited as a grave concern for democracy, national security, online safety and, well, the very notion of truth itself – coming from all sides of politics. Misinformation was rampant in the lead-up to the voice referendum, with some believing it played a key role in its defeat. Given this, it was baffling to watch the government's attempt to combat it.
An exposure draft bill was met with significant pushback in 2023. This included valid criticisms (like overly broad definitions and letting mainstream media off the hook), as well as a flurry of outrage that was – ironically – fuelled by misleading comments that framed the bill as censorship. The government then revised the draft, only to dump it entirely later.
Privacy law reform may not sound like the sexiest tech policy issue but it's one of the key ways that we can rein in corporate power, reduce things like harmful online profiling and advertising, and build a safer and more fair digital future for everyone.
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With that in mind, the government has fumbled the ball on privacy reform. Australia's Privacy Act pre-dates the web and falls embarrassingly behind on the world stage. The 2022 Optus breach was the opportune moment to finally make the long-overdue changes to better protect everyone. Instead, a small bill was passed which focused on increasing fines; giving the privacy commissioner a bigger stick if companies don't follow the rules but doing nothing to fix the rules themselves. It was functionally flaccid but allowed the government to pat themselves on the back for Doing Something.
The government has managed to get through a handful of privacy reforms, with the biggest changes being a children's online privacy code and a statutory tort – most simply this means that people can sue for serious invasion of their privacy. While these are positive steps, the real story is the swathe of other, more significant and impactful proposals that were left to languish on the sidelines.
While Australia may be lagging behind on privacy, politicians love to claim we're 'world leading' in online safety. We should ask though: where exactly are we leading the world toward? Is it somewhere good?
In the case of the government's flagship tech policy – the teen social media ban – the answer is no. In developing the Social Media Minimum Age Act the government blatantly ignored experts across the fields of digital wellbeing, digital rights advocacy, youth mental health and more than 140 academics and 20 Australian civil society organisations. Even concern from the human rights commissioner and doubt from the eSafety commissioner could not slow this train down. Investigative reporting revealed the government was internally aware of a lack of evidence in its last-minute lawmaking.
In a spectacular display of policymaking theatre, the public was given a single day to provide feedback – a pointless exercise given it was impossible for the committee to even read the 15,000 submissions before tabling a report four days later. The government only seems to engage in genuine public consultation when there's no real motivation to follow through. When evidence-based, long-term tech policy proposals contradict their agenda, they literally have no time for it.
Let's not forget the cruel decision to confiscate phones from people in immigration detention, cutting people off from loved ones and stymying government accountability for detention centre practices; pretty lacklustre moves on regulating AI; kneejerk criminalisation of doxing, which sounds good on the surface but rushed past concerns; and dragging their feet on overdue improvements to Australia's online safety regime.
Taken together, despite a handful of small positives scattered over the years, it has overall been a pitiful term for tech policy. But it's worth remembering that the Coalition's latest stint was no better: alarming increased surveillance powers in the Identify and Disrupt Act, notorious anti-encryption legislation, an invasive metadata retention scheme, and the absurd and ultimately failed anti-trolling bill.
We are in desperate need of leaders who take technology seriously, who engage meaningfully with research, and who recognise the importance of a tech future centred on people, not profit. Australians deserve better than lacklustre on the one hand, or actively dangerous on the other.
Samantha Floreani is a digital rights activist and writer based in Melbourne/Naarm