The exposure draft of the bill is an extremely welcome development, and we are broadly supportive of this initiative.

The Internet is a vital component of modern civil life and it is vital for the health of our democracy and of us as individuals that everyone is able to participate in the online world, free from harms from not only large tech corporations but also regular Australian businesses.

We think it is critically important that a human rights approach to online safety is central and would welcome more explicit commitments in this respect, including in the extraneous materials.

We do have some concerns about gaps in implementation and potential side-effects of some of the proposed legislation, which are addressed in our submission.