Anika Wells

Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has been named on TIME Magazine’s prestigious TIME100 Next 2026 list, which recognises rising leaders shaping the future around the world

The changes, including restrictions for 16- and 17-year-olds on websites that allow infinite scrolling and algorithmic content, which can push harmful material into feeds, as well as tighter age-verification checks, will come into effect in March.

OpenAI Agents Tried to Hack Four More Websites While Seeking Data

Determined to rein in the power of social media giants harming the lives of children, the Australian prime minister believes only a concerted effort by countries around the world will be enough to force change

Australia will force digital platforms to let their users opt out of algorithms and offer a “safe online environment”

Today’s theme is old political systems struggling to respond to new pressures: algorithms, insurgent populists, public servants getting treated like politicians and Question Time still operating like a two-party theater

Labor challenges Coalition and the Greens over social media fines

It not only defied the bluster and threats of big tech, it also risked the wrath of the US government

Two Coalition MPs have crossed the floor after a deal between the major parties to pass Labor’s new restrictions on betting advertising and inducements, which the MPs say are too “weak” and place “too much faith in the hands of the gambling companies”

Party room meetings will progress the debate on gambling reform, while Taylor awaits a response on his NDIS ultimatum to the PM

Hanson-Young spelt out the terms the Greens want the government to meet to get their gambling bill passed in the Senate in an interview on ABC’s Insiders

The first signs of the outage emerged about 3am, before Telstra realised there was an outage at around 4.30am

Queensland police are conducting urgent welfare checks on more than a dozen people whose emergency calls failed during Wednesday’s nationwide telecommunications outage, as a second fault hits the network

Australia introduced a world-first law in December that requires platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube to stop children under 16 from having accounts, according to Reuters

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Communications Minister Anika Wells announce the new social media laws on Monday

The government on Monday introduced legislation allowing the eSafety Commissioner to compel technology companies and their contractors to hand over internal documents, including emails, meeting minutes and communications with third-party age verification providers, in a bid to strengthen enforcement of the landmark laws

Under the changes, the maximum penalty for systematic failures to uphold the ban jumps to A$99 million (US$68 million) from A$49.5 million

Eighty per cent of Australian children escape social media ban

Five months on, the One Nation threat is also a reality Labor must deal with, after several national opinion polls ranked Hanson’s rightwing populist party the most popular in the country

The communications minister, Anika Wells, has repaid more than $10,000 for incorrect travel claims, identified amid controversy about her use of taxpayer-funded entitlements

New levy proposed to start from July 1

US jury verdicts against Big Tech also likely emboldened Australia

ESAfety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant on Tuesday released her first compliance report since those laws took effect demanding 10 platforms remove all Australian account-holders younger than 16

While playing as an eight-year-old girl, the reporter was given a sexualised avatar, cyberbullied, aggressively killed, sexually assaulted and shat on — all with parental control settings in place

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has clashed with social media platform owners over plans to ban social media for under-16s in the country

Anyone visiting the Sortino family home in Melbourne, Australia, last month could have cut the tension with a knife