Online Safety (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) 2021

✦ Plain-English Summary

# Online Safety (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) 2021

## What it does
This bill replaces the old online safety rules (from 2015) with new, stronger ones. It updates a bunch of related laws to work smoothly with the new Online Safety Act 2021, which gives the eSafety Commissioner more power to deal with harmful online content like cyberbullying, non-consensual intimate images, and scams.

## Why it matters
The eSafety Commissioner now has clearer rules and stronger tools to take action against harmful content faster. This affects anyone who reports online abuse or harmful material, and any platform that hosts user-generated content—they'll need to follow the new rules or face consequences.

## Key details
- **The old 2015 law gets scrapped** entirely and replaced with the new system
- **Transition rules are built in**: Complaints and objections that were started under the old system get transferred to the new eSafety Commissioner to handle
- **It affects multiple laws**: Changes to telecommunications laws, broadcasting rules, and others so they all work together with the new online safety framework
- **Starts when the main Online Safety Act 2021 kicks in**, not before

Official Description

Introduced with the Online Safety Bill 2021, the bill: repeals the Enhancing Online Safety Act 2015 ; makes consequential amendments to 10 Acts; amends the Crimes Act 1914 , Export Market Development Grants Act 1997 and Online Safety Act 2021 , when enacted, to make amendments contingent on the commencement of certain other Acts; and contains transitional and application provisions.

Committee Referrals

Senate Environment and Communications Legislation Committee; Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills; Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights

Full bill PDF →APH page →

Audit History

Introduced

24 Feb 2021

Last updated on APH

10 Apr 2026

Outcome date

23 July 2021

Last checked by Crossbench

2 days ago

Full text indexed

2 days ago

🗳️

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