Two Australian federal parliamentarians from opposite ends of the political spectrum — One Nation's Barnaby Joyce and the Greens' Sarah Hanson-Young — have each voiced objections to a proposal by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth that would allow members of the public to watch a live broadcast of the scheduled 3 December execution of Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad.
A jury found Hasan guilty of fatally shooting 13 people and wounding dozens of others at Fort Hood in 2009. An execution carried out against him would represent the first time the United States military had used a firing squad to put someone to death since the Second World War.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young wrote to Communications Minister Anika Wells and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant calling on both officials to take all available steps to block the content from being broadcast or accessed within Australia. In her correspondence, Hanson-Young argued that the footage constitutes an act of state-sanctioned killing that would expose a large number of people — among them millions of Australians, including children — to harm, and that such material has no place in any society.
Proposals to let such material move freely and without oversight through the social media feeds of the Australian public, including young people, have drawn opposition. Joyce raised concerns about the accessibility of the US firing squad execution online, noting that children could potentially encounter such footage, and called on the Australian Government to take action against what he described as content reminiscent of ancient spectator violence.
Wells expressed disagreement with the approach, telling a news outlet that Australia's absence of capital punishment meant he had no desire for children — or anyone else — to watch a person face a firing squad. Separately, his office and eSafety are reported to be looking into what steps might be taken across online platforms, free-to-air television, and streaming services in the weeks before the event.
Speaking at a Question Time session on Monday, Wells put forward a "Digital Duty Of Care" framework intended to place responsibility on large technology platforms for online safety improvements. She described it as a whole-of-internet measure warranted given that Parliament had, roughly two years prior, moved to limit Australian children's exposure to social media. She pointed to a range of platform design features — including targeted algorithms, doom-scrolling mechanics, persistent notifications, and popularity metrics — that she said had been deployed in ways that drew on young people's attention for extended periods each day.
Surveys of Australian families point to a split reaction to the age-16 social media restriction — a degree of relief on one hand, alongside unresolved questions about how children navigate risks on platforms that fall outside that rule, such as online games and AI chatbots. A number of parents have urged Parliament to take further action on the matter, a call that has drawn backing from other quarters as well.
Proposed legislation from Wells, expected to reach Parliament on Thursday, would require technology companies to build platforms with safeguards against foreseeable harms. A range of professionals and advocacy groups have called on lawmakers to advance the measure as part of a broader digital duty of care framework for young Australians.
Wells disclosed plans to remove a ministerial power from the bill — one that would have allowed her to define "serious harm" categories outside the legislation's own text — with the aim of getting the measure through before the end of the year. With the final sitting week of November serving as a hard deadline for Labor, both the Greens and the Coalition have raised objections to the current exposure draft on the grounds that it goes too far, while a spokesperson for the legislation argued that accountability for online harms belongs with the platforms themselves, not with users or governments.
Addressing Parliament on Monday, Wells put forward the position that internet protection measures ought to transcend party lines, urging lawmakers across the political spectrum to unite around establishing a formal duty of care in the digital sphere. "Collaboration toward a shared outcome remains entirely within reach," she said.
