The Albanese government has celebrated its marathon final sitting day as an “extraordinary result” with more than 30 bills passing into law.
The bundle of legislation, which passed on Thursday, brings the total number of laws Labor has passed this year to 140.
After a late final night in the Senate, parliament has adjourned until February next year – unless the federal election is called early.
But, for now, here’s how some of the new laws might impact you.
Restricted social media
It’s captured many of the following morning’s headlines – and for good reason. The Labor government swiftly passed laws banning under-16s from having accounts on a number of social media platforms.
The law is due to take effect in 12 months’ time and will affect social media platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, X and the message board Reddit. Some messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, will be excluded.
Many of the details on how the ban will work are still being worked out, but it will require further work. Labor’s legislation has ruled out social media platforms using government identification to verify a person’s age, but other forms of assurance might be required.
As always, the devil could be in the details.
Rules against doxing
It will now be illegal to publicise a person’s personal data, better known as doxing, because of their race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, intersex status, disability, nationality or national or ethnic origin.
Those found to have targeted someone by “maliciously” releasing their data could be jailed for up to seven years.
The new laws also include a new children’s online privacy code to better protect children online, and financial penalties for companies that breach privacy laws that don’t meet the “serious” threshold.
Build-to-rent incentives
Tax breaks to spur on the construction of about 80,000 new homes to rent passed the Senate after the Greens dropped their demands earlier this week.
The changes provide incentives by increasing the capital works deduction rate to 4% a year and reducing the final withholding tax rate for properties in which institutional investors become landlords for long-term leases.
The offer will be made available to developments with 50 or more apartments or dwellings and they must remain under single ownership for at least 15 years.
A minimum 10% of the dwellings in a development need to affordable – defined as being rented out at 75% of market rate.
Supermarket crackdown
One of the bills to get a little less attention on Friday was the introduction of fines for supermarkets who break the rules in the food and grocery code.
Under the changes, supermarkets could be slapped with the greater of a $10m fine, three times the value of the benefit gained from the breach, or 10% of the last year’s turnover.
The code will become mandatory for supermarkets from April 2025 and governs how supermarkets bargain with suppliers. It can have flow-on effects for consumers.
A report delivered to the government earlier this year found there was “a heavy imbalance in market power between suppliers and supermarkets in Australia’s heavily concentrated supermarket industry”.
Country-specific visa bans possible
Countries could be blacklisted by Australia under visa changes that allow the government to designate a country a “removal concern”.
It’s part of a broader suite of migration bills designed to facilitate the removal of non-citizens from Australia after a series of unfavourable high court rulings against the federal government.
The new power allows the government to ban new visa applications from countries that do not accept removals from Australia, described by the Greens as a “Trump-style travel ban”.
There’s a three-year sunset on the power for the minister to ban visa applications from a country, and a requirement to give reasons for such a designation.
Surcharges removed for some government agencies
Shortly before Thursday, the government announced it would stop passing on debit surcharges from the ATO and Services Australia from 1 January 2025.
But the bills announced in the same media release also closed an inconvenient legislative blindspot revealed after New South Wales government agencies were found to have illegally charged people about $144m in merchant fees.
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, acknowledged it had received advice that surcharges collected were “likely unlawful in certain circumstances without a legislative basis to permit it”.
