--- title: 'Concerns: online safety, sex discrimination, citizenship, tax, manufacturing, tenant fiber upgrades, privatisation of services, infrastructure, loans, fertilizer, and alcohol tax' url: 'https://kaleb.au/blog/concerns-online-safety-ownership-and-more' markdown: 'https://kaleb.au/blog/concerns-online-safety-ownership-and-more.md' date: '2026-10-20' description: "I'm writing to share several concerns about current and proposed policy. 1. Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 Sections of this bill are considerably too vague. For example, provisions such as material or conduct that encourages, promotes, incites or instructs individuals to c…" --- # [Concerns: online safety, sex discrimination, citizenship, tax, manufacturing, tenant fiber upgrades, privatisation of services, infrastructure, loans, fertilizer, and alcohol tax](https://kaleb.au/blog/concerns-online-safety-ownership-and-more) 20 Oct 2026 I'm writing to share several concerns about current and proposed policy. ## 1. Online Safety Amendment (Digital Duty of Care) Bill 2026 Sections of this bill are considerably too vague. For example, provisions such as material or conduct that encourages, promotes, incites or instructs individuals to consider suicide or take their own life, or engage in self-harm, could be interpreted so broadly that someone being told a truth about the world they disagree with which causes any form of depression could fall under it. The bill also puts the onus on platforms and third parties rather than giving parents power to properly monitor their children's internet usage. On child protection, the focus should be on empowering parents. One suggestion: mandate that platforms offer a feed option based primarily on who users follow or groups they subscribe to something many platforms already have. *References:* Exposure draft: https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/exposure-draft-online-safety-amendment-digital-duty-of-care-bill-2026-september2026.pdf ; Bill text: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbills%2Fr7553\_first-reps%2F0000%22 ; Explanatory Memorandum: https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/ems/r7553\_ems\_646770dc-4740-4989-9e2e-e1e129e42251/upload\_pdf/JC019225.pdf ## 2. Sex Discrimination Amendment (new section 32A) The bill exclusively carves out exceptions for women-only spaces, services and activities under new section 32A. I feel this is inherently unjust, as it gives one sex more protections than the rest of the population. My proposal would be to broaden this provision to cover both sexes. *References:* OzPolitics explainer: https://ozpolitics.au/government/sex-discrimination-amendment-sex-based-rights-bill-2026-explained ; Bill search: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary\_Business/Bills\_Legislation/Bills\_Search\_Results/Result?bId=s1500 ## 3. Australian Citizenship Amendment (Stripping Terrorists of Australian Citizenship) Bill 2026 I support this bill, but feel it should be slightly broadened so that anyone stripped of citizenship is also forever ineligible for any visa, permanent residency, or citizenship. ## 4. Tax-free threshold and JobSeeker I believe the tax-free threshold for income tax should be increased to $30,000 to help alleviate pressure on everyone. Additionally, JobSeeker payments should at least cover rent. *References:* ATO tax-free threshold: https://www.ato.gov.au/individuals-and-families/income-deductions-offsets-and-records/income-you-must-declare/tax-free-threshold ; Services Australia JobSeeker: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/jobseeker-payment ## 5. Chip manufacturing and export taxes I think the Australian government should invest in chip manufacturing within Australia. The demand and price of memory chips are only going to go up, and if we can get chip manufacturing up and running here, it will be a great long-term investment for the economy. I also believe we should start putting a blanket export tax on minerals and animal products that we export. ## 6. Tenant fiber upgrades in apartment buildings I believe individual tenants should be able to request a fiber upgrade within apartment buildings in cases where strata or building management refuses to request the upgrade. ## 7. Privatisation of services the government should provide I'm concerned about the constant privatisation of services that the Australian government should be doing itself. My proposal would be that the federal government legislates that the states shall operate their own construction company and prioritise using it when it makes sense. A state government having its own construction company is not unprecedented: the New South Wales government established the State Brickworks in 1946 under the State Brickworks Act 1946, which manufactured bricks for decades (holding roughly 7% of the NSW brick market) before being closed in 1988 (NSW State Records). On digital services requiring programming, the government should prioritise using its own departments. Each time it goes out to tender and a new company is chosen, basically all institutional knowledge of the project is lost, which increases ramp-up time and costs to the public. If the Australian Government consistently uses its own departments for programming services, it can maintain consistency and quality. *References:* State Brickworks (NSW State Records): https://search.records.nsw.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?context=L&docid=ORGANISATIONS1002917&vid=61SRA ; State Brickworks Act 1946: https://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/html/repealed/current/act-1946-016 ## 8. Infrastructure upgrades blocked by local opposition State and federal governments need better means to allow for infrastructure upgrades and new infrastructure to be built, and not allow locals to prevent the required infrastructure upgrades. For example, sewer system upgrades on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, and the fact that the train line stops at Bondi Junction instead of going all the way to Bondi Beach. ## 9. Restrictions on loans for companies with government contracts We should also put restrictions on companies that have government contracts, where they can't get loans from companies in foreign nations with a high interest rate, as a means to reduce their profit and therefore their tax burden. ## 10. Incentivizing farmers to collect manure We should be incentivizing farmers to collect manure from all their livestock to help subsidize the very likely future global fertilizer shortage, as modern day fertilizer is produced from natural gas. ## 11. Alcohol tax I also believe we should be significantly reducing the alcohol tax. For example, on a 1 litre bottle of gin at 40% ABV, $44.06 of the price is excise duty alone ($110.15 per litre of alcohol), and at 37% ABV it's $40.76 plus 10% GST on top. On a $60 bottle that's roughly $49.50 (40% ABV) or $46.21 (37% ABV) in tax. *References:* ATO excise duty rates for alcohol: https://www.ato.gov.au/businesses-and-organisations/gst-excise-and-indirect-taxes/excise-on-alcohol/excise-duty-rates-for-alcohol ## 12. IPv6 adoption by Australian ISPs When it comes to the internet, there are two major addressing protocols: IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 addresses were depleted at the IANA level on 3 February 2011, though the concern about limited address space arose in the early 1990s, which is when IPv6 was designed as the successor essentially increasing the total number of possible addresses from 2^32 to 2^128 along with many performance, security and overall improvements to how data is routed. Here in Australia we've gotten quite good at supporting IPv6, but there are still many ISPs that don't correctly support it or don't support it at all. This generally means the user sits behind NAT or, worse, CGNAT. This has major downsides: it restricts what the user can run within their home network, and on the security side it makes it significantly harder to correctly block people you don't want accessing your services. I'd like the federal government to start pushing ISPs to at least support routed /56 prefixes to residential homes. As for pushback on additional costs: IPv6 addresses are significantly cheaper than IPv4 a /24 of IPv4 now trades at ~$12,000+ (~$50 per address), while an IPv6 /48 costs only $5–$15/year to lease ($10–$50 to purchase). *References:* IPv4 depletion (ICANN/IANA, 3 Feb 2011): https://itp.cdn.icann.org/en/files/announcements/release-03feb11-en.pdf ; RFC 6177 (BCP 157 recommends /56 for home users): https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6177.html ; RIPE BCOP (prefix assignment): https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-690 ; IPv6 /48 cost ($5–$15/yr lease): https://www.rapidseedbox.com/blog/how-much-do-ipv6-addresses-cost ; IPv4 /24 price (~$12,000+): https://ipbnb.com/blog/blog-ipv4-vs-ipv6-comparison-guide \--- Kaleb McGhie --- ## Glossary of terms - **ABV (alcohol by volume):** the percentage of a drink that is pure alcohol. - **CGNAT (Carrier-Grade NAT):** where multiple households share a small number of public IP addresses, restricting what users can run on their home networks. - **Excise duty:** a tax on specific goods such as alcohol, tobacco and fuel. - **GST (Goods and Services Tax):** a 10% tax on most goods and services in Australia. - **IANA:** the body that oversees global IP address allocation. - **IPv4 / IPv6:** Internet Protocol versions 4 and 6 the systems used to address devices on the internet. IPv4 has 2^32 (≈4.3 billion) addresses (now exhausted); IPv6 has 2^128 (≈340 undecillion), a vastly larger supply. - **ISP (Internet Service Provider):** a company that provides internet access. - **NAT (Network Address Translation):** where multiple devices in one home share a single public IP address. - **Network:** a group of connected devices that can communicate with each other (e.g., all the devices in your home). - **RFC (Request for Comments):** a document published by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) that sets technical standards for how the internet works. - **Sub-network (subnet):** a smaller subdivision of a larger network used to organise and route traffic for example, separating your main devices, guest devices, and smart-home (IoT) devices into their own subnets. - **/24, /48, /56:** sizes of IP address blocks (a /24 = 256 addresses; a /56 = 256 sub-networks; a /48 = 65,536 sub-networks). --- ## Navigation - Parent: [Blog](https://kaleb.au/blog.md) - Next: [Replacing `Queue` With a `RingBuffer`, and Bumping Cosmos to .NET 10](https://kaleb.au/blog/cosmos-ringbuffer-and-dotnet-10.md)