In recent years, policymakers in Australia have developed a self-styled reputation for developing a world-leading regulatory playbook for tech and telecoms. So far this effort has had mixed success in challenging the more famous ‘Brussels Effect’ for influence over regulation further afield.
While Australia has long been an innovator in tech and telecoms regulation, it has more recently set an unmatched pace in introducing rules. Though we count more than 20 new and pending interventions over the past five years, with many described as either ‘world-first’ or ‘world-leading, a 'Canberra Effect’ hasn’t yet materialised and resulted in widespread adoption of Australian made rules abroad.
The Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation and the Social Media Minimum Age Act both represent such examples of proposals that have drawn the attention of peers – as far afield as Europe, which more recently has been considered the exporter of regulation via the ‘Brussels Effect’.
Regulators have been successful in influencing the global standards that often underpin regulation. ACMA and the eSafety Commissioner are particularly active in steering global conversations around scams prevention and age assurance.
Australia’s co-regulatory model for developing industry codes (such as in combatting scams) has found success with its narrowly defined groups of stakeholders and opportunities for embracing the technical knowledge of industry.
With the politicisation of some recent regulatory interventions such as the DMA and DSA, middle powers (including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, UK) have a greater opportunity to provide fresh ideas and thinking – particularly in new and emerging areas of policymaking.
Australia has sought to become world-leading in its regulatory intervention, but wider adoption of regulation coming out of Australia has so far been muted
Despite its self-recognised status as a ‘middle power’, Australia has historically been an innovator in its approach to tech and telecoms regulation. This reputation dates as far back as the creation of the world's first telecoms industry ombudsman in 1993 and the development of the National Broadband Network (NBN) in 2007. More recently, both the Government and regulatory bodies, including the Australian Competition and Consumers Commission (ACCC) and the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), have produced an unmatched volume of new and updated policies and interventions.
In the telecoms sector, many of the new directions and codes are extensions of the Telecommunications Act, originally passed in 1997. They represent added or revised obligations for operators and other service providers, and are often facilitated by the industry body, the Communications Alliance. Here we count at least 12 new or pending frameworks since 2022 (see Figure 1).
For the digital economy, new or updated legislative frameworks have seen the creation of new regulators, such as the eSafety Commissioner and a future digital platforms industry ombudsman, and assigned additional duties to existing bodies, including the ACCC). Within this more recently regulated domain of online safety and competition among digital platforms, we have identified at least 10 new sets of rules, including three that are pending (see Figure 2).
Across both sectors, a number of these frameworks – including a minimum age for social media, a universal service obligation (USO) for outdoor mobile connectivity and a news media bargaining code – were expressly described as ‘world-first’ or ‘world-leading’ by Australia’s Government. Given this explicit ambition to influence global policymaking, we consider how the country has built its rulebook and how successful it's been in exporting its ideas further afield.
Despite the volume of new regulation, there has been little consideration to date of the potential emergence of a “Canberra Effect”, akin to the much-discussed “Brussels Effect” in the EU beginning with the GDPR and followed by the Digital Markets Act. While some ideas, particularly in relation to platform regulation, have been successfully exported to other countries (see Figure 3), these represent a relatively small proportion of the body of regulation adopted in Australia recently. Nonetheless, the more bolder interventions in the past year, including a minimum age for social media and universal service obligations for mobile connectivity, are likely to draw the attention of other jurisdictions, either as cautionary tales or gold standards.
In reality, a relatively small proportion of new regulation is truly world-leading, but instead world-aligning or world-extending
Important to understanding the approach to regulating tech and telecoms markets in Australia is the recognition that most all policymaking is achieved directly through regulation. Unlike some jurisdictions (including the UK and the US), where greater use of tools such as codes of conduct, voluntary guidelines and regulatory sandboxes are used, Australia has looked to achieve public policy objectives by imposing binding obligations on firms through regulation. Some notable exceptions do exist, such as advancing network resilience through public funding under the Mobile Network Hardening Programme, but represent a minority of the work undertaken. Within this regulation-heavy agenda, we can categorise the recent additions to the rulebook as either world-leading, world-aligning or world-extending.
Among the ‘world-leading’ frameworks, the News Media Bargaining Code (2021) is a useful example of a new regulatory instrument in which Australia was the first country to design and adopt the tool and the one to offer the most interventionist approach to achieving an otherwise common objective – improving the sustainability of news ecosystems amid digital transformation. Other efforts described as world-leading have included:
Telecoms Industry Ombudsman (1999);
Enhancing Online Safety Act (2015);
Social Media Minimum Age Act (2025); and
Universal Outdoor Mobile Obligation (Proposed in 2025).
Comparatively, the proposed digital markets regulation that follows the conclusion of the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry would represent an effort by the regulator to align itself with the existing approaches of international peers, including those in the EU and the UK. The adoption of the SMS Sender ID Register Act and the development of the new register by ACMA represent a similar embrace of a regulatory model that has already been adopted widely by international peers.
We have also seen the implementation of modified versions of other countries’ regulatory approaches, adapting or extending the scope of frameworks. This would include the adoption of a Scams Prevention Framework Act (essentially a modified version of Singapore’s Shared Responsibility Framework), as well as the development of the Digital Duty of Care Bill and the updated Online Safety Act passed in 2021, both more closely mirroring UK online safety legislation, with some notable changes. These world-extending efforts align generally with the approaches taken by international peers, but key modifications, such as the extension of the scams liability framework developed in Singapore to digital platforms, tend to set Australia apart, but potentially complicate compliance for firms operating in multiple countries given the need to understand the nuances.
Co-regulatory codes have been most successful when developed with a narrow group of stakeholders with specific technical insights
Beyond the scale of its regulatory reforms, Australia does stand out in its embrace of co-regulatory models, i.e. seeking active participation from industry in developing binding obligations. For example, the Reducing Scam Calls and Scam SMS Code was developed in 2022 as an update to the Reducing Scam Calls Industry Code (2020) via collaboration between ACMA, the Communications Alliance and its members. The revised code offers an example of the set-up for success in a cooperative approach to regulation and was a relatively early and comprehensive action on scams that predated similar efforts in other relevant sectors, such as banking. Industry played an active role in detailing the highly technical task of preventing and mitigating the harms of scam communications. The scope of the code was well-defined, with the firms participating and impacted by provisions limited to local entities already well-known to the regulator and one another. The resulting framework was robust in its response to the harms at hand, well-informed by real-world contexts and aligned with the expectations of the regulator, thereby setting a standard of action for other sectors to replicate.
The process for developing co-regulatory codes has not always been successful. Predictably, contexts in which the interests of the regulator and the operator are not as neatly aligned has increased the difficulty of, and the dissatisfaction with, cooperative approaches, such as the development of codes underpinning the implementation of the Online Safety Act. While stakeholders still described the published Phase 1 Codes as good and robust, the broader scope of the legislation resulted in a wide-ranging set of stakeholders that may be interested in participating. Additionally, the process of developing both Phase 1 and 2 Codes has seen repeated requests for revision by the eSafety Commissioner, as well as ongoing refusals to register Codes that fail to meet “appropriate community safeguards”. Especially when compared to the development of the Scams Code, the threat of a regulator-produced standard replacing an unsatisfactory co-regulatory code appears far more real.
Influence has flowed through standards setting and cooperation with policymakers
In the wider context of regulation of the digital economy and the global nature of markets, Australian policymakers have expressed their interest in developing greater international coherence when regulating. Through participation in international forums, such as the Global Online Safety Regulators’ Network, Australia has worked directly to influence how regulation is implemented. Particularly as online safety and other digital frameworks mature and are implemented elsewhere, these forums are likely to be an important forum for developing global standards on specific measures and therefore influence regulatory approaches abroad. Though other governments may not join in adopting novel frameworks such as the Social Media Minimum Age Act, the work of regulators in Australia in defining acceptable standards for age assurance to implement the law may yet have a significant impact on how platforms are required to protect the interests and wellbeing of minors elsewhere around the world.
Similarly, Australian regulators’ work to form direct relationships with international peers has provided opportunities to exchange best practice and share learnings from its more activist regulatory approach. As a globally recognised leader in combatting scams, ACMA has signed memorandums of understanding with a number of peers (Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the UK and the US) to confirm its intent to collaborate more closely. Through these relationships, ACMA expects to both offer and receive shared intelligence on trends in scams and insight on strategic approaches to combatting malicious communications. Though even more targeted than influence through a forum like the Unsolicited Communications Enforcement Network, of which ACMA is also a member, such agreements allow for even deeper collaboration and closer alignment, up to and including cooperation on specific enforcement activities and investigations.
Australia and other ‘middle powers’ now have a bigger opportunity to play a distinct role in global policymaking
In a conversation often dominated by the influence of larger markets, including the EU, China and the US, Australia has nonetheless established a unique position for itself as an influencer and innovator in tech and telecoms policymaking. Even if the various frameworks developed remain only in Canberra for the foreseeable future, Australia still has defined its distinctive approach through a willingness to act early and often in regulating these sectors. Considering the multi-faceted and complex nature of the harms these frameworks seek to address – be it in scams, online safety, network resilience or otherwise – this approach that appears to verge on the experimental is likely to provide useful insight on what is effective to achieving objectives that will be of interest to jurisdictions around the world.
Australia isn’t the only example of middle powers seeking to play a distinct role in global policymaking. Regulators in Canada and Brazil (online safety and harmful content), and India (competition in digital markets) have shown similar ambitions to define their approaches to legislating and regulating in recent years. Arguably we’ve also seen the same in the UK as regulators review markets no longer bound by the European regulatory framework – providing opportunities to diverge in approach. Particularly as implementation of regulation by major powers has become increasingly politicised, such as in the EU where the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act have both been linked to trade negotiations with the US, these middle powers now more than ever have the opportunity to be sources of fresh ideas and thinking.
