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 40 The policy questions underlying the parties' dispute are large. They have generated widespread and sometimes heated controversy. Apart from questions concerning freedom of expression in Australia, there is widespread alarm at the prospect of a decision by an official of a national government restricting access to controversial material on the internet by people all over the world. It has been said that if such capacity existed it might be used by a variety of regimes for a variety of purposes, not all of which would be benign. The task of the Court, at least at this stage of the analysis, is only to determine the legal meaning and effect of the removal notice. That is done by construing its language and the language of the Act under which it was issued. It is ultimately the words used by Parliament that determine how far the notice reaches.

41 Section 109(1), which is set out above, determines what a removal notice is and does. The only notice that may be given is a notice "requiring the provider" to "take all reasonable steps to ensure the removal of the material from the service". The Commissioner chooses the material to which the notice is to apply (based on whether it is "class 1 material") but does not have a discretion concerning how stringent or widespread the restrictions on access to that material are to be. The notice necessarily requires "all reasonable steps" to "ensure the removal" of the material.

42 "Removed", as noted above, is defined by s 12 of the OS Act. Section 18A of the Acts Interpretation Act requires (as common sense would suggest) that other grammatical forms of the same word be given corresponding meanings. "Removal" of material from a social media platform is a process that results in the material being "removed" in the defined sense: that is, a state of affairs where "the material is neither accessible to, nor delivered to, any of the end-users in Australia using the service".

43 The phrase "any of the end-users in Australia" must be read in context.

(a) One aspect of the context is s 23, which provides that the OS Act extends to acts, omissions, matters and things outside Australia.

(b) A second aspect of the context is the objects of the OS Act, set out in s 3, which are to promote and improve "online safety for Australians". The reference to "Australians" suggests that the Act directs its attention to all Australian residents, not only those who use Australian service providers to connect to the internet.

(c) A third aspect of the context is the Explanatory Memorandum to the Bill for the OS Act (the Online Safety Bill 2021 (Cth)). The Explanatory Memorandum does not cast any direct light on the intended scope of a removal notice under s 109 (other than by eSafety Commissioner v X Corp [2024] FCA 499