The attorney-general wants federal parliament to pass new laws targeting social media giants who fail to quickly take down violent material this week.
Christian Porter says the Christchurch terror attack, in which a lone gunman live-streamed himself killing 50 people at two mosques, shows social media needs to be scrutinised.
"The utterly tragic events in Christchurch demonstrate that the tools that can now be used by terrorists to spread fear, violence and messages of fanatical hate are not limited sadly to guns," he told parliament on Tuesday.
"Content providers and hosts can no longer be reckless as to the presence of that type of abhorrently violent material and the time to pass on law to make that so is this week."
Time is ticking for Mr Porter, with this sitting week the last before Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls an election and the government enters caretaker mode.
Under the proposed legislation, companies would be breaking Australian law if they did not take down footage of terrorist acts immediately.
Social media executives could face a jail sentence under the measures.
Mr Porter recounted numerous killings which have been live streamed on Facebook, with footage in one instance remaining online for 24 hours.
"The only thing perhaps more concerning ... is that there is not any sufficient recourse for this parliament if such a failure occurred in the future in Australia," he said.
"The time to pass a law that says that content servers should suffer the most serious penalties for failing to expeditiously remove abhorrently violent material is this week."
