Australia just banned kids from social media — will New Zealand follow?

Australia has officially begun enforcing its world-first ban on social media for children under 16, leading to hundreds of thousands of TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram accounts being shut down. Reported by Glenn McConnell from Stuff. 

As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put it, “the world is watching.” And New Zealand certainly is.

Erica Stanford, the minister responsible for tackling online harm, confirmed that New Zealand officials have been working closely with their Australian and UK counterparts on a similar policy. She said the proposal was almost ready for public release and that she would be taking a paper to Cabinet “very shortly.” With Parliament due to wrap up in a week, her goal is to have a new tech regulation law in place before the upcoming election.

What remains undecided is how far New Zealand’s law should go. Stanford explained that Cabinet must determine whether the bill should focus solely on social media or expand to include Artificial Intelligence (AI), broader tech regulations, and potentially an Online Safety Regulator.

“Those are exactly the discussions that we'll be having with Cabinet, around whether or not it is just a social media ban, or whether or not the legislation can be more broad,”she said. She added that due to the scope of the reforms, change would likely need to happen in phases.

In Australia, Albanese struck an emotional tone as the ban took effect. “This is the day that Australian families are taking back power from these big tech companies. They’re asserting the right of kids to be kids and for parents to have greater peace of mind. This is a proud day,” he said during a televised address.

Meanwhile, in Wellington, Parliament’s library underwent a dramatic transformation to highlight the harms young people face online.

Its usual collection was replaced with a temporary installation titled “The Worst Children’s Library.” Fake picture books included provocative titles like “Screenshots of Nudes in the Class Group Chat” and “The Blackout Challenge.” The display also featured real books, including a quote book by influencer Andrew Tate containing lines such as “moody females steal your power.”

The exhibit’s creator, Rory Birkbeck, received cross-party support to bring the project to Parliament. “The Government needs to hone in on the predatory platforms that young people are facing.

They need to set some minimum expectations,” said Birkbeck, a technologist who built a child-safe smartphone operating system. He previously ran Safe Surfer, a service that lets parents control apps and functions on their children’s devices.

That report showed broad support to follow Australia’s lead and ban social media for under 16s. The Green and ACT parties disagreed.

National MP Carl Bates, who chaired the committee, said there was clear evidence that a lack of regulation of the internet was leading to real life harm for Kiwi kids.

A ban, alone, would not be enough, the committee said. It also proposed setting up a regulator for online content.

“The banning of social media for under 16-year-olds is one clear action that's supported by both the major political parties... along with the regulation of deepfake tools and ‘nudify’ apps, which was supported by the entire committee,” Bates said.

He said the committee would continue to watch how Australia’s ban worked, with its final report due early next year.

ACT leader David Seymour said MPs were getting ahead of themselves by talking about a “ban”. And the Green Party had concerns that prohibition would be ineffective.

Seymour agreed with the Greens, saying there were real concerns that banning social media would just push children onto dodgier websites.

“There's a lot of countries trying different things at the moment. Australia is just the latest and probably the most extreme example, so let's see how it works for them. I hope it's a raging success, then we'll know what to do. But it may be that they also discover that there's some problems,” he said.

Stanford said also wanted to wait and see how it worked across the Tasman.

“I agree with David Seymour on this. There are a number of ways that this could go wrong,” she said.

 

Chatrine Wedd, a National Party backbencher, has introduced a private member’s bill to ban kids from using social media sites.

At this stage the National Party and Labour Party caucuses support her bill, which means that if Cabinet can’t work out an alternative plan - this ban will come into place anyway.

Wedd was at the Worst Children’s Library on Wednesday, looking at books about “sextortion” and a guide to shoplifting, when she told Stuff she still believed a ban was the best way forward.

She said, “We have got a drinking age, a vaping age, and a driving age. Let’s have a social media age. It will empower parents, giving them the tools to say ‘actually, it’s not okay for you to be on social media because you are under 16. These are the rules. The Government says so’.”

She said Australia was leading the way, and hoped that governments globally would join with Australia to stand up to social media companies.

In February, the committee investigating online harm was set to issue its final report. And early next year, the Government would likely come up with its own coalition policy.