New Zealand’s conservative government has introduced a Bill mirroring Australia’s social media ban for teens, with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon declaring they “cannot accept the harm being done” to a generation of children.
Mr Luxon’s National Party on Monday introduced the Online Safety (Minimum Age and Child Safety Risk Assessment) Bill requiring the likes of Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat “to take reasonable steps to check users are over the age of 16”.
“One in three children aged between 13 and 17 are now spending at least five hours on social media a day,” Mr Luxon said.
“Social media is exposing them to harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with and it’s affecting their family life, mental health, sleep, and education.
“Obviously, parents have a role to play in monitoring what social media platform their children are on, but so do social media companies.
“We have protections to keep children safe in the real world and we need them in the virtual world too.”
Under the legislation, social media companies could be slapped with fines up to 10 per cent of their global revenue – substantially steeper than the maximum $49.5m penalty under Australia’s ban.
But whether proposal goes anywhere remains uncertain, with Mr Luxon’s coalition partners firmly against.
NZ First leader and political heavyweight Winston Peters vowed his party would “never support this”.
“The Government is not moving to ban under-16s from social media. The National Party is,” he said.
“We have communicated our concerns to National over the past year. Our stance has not changed.
“We have been concerned with the proposed legislation and the direction and slippery slope that legislation like this will inevitably take our country.”
Mr Peters went on to brand Australia’s ban a “colossal failure”.
“The fact is, no matter how laudable the intent is of introducing laws to address this serious issue, there is no method that would fulfil that intent without banning VPNs or the use of digital ID to enforce the law,” he said.
“This has been proven with the colossal failure of Australia bringing in similar measures that National want to bring in now.”
Fellow coalition partner, ACT leader David Seymour, also said his party would “agree to disagree” and vote against the Bill.
“Protecting children online is a serious problem,” Mr Seymour said.
“Unfortunately, the National Party have hitched their wagon to a terrible solution.
“The ban they propose won’t work, and the side effects will leave us worse off.”
Neither the centre-left Labour opposition nor the leftist Green Party are fully sold either.
Though, Labour has put forward changes, suggesting it is open to talks.
Mr Luxon acknowledged the legislation would not pass before parliament rose for the November election.