‘The drafting should already be taking place’: Social media ban for children may start before Christmas
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has urged Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to rush through new laws restricting social media use to those over 16 so that they can take effect before the school holidays.
“The prime minister’s now talking about this next year, but I think it needs to be in before kids go on to Christmas holidays and into the new year, when they’re sitting around on their devices,” Dutton said at a press conference on Monday morning.
Peter Dutton
As it stands, Albanese is proposing a year’s grace period for social media companies before the law comes into play.
He presented the law to a virtual sitting of the national cabinet on Friday morning, declaring “social media is doing harm to our kids, and I’m calling time on it”.
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said the government will decide which platform are classed as ‘social media’ before the end of the year, and that hefty fines will apply for those platforms that fall short.
“The fact is that social media has a social responsibility, but the platforms are falling short,” she said.
“These platforms know their users better than anyone, understand their habits, their capabilities, what content should be driven to them and what their behaviours are.
“In this year that we will take in terms of implementation, that will be the key focus.”
Dutton feels a year is too long.
He revealed he has already written to the PM, offering bipartisan support and urging him to skip a Senate inquiry and rush the laws through during parliament’s final two sitting weeks.
He also rejected calls from social media companies for some exemptions for family contact and educational material.
“That will just be another delaying tactic by the companies,” Dutton said.
“The drafting should already be taking place.”
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Nathan Jolly is the Features Editor at Mumbrella. He joined the team in July, 2023.
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Isn’t that ironic. Peter Dutton has finally agreed on something and wants it immediately. Quite the opposite of his usual positioning.
Maybe when he gave up childcare centres and went into Federal Government he apparently didn’t realise that the internet is a social media and has been in the cone of silence since.
Now, after sitting in Parliament for over 20 years (and in power for a majority of that time) he suddenly “calls time on it” and wants it done and dusted within a year. It usually takes a lot longer to suddenly change decades of your spots.
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We all know where this is heading……the Australian government has been given their orders to force us into a totalitarian society under the guise of ‘for your children’s saftey’! We are the experiment here in Australia, and if we submit to this tyrannical behaviour then they will roll it out to the rest of the world! Question: What’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth? Answer: 6 months……
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