New Zealand’s prime minister wants under-16s off social media. Whether Parliament will let him is another question.
Christopher Luxon on Monday introduced the Online Safety (Minimum Age and Child Safety Risk Assessment) Bill, modeled on Australia’s world-first under-16 ban that took effect in December 2025. “High risk” platforms — Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and, according to officials, YouTube and X — would have to take “reasonable steps” to check users are 16 or older, using account data, facial age estimation, digital ID, or formal ID. Companies that fail could be fined up to 10 percent of global revenue, a steeper potential hit than Australia’s maximum fine of A$99 million. Parents and children would not be penalized. Messaging apps such as WhatsApp, games like Roblox, and productivity AI tools would be excluded, as they are in Australia.
“We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children,” Luxon said. He cited 2025 research that a third of New Zealand teenagers spend at least five hours a day on social media, and argued that platforms expose them to “harmful content, addictive technology and pressures they are not equipped to deal with.” Education Minister Erica Stanford is shepherding the bill. A new regulator would sit inside the Department of Internal Affairs.
The politics are messy. Coalition partners ACT and New Zealand First have already said they will vote no. Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour said the ban would not work. NZ First leader Winston Peters called Australia’s law a “colossal failure” and warned of a “slippery slope.” Labour leader Chris Hipkins said his party has not decided. Parliament dissolves on October 1 ahead of a November election, so the bill will not get a vote this term. Luxon is pitching it as a post-election promise if National is returned.
Australia’s experience is the backdrop and the cautionary tale. Child-safety advocates have welcomed age limits. Privacy groups and digital-rights campaigners say age checks can be cheated and that forcing ID raises other problems. University of Queensland professor Nicholas Carah, quoted by the ABC, said more than eight in ten Australian teenagers were still on social media three months after that ban. Amnesty International’s Hannah Storey argued the real work is making platforms safer by design for everyone, not just fencing off children.
