In one hundred days Australians will restrict under 16 access to the internet’s search engines and social media, prime minister Anthony Albanese posted on X. We do not know if this also applies to non-Australians on myriad visas, to tourists, or those seeking asylum, or to those to whom asylum has been rejected but still here.

Thing is, will all Australians need to register to make this work? We do not know.

What will registration involve? We do not know.

What privacy guarantees and internet usage monitoring identifiable to an individual will be emplaced? We do not know.

Is this policy truly being introduced purely to protect under 16s from internet harm as we’re being told, or can any Australian face arrest for posting speech, images and memes not prohibited under hate or anti-discrimination laws? We do not know.

Will some content be prioritised for monitoring and investigation above others as appears to be the case in the UK under its two-tier policing regime? We do not know.

What we do know is that if a government is so incompetent that it cannot phrase its new internet policy clearly with merely 100 days until its inception, it cannot be trusted and that policy requires immediate parliamentary and judicial scrutiny.

The Starmer UK government which appears to be the Albanese government’s mentor is currently embroiled in covering up a child exploitation scandal that is thought to have abused one million children.

Its social engineering policies therefore are not worthy of a once proudly independent country like Australia to follow.

Without doubt, today’s social media platforms are cesspools of lies, misinformation, narcissism, hate and political bias. This does not merely define TikTok but also Wikipedia. It does not merely define Snapchat but AI. It does not merely define online porn but political policy announcements. It does not merely define hate but also advertising.

And there’s the problem.

Should politicians be permitted to post online? Should politically-driven Wikis be permitted to function as repositories of public knowledge? Should liars be permitted to host YouTube channels and Insta Reels?

Anthony Albanese does not know, nor in this uniformed announcement of his government’s pending program, does he care.

Indeed internet ease of access has done considerable damage to the self-image of numerous Australians, as once did the teen magazines and TV programs of the 80s and 90s. Dare we say hasn’t “Reality TV” and “Celebrity TV” done enormous image harm this century too? And what of the ubiquitous fashion industry?

Eating disorders, homophobia, poverty, shaming, religious vilification, racism, misogyny, the sex trade, substance abuse, domestic violence and bullying are not new to 2025. But the Albanese government insists that today’s internet is the cause of all evil rather than its inability to lead the society it has been elected to shepherd.

Internet age gates are definitely one approach to limiting access to online content but the Albanese government has not been open, honest and forthright about its ultimate goal here.

Unless it can guarantee that the Australian ability to interact and speak online where current laws allow won’t be impeded—unless it can guarantee that their rights will be protected alongside the freedoms given to non-Australians—then the Albanese Government must stop now and apply a moratorium to this policy’s introduction.

This is not something that can be muddled through once live. Privacy protections are as imperative as the freedom to think.

A full, transparent and public debate within and outside parliament must first proceed, for to date one has not. Not a single Australian voter understands what the Albanese government fully intends—because this government also does not know.

The Albanese government must therefore, above all, prove to Australia that its changes to internet freedoms are not in any way designed to curtail public criticism of its performance. For unlike the gerrymander this policy of curtailing thought reopens the door to the world’s worst episodes of history.

© 2025 Adam Parker.
Picture credit: “The public burning of ‘un-German’ books by members of the SA and university students on the Opernplatz in Berlin. May 10, 1933.” Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park. Public Domain.