Australia’s national children’s commissioner has seen “nothing” to address the gaps in community for young people that will be created by the teen social media ban, as well as an absence of support for vulnerable children.
Weeks after the social media minimum-age legislation passed parliament last year, commissioner Anne Hollonds aired her concerns that restricting under-16 teens from having accounts on social media could exacerbate existing inequalities experienced by young Australians.
“The new social media ban for kids must surely now be the trigger to mitigate the risks of further isolating children in vulnerable circumstances and to address the systemic failings leading to escalating mental health disorders,” she wrote in December.
A year later, with Hollonds set to finish her term and just six weeks to go until the ban’s December 10 introduction, the commissioner told Crikey she still hasn’t seen anything that would address these concerns.
“There are plans and frameworks and strategies in place, but, to my knowledge, there’s nothing particular that’s been brought in to address the gaps when the social media ban comes along.”
Hollonds said she’s worried the ban will adversely affect children who already struggle to find connection and belonging at school, citing LGBTQIA+ children, those with mental health problems, neurodiverse children, children with disabilities and complex needs, and children who live in regional and rural areas.
Earlier this week, Communications Minister Anika Wells met with mental health groups to coordinate their response to the impending ban. Some of those groups have also released online resources to help teens prepare. Minister Wells’ office did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.
Hollonds — who said she was “surprised” by the government’s commitment to the ban and wasn’t formally consulted about it — is not opposed to age-based restrictions for children and believes it will have some benefits.
She said she has long supported introducing safeguards to prevent young children from being exposed to online pornography and harmful content: “I accept there does need to be guardrails to better protect our children from harmful content,” she said.
Rather, her concerns stem from the focus placed on the ban and its purported benefits, and the lack of attention given to other aspects of children’s wellbeing.
“The ban has been presented as a solution to mental health problems and bullying. It’s seen as a fix, but it’s certainly not a fix,” she said.
“Now that we’ve decided to have the ban, to do it this way, I think we also need to have a good, hard look at the unmet needs of our most vulnerable citizens.”
Hollonds said there’s been a spike in interest in children’s welfare since a series of recent reports of systemic failures in Australian childcare centres, but governments have repeatedly failed to enact serious reforms.
She said various inquiries have made more than 3,000 recommendations over the past decade and a half, but many have been ignored. Her 2024 report, “‘Help Way Earlier! How Australia can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing“, drew from these to make the case for “transformational change” to improve children’s wellbeing by reforming how kids are treated in the criminal justice system.
Above all, Hollonds said that children’s welfare reform has stalled because the federal government doesn’t have someone directly responsible for it — Australia does not have a federal minister for children.
Until then, she explained she’d like to see governments get on with implementing “evidence-based recommendations” because there are a lot of issues that the ban won’t fix.
“The prime minister says, ‘No-one left behind.’ Well, these kids are being left behind,” Hollonds said.
Hollonds’ successor, Dr Deborah Tsorbaris, will begin in the role on November 17.
First term is free, payment is for a permanent position