Liberal party leader Peter Dutton has vowed to lift the minimum wage to 16 within 100 days of taking office.
The opposition had previously indicated that it would seek to legislate bans on children accessing social media but this is the first time that a timeframe has been placed on the proposed reforms.
“I would put it at the top of my list for the first 100 days in government,” Dutton told Nova.
“So within the first three months, we would introduce it, and it reflects the community values and where the view is for the vast majority of Australians at the moment.”
Dutton said that the policy would be designed to stop children from gaining access to inappropriate material through social media.
“I worked (as a police officer) in the sex offender and other areas, where it was pre-internet, but it was an area where you saw people exposed to the worst element of society and how they coped with that,” he said.
“But now it’s on an industrial scale in terms of the content that young kids are subject to.”
Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has said that Dutton’s announcement was short-sighted and lacked detail.
“changing age limits without knowing which technologies can enforce it won’t achieve the outcomes parents need”.
“Peter Dutton needs to be upfront and clear about what the details of his policy are and which technology the Coalition will require social media companies to use,” she said.
“Age limits currently exist for social media access, but are regularly circumvented or not enforced, which is precisely why the government is conducting an important $6.5m trial of age assurance technology.”
The advertising industry has also seen fit to wade into the issue around age verification. Michael Wipfli aka Wippa, co-host of the Fitzy, Wippa & Kate Ritchie breakfast show on Nova 96.9 Sydney; and Rob Galluzzo, founder of film production company FINCH recently launched 36 Months, a campaign to lift the age limit on social media from 13 to 16. Hyundai has signed on as a supporting partner for the initiative.
The age limits for Instagram and TikTok are currently 13, with the former requiring users to “provide their birthday, photo identification, and/or a video selfie”.
