Some Coalition MPs have cold feet on the social media ban. Dutton will stare them down

Peter Dutton will use a private Coalition meeting to calm MPs fearful that Labor’s teen social media ban is a Trojan Horse for government control of the internet, ahead of a sitting week in which the major parties plan to ram the legislation through parliament.

On Friday Coalition MPs were called to a Monday morning gathering in Canberra, party sources said, where Dutton and communications spokesman David Coleman planned to field questions about Labor’s proposed law to ban children under 16 from platforms such as TikTok and Instagram.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and communications spokesman David Coleman will face concerned MPs.Credit: Louise Kennerley

Right-wing Coalition senators Matt Canavan and Alex Antic have been sharply critical of the bill’s potential to require Australians to give tech giants their IDs and the power it would give the eSafety Commission, which is a federal agency that will be charged with overseeing the ban.

But doubts about the bill, which was only released last week, have expanded from the pair to more mainstream Coalition MPs, setting up the meeting as a test of the opposition leader’s authority after he hauled his party room into line on abortion earlier this month.

On Sunday night, the MPs were informed Monday’s meeting was cancelled, with the conversation to take place on Tuesday as part of the Coalition’s party room meeting.

The Coalition leadership remains confident of overwhelming support for the bill inside the party, according to several opposition sources speaking anonymously about internal dynamics. Dutton, whose office declined to comment, plans to hear out his concerned colleagues but ultimately expects the party to back the bill, allowing it to pass parliament this week.

The opposition rode a wave of conservative and libertarian campaigning against Labor’s misinformation bill in recent months before the government dropped its plan to crack down on falsehoods online on Sunday.

Some of the groups and people behind that campaign, including One Nation, the Libertarian Party and former Coalition MPs George Christensen and Craig Kelly, have launched an email crusade about the social media age barrier that has resulted in complaints flooding into MPs inboxes.

They endorse the view of X owner Elon Musk, who wrote on the platform last month that the ban “seems like a backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians” because it could require users to prove their identities before accessing major online services.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland was asked about the need to hand over ID in a Labor caucus meeting last week and said her laws would not force people to give ID documents to social media giants, dismissing the prospect as a right-wing scare campaign. However, the government has not announced the technology that would be used to prove a user’s age.

‘A red flag’

LNP MP Garth Hamilton said Labor had rushed the legislation and sent mixed signals about details such as which platforms would be included. The Wiggles successfully lobbied to allow YouTube to remain while Snapchat will be banned, though both apps now also have a TikTok-style feed of clips.

“The tests for this bill are that it should not be a proxy for digital ID [to be required to access the internet] and that it actually responds to parents’ needs,” Hamilton said.“I fully agree with Peter Dutton’s concerns about the impacts of social media, and they are long-held. But Labor has had a long time to get details right [and] the utter confusion on the detail is a red flag.”

Coleman, who first proposed a teen ban in an April interview with this masthead at a time when Labor opposed such a change, told opposition MPs last week that the government could use a “double-blind tokenised approach” suggested by the eSafety Commission last year.

That would allow a third party to verify a user’s age on a social media platform without revealing the identity information used to do so, while another option could force companies that operate app stores, such as Google and Apple, to take on the role.

Labor announced the ban early this month after years of claims that social media was harming children’s mental health, much of which is disputed by the technology giants, and argued that it would bolster parents’ ability to reject pestering from kids to go online.

But detractors including Ben Thompson, the boss of major Australian tech firm Employment Hero, said on X that bill would make it harder for children with special needs to make friends online. “Not to mention that it’s a Trojan Horse for digital ID and further censorship,” he said.

On Sunday, Greens communications spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young called advocates for the ban well-intentioned, but said the bill was rushed compared to the government’s halting approach to gambling reform.

“The government and the opposition are ramming through a ban on social media that was introduced on Thursday,” she said on ABC’s Insiders. “We’ve got a joke of a Senate inquiry for three days tomorrow. But they can’t do gambling ... Talk about priorities.”

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