However, he went on to say it’s not something he has spent a lot of time on and it wasn’t part of the Government’s current quarterly action plan.
The Coalition Government moved swiftly upon election to ban the use of cellphones among children at school.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he was open to a discussion about social media age verification.
He said he had put parental controls on his children’s iPad and there was a “good suite of tools available for parents to do that”.
“Whether there should be mandatory requirements or not, that’s not something that I’ve looked at. Certainly, I would encourage parents to know what their kids are looking at online.”
In reported comments, Albanese said his government would do “all we can” to protect children.
“Parents are worried sick about this. We know they’re working without a map – no generation has faced this challenge before.
“Which is why my message to Australian parents is we’ve got your back. We’re listening and determined to act to get this right.”
South Australia has been at the forefront of the push for age verification across the Tasman, with Premier Peter Malinauskas saying government intervention was necessary.
“We’re going to ban the social media services from providing access in that first place and where they do it and do it knowingly, they are subject to severe punishment, heavy financial penalties that will act as a major deterrent to ensure this doesn’t occur in the future.”
The Australian Federal Government earlier this year funded a trial of online age verification technology. It was initially limited to stopping under-18-year-olds from accessing adult content, like pornography, but has now been expanded to look at restricting 13-16-year-olds from accessing social media.
It’s said to be awaiting the results of that trial before specifying a minimum age for social media use.
Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald Press Gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub Press Gallery office.
