MELBOURNE, Australia – Australia’s trailblazing ban on social media accounts for children under 16, a policy that has become a global benchmark for child online safety regulation, has been thrown into political gridlock after opposition and minor party senators joined forces to delay proposed enforcement reforms. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has issued a fierce condemnation of the decision, warning the eight-week Senate inquiry will give big tech platforms time to erase critical evidence that could be used to hold non-compliant services accountable. The world-first under-16 ban came into full force this past December, after Australia’s Parliament passed the foundational legislation with broad bipartisan backing in 2024, giving 10 major platforms including Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok more than 12 months to adjust their systems to exclude underage users. The center-left Labor government this week tabled amendments to strengthen the powers of the country’s top online safety regulator, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who oversees implementation of the ban. Currently, Inman Grant can only request operational information from platforms about their compliance efforts. The proposed changes would expand her authority to compel the handover of internal documents and data, as well as grant her the power to seek information from third parties such as age verification technology providers to independently verify platforms’ claims about how they block underage users. The amendments also would double the maximum fine for repeated non-compliance from AU$49.5 million to AU$99 million (US$68 million), a major increase intended to incentivize meaningful action. But on Thursday, the conservative Liberal opposition and the minor Greens party joined to refer the draft legislation to an eight-month parliamentary inquiry – a move that stalled immediate consideration. The Labor government holds a majority in the lower house of Parliament but lacks control of the Senate, allowing the cross-party alliance to derail the reforms. Speaking to public broadcaster the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Albanese called the delay “outrageous”, noting the eSafety Commissioner has explicitly warned the pause will enable platforms to delete documentation of their compliance shortcomings. If the bill had passed immediately, Albanese explained, the regulator could have launched formal information requests right away, opening the door to fines and legal action against platforms that fail to meet their obligations. Critics of the amendments have raised differing objections to the government’s plan. Greens Senator David Shoebridge, a longstanding opponent of the full under-16 ban, questioned the logic of doubling a maximum fine that has never once been issued since the original law passed. “Doubling penalties that they’ve never used doesn’t seem to me to be a meaningful measure,” Shoebridge told Sky News Australia. “Is that really going to be the thing that keeps kids safe online?” For their part, the Liberal opposition argues the amendments do not go far enough to fix the flawed original legislation. Opposition communications spokesperson Senator Sarah Henderson called the existing ban a “failing, half-baked law” that was rushed through Parliament, poorly designed and badly implemented. “We will interrogate this bill properly and, frankly, I think the amendments before the Parliament need to be tougher,” Henderson said. The policy’s flaws have already become apparent in official data. When the ban first took effect in December, the government initially reported that more than 5 million underage accounts had been removed, deactivated or restricted. But a progress update from eSafety in March revealed that seven out of 10 children who held accounts on major platforms on the day the ban came into force still remain active on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. By April, Inman Grant confirmed she was actively considering legal action against those four platforms plus YouTube for failing to take reasonable steps to exclude underage users, noting she had only been satisfied with compliance progress from the other five platforms covered by the ban: X, Kick, Reddit, Threads and Twitch. Communications Minister Anika Wells confirmed this week that monthly updates from eSafety since March have shown no meaningful improvement in compliance from the major platforms caught non-compliant. The standoff in Canberra carries global implications: governments around the world that have either implemented or are planning similar age restrictions on social media for minors have been closely watching Australia’s experiment to judge its effectiveness and work out potential regulatory adjustments.