National pushes social media ban for under-16s without coalition partners on board

The National Party is pressing ahead with legislation to ban under-16s from social media, but without the backing of its two coalition partners — New Zealand First and ACT. Both parties have used the "agree-to-disagree" provision, a rule in the Cabinet manual that lets parties in a coalition government publicly oppose a specific policy without breaking up the government.

Education Minister Erica Stanford brought the Online Safety Bill to Cabinet for sign-off knowing National did not have the numbers to pass it beyond a first reading. A first reading is the initial vote a bill faces in Parliament; surviving it means the bill goes to a select committee for closer scrutiny. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has conceded the bill will not reach that stage before the election, with 11 sitting days left in the parliamentary term. The bill was still introduced as a government bill and announced through a government press release. New Zealand First leader Winston Peters stressed it was a National bill, not a government bill. ACT leader David Seymour said it was National's right to put the bill out before the election but did not believe it was a serious solution.

The legislation would ban under-16s from social media and place greater responsibilities on technology companies. It requires platforms to take reasonable steps to verify users' ages, including by using existing accounts, and sets up an online safety regulator with a penalty regime. Companies that fail to comply would face fines of up to 10% of their global revenue. The government had earlier flagged the direction in May 2025, when it added social media restrictions for under-16s to its work programme aimed at reducing online harm and protecting children from bullying and harmful content.

Proceeding without coalition partner support is unusual but not unheard of under MMP, New Zealand's voting system in which parties usually need partners to form a government. The agree-to-disagree provision allows parties within a government to take a different public position on a specific issue without breaching the coalition relationship. What makes this case striking is that National has chosen to introduce the bill as a government bill — with all the institutional weight that carries — while its partners openly distance themselves from it. The optics of a government introducing legislation it knows it cannot pass before the House rises are also pointed. With the election looming, the bill's introduction functions as much as a positioning exercise as a legislative one.

The opposition has not dismissed the bill outright. Labour leader Chris Hipkins said his party would continue to engage with National on the legislation in good faith. But Labour has also released a list of 79 questions it wants answered about the bill, signalling its support is conditional on significant detail being filled in. Those questions go to the practical mechanics of age verification, enforcement, and the scope of the penalty regime — the elements that will determine whether the legislation is workable in practice or largely symbolic.

Not all stakeholders are convinced the ban is the right approach. Youthline, the youth counselling service, opposed an under-16 social media ban, a position noted during a post-Cabinet press conference in May 2025. The organisation's concerns add to a broader debate about whether an outright ban is the most effective tool for reducing harm to young people online, or whether it risks driving underage users toward less regulated corners of the internet.

The political calculation for National is clear. The party gets to tell voters it has taken concrete action on an issue with strong public concern — children's safety online — while the bill's failure to pass before the election can be blamed on a lack of parliamentary time rather than a lack of will. For New Zealand First and ACT, the agree-to-disagree mechanism lets them avoid being tied to a policy they have doubts about, while still remaining in government on everything else. Peters's insistence that this is a National bill, not a government bill, is a deliberate effort to contain the political liability to one party.

For Labour, the release of 79 questions serves a dual purpose. It signals a willingness to engage constructively, which Hipkins was at pains to emphasise, while also making clear the bill as introduced has significant gaps that National has not yet addressed. Whether those gaps can be closed in the next parliamentary term — and whether a future government would have the numbers to pass it — will depend on the composition of the next Parliament.

The Online Safety Bill, as drafted, takes one of the more aggressive regulatory approaches to social media in the New Zealand context. The 10% of global revenue penalty figure puts it in line with the toughest enforcement regimes internationally. But a bill that cannot get through first reading before an election is, for now, an expression of intent rather than a change in the law. What happens to it after the election will depend on whether National returns with enough support to carry it, or whether it becomes one of the bills that quietly lapse between terms.