Prime Minister Christopher Luxon yesterday stretched coalition goodwill to near breaking point with his go-it-alone announcement of an under-16 social media ban.
NZ First leader Winston Peters called a press conference to attack the way the Prime Minister had gone about announcing the ban.
Meanwhile ACT invoked the agree-to-disagree provisions within its coalition agreement.
But privately, both coalition parties questioned the strength of their relationship with Luxon and suggested that what they consider a breach of faith could mean they approach any post-election coalition negotiations much more cautiously.
Potentially the most serious aspect of yesterday’s toing and froing was Luxon directly contradicting Peters’ claims about when he first saw the legislation.
Peters was adamant that he first heard about the proposal on Friday.
POLITIK: “When did you first see the Cabinet paper?”
PETERS: “Well, over the weekend.”
But Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford had a different timeline.
POLITIK: “Why did you show the Bill to Mr Peters only on Friday? How much good faith was involved in that?”
LUCON: “No, that’s not true. We’ve shown it to all the parties in the coalition.”
POLITIK: “Well, he’s just, he saw it on Friday.”
STANFORD: “The Bill has been circulated for a number of weeks. It’s been with all parties. In fact, I offered New Zealand First a full briefing with my officials, which they accepted. So they certainly have had the cabinet papers for a really long time.”
A source familiar with what happened told POLITIK that Peters could be right if he meant that what he first saw on Friday was the final draft of the Bill, which was a changed version of what had originally been proposed as described by Stanford.
Peters opposes the legislation because he says it will not work.
He said similar legislation in Australia banning under-16s did not work.
“Surely we should have learned something from that, but our job is to tell you very clearly that this is not government legislation, it is from the National Party,” he said.
The press release announcing the ban looked like a coalition Government announcement and was produced on the usual Government letterhead complete with the New Zealand Coat of Arms.
It’s wording gave no indication that only National supported it.
“The Government will today introduce the Online Safety Bill which will ban under-16s from social media and put greater responsibilities on technology companies to protect children online,” the press release said.
“We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of New Zealand children,” it quoted Luxon as saying.
But just over half an hour after Luxon’s announcement, ACT sent out its own release announcing that it was invoking the “Agree to Disagree” provision in the Cabinet Manual, which allows it to speak against the measure in public rather than uphold collective Cabinet responsibility.
“Protecting children online is a serious problem,” the ACT statement in the name of leader David Seymour said.
“Unfortunately, the National Party have hitched their wagon to a terrible solution.
“The ban they propose won’t work, and the side effects will leave us worse off.
“Teenagers are remarkably good at getting around restrictions on the internet.
“Any system strong enough to reliably stop them will inevitably start asking a lot more of everybody else.
“Any Government trying to implement a ban faces two basic choices.
“They can make it so strong that adults are caught up in it, like France, where the Government is going back to the drawing board after their top Court struck the law out.
“Or, they can make the law so weak that it makes little difference, as Australia has found with nearly all children still on social media as if there is no ban.
“This law follows the Australian model, more of a face saver for politicians who promised too much than a serious solution.
“You only have to look at the bill to see it is a call for ‘best efforts’ even concluding it is more about ‘social norms’ than results.”
New Zealand First’s objections were much the same as those of ACT. It too invoked “agree to disagree” and Peters said his party had communicated its concerns about a social media ban to National over the past year.
Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee had conducted an inquiry into online harm and reported back in March.
However no immediate action was taken in response to that report.
But Peters yesterday was willing to go public over what he argued was an abuse of process by Luxon in claiming the Bill was a Government measure, implying that it had the approval of the coalition partners.
“Thirty-three years on from people voting for MMP, here we are having to tell a coalition partner how MMP works,” he said.
“And this is not how it works on this occasion.
“You’ve got two parties that are not agreeing.
“The ACT party, I found out, doesn’t agree either, nor does New Zealand First, but nevertheless they’re saying it’s a government bill. No, it is not.”
Asked if he would have a word with the Prime Minister about his objections, Peter said: “I’m having a word with you.”
However, National had taken out some political insurance.
They had approached the Labour Party, who replied with a long list of questions.
“I think it was four o’clock on Friday, maybe three o’clock on Friday that they gave us a few additional questions and we’re preparing those over the weekend,” said Stanford.
“We should have those to them shortly. It was quite a long, detailed list. Nothing particularly insurmountable. They’re just actually intelligent questions, but nothing of serious concern.”
Labour Leader Chris Hipkins certainly didn’t immediately reject National’s request.
“We’ve asked pretty robust questions about the work that they’ve done so far, and the more information we get, I believe that we will be in a position to make an informed decision about it,” he told media yesterday afternoon.
Hipkins said Labour was very concerned about what was happening to young people online.
“We’re absolutely open to working with the National Party to try and find a way forward,” he said.
“Clearly, the National Party can campaign all they like, over their coalition partners who have said that they’re not going to support it.
“So a re-elected National-led government wouldn’t be able to progress it without support from across the aisle.
“We’re certainly open to talking to them about how they could do that.”
But that played straight into Winston Peters’ often-repeated theme that National and Labour were two sides of the same coin.
“No matter if the old parties Tweedledum and Tweedle Dee do it, it’s not fair game if they fail at the taxpayer’s expense,” he said.
“And parents get misguided as to safety. Don’t forget, the parents have a responsibility here too.”
National’s Bill proposes that high-risk social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and Facebook would need to take reasonable steps to check users were over the age of 16 by using a number of methods including: using existing account information, facial age estimation, digital ID services and formal ID.
The Bill introduces significant penalties for companies that fail to meet their obligations – up to 10 per cent of a platform’s global revenue.
And it would establish an online safety regulator within the Department of Internal Affairs to independently monitor compliance, investigate platforms and enforce the law.
But yesterday’s announcement was really something of a sham since although the legislation has been formally introduced, there are only 15 days left until the House rises for the election campaign.
That is not enough time for Select Committee consideration, let alone any debate on passing the Bill.
Unfortunately for Luxon, it is enough time for the two other government parties to brood and fester over the events of the past four days and how that impacts their attitudes to the coalition.
