With the world’s first social media ban for teenagers under 16 now in effect in Australia, its initial political architect is celebrating a new less-digital era for millions of children — and sharing that the legislation was personally inspired by his wife, for their four children.
“She read a book called ‘The Anxious Generation,’ by Jonathan Haidt,” said Peter Malinauskas, the premier of the state of South Australia. “And I will never forget the night she finished reading the book and she put it down on her lap and she turned to me and said, ‘You better do something about this!’”
Within seven months, and with strong public support, that idea fast became law across the land, winning support from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Ten major apps including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit and Facebook have complied to bar everyone 16 and under from their accounts and from setting up new accounts.
“Heaven forbid they might talk to one another a bit more, pick up the phone and have a chat rather than just being obsessed with the screen,” said Maulinauskas.
The ban puts the onus of responsibility on social media companies rather than parents with a penalty of up to $33 million if found to be in breach. It allows for each company to decide how best to adhere, which must be “multi-layered,” using more than one kind of identity verification, which could include traditional methods including national IDs and passports but also artificial intelligence — controversial over possible inaccuracies — to scan facial features for age.
Malinauskas readily admits there will be growing pains.
“People will find ways around it and lots of things will go wrong, and that’ll be highlighted in coming days and weeks in Australia,” he said, “but on balance, this is a reform that parents want so they can do their job more easily.”
He says officials from North America, Europe and Asia have been speaking with him about advancing similar legislation in Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan. Malaysia is already on track to be the next country to ban those under 16 from social media in 2026.
Yet in Australia, the law already faces a legal challenge. The country’s High Court accepted a legal challenge from two 15-year-olds who assert the ban violates their freedom of communication. The case could be heard as early as February.
Malinauskas blames those companies for putting all children through “a global experiment” over the past decade with “social media addiction and overuse because many of these platforms have had addictive algorithms.”
“I’m really proud, really proud that we’ve been able to see South Australia and then Australia lead a reform that’s going to make a big difference to young people’s lives,” he said.
“And the reason why politicians are looking at it is because parents know something’s not right. You know, there is no better judge of what’s in the best interest of a child than a parent, right?”
Suffolk, England – For parents Daisy Greenwell and Joe Ryrie, freedom means looking up at the world around them instead of down at their phones, and they’re determined to pass that sense of non-digital liberty on to their children.
Their daughter started asking for a smartphone when she was just eight years old, because her classmates were getting them. The pressure to have a phone at such a young age surprised Greenwell, and pushed her to look more closely at the trend.
She found a growing body of research suggesting that heavy smartphone use may negatively impact young people’s mental health.
The more she read, the more concerned she became, so Greenwell decided to take action. She posted a question on Instagram: What if we could switch the norm? What if parents united to create a “smartphone-free childhood?”
The response was immediate.
“That post went viral,” she told CBS News. “Thousands of parents joined the group overnight.”
Daisy Greenwell and Joe Ryrie are the co-founders of Smartphone Free Childhood. The grassroots parent-led movement now has chapters in 39 countries.
CBS News
Within a couple weeks, Greenwell said there were smartphone-free childhood groups in every county in England. One year later, the grassroots campaign has expanded far beyond the U.K. borders.
The group — Smartphone Free Childhood — now has chapters in 39 countries.
For Greenwell, Ryrie and the thousands of families who’ve joined the movement, the goal is simple: More time outdoors, and a childhood lived offline as much as possible.
In the U.S., the movement even inspired a cautionary viral advertisement, highlighting the dangers of giving children unrestricted access to the internet. A parent in the ad tells their child: “There’s a box in the corner with all the pornographic material ever made. I’m trusting you not to look in there, okay?”
The backlash against youth consumption of social media has drawn the attention of governments globally. On Wednesday, Australia became the first country in the world to enact a ban on social media accounts for children under the age of 16. The law compels huge tech companies such as Meta and TikTok to enforce age restrictions, or face hefty fines.
In the U.K., national Culture Minister Lisa Nandy said the government would be keeping a “close eye” on Australia’s social media ban, but added that there were no current plans to replicate the legislation.
At a grassroots level, however, parents who join Greenwell and Ryrie’s movement are asked to sign a pact: No smartphones for the kids before they turn 14, and no social media before 16.
“This isn’t an anti-tech movement, it’s a pro-childhood movement. We’re not saying no smartphones ever. We’re just saying children don’t need unrestricted internet access in their pockets 24/7,” Ryrie told CBS News.
When asked what she’d tell busy working parents who rely on phones for convenience, Greenwell acknowledged the challenge.
“It’s really tough,” she said. “But delaying the smartphone is free, it’s simple, and it gives your child the best chance to thrive.”
Many families are turning to basic “brick phones” as alternatives — devices that allow calls and texts, but limit internet access. Sales of such “dumb” devices have risen 150% among 18-24 year olds in the United States, according to a study by the peer-reviewed journal Partners Universal Innovative Research Publication.
Despite the momentum, Greenwell says there’s still a cultural norm to disrupt, and available data highlights that point. One in four British kids between the ages of 5 and 7 already own a smartphone, according to the U.K.’s independent media regulator Ofcom.
Greenwell said she believes real change can be driven from the community level.
“If children know several classmates are also delaying smartphones, the peer pressure dissolves,” she told CBS News. “It becomes easier for families to wait a few years. A brick phone in the meantime isn’t that hard. We can do this.”
SYDNEY, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Anthony Albanese became the first Australian prime minister to tie the knot while in office when he married his partner Jodie Haydon in a private ceremony on Saturday.
The wedding was widely expected to be held this year after Albanese proposed to Haydon on Valentine’s Day last year. But the date and details of the ceremony were kept tightly under wraps.
The couple married at a small ceremony in the presence of family and close friends at The Lodge in the capital city Canberra, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
“We are absolutely delighted to share our love and commitment to spending our future lives together, in front of our family and closest friends,” Albanese said in the statement released to the media.
Haydon has accompanied Albanese to several events over the years and was also with him during his election campaign in 2022 and in May this year, when his Labor party won with a thumping majority.
Haydon wore a dress by Sydney designer “Romance was Born”, while the prime minister wore a suit from MJ Bale.
Ms Haydon’s five-year-old niece, Ella, was flower girl, and the prime minister’s dog, Toto, was the ring bearer.
Guests were served beer in a special can made by Willie the Boatman whose brewery is in Sydney’s Inner West.
After the ceremony, Albanese and Haydon walked back down the aisle to Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)”. Their first dance was to “The Way You Look Tonight” by Frank Sinatra.
The couple will honeymoon in Australia from Monday until Friday of next week, with all expenses paid privately by Albanese and Haydon, his office said.
(Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Stephen Coates)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — The Australian government said young children will be banned from social media next month as scheduled despite a rights advocacy group on Wednesday challenging the world-first legislation in court.
The Sydney-based Digital Freedom Project said it had filed a constitutional challenge in the High Court on Wednesday to a law due to take effect on Dec. 10 banning Australian children younger than 16 from holding accounts on specified platforms.
Communications Minister Anika Wells referred to the challenge when she later told Parliament her government remained committed to the ban taking effect on schedule.
“We will not be intimidated by legal challenges. We will not be intimidated by Big Tech. On behalf of Australian parents, we stand firm,” Wells told Parliament.
Digital Freedom Project president John Ruddick is a New South Wales state lawmaker for the minor Libertarian Party.
“Parental supervision of online activity is today the paramount parental responsibility. We do not want to outsource that responsibility to government and unelected bureaucrats,” Ruddick said in a statement.
“This ban is a direct assault on young people’s right to freedom of political communication,” he added.
The case is being brought by Sydney law firm Pryor, Tzannes and Wallis Solicitors on behalf of two 15-year-old children.
Digital Freedom Project spokesperson Sam Palmer could not say whether an application would be made for a court injunction to prevent the age restriction taking effect on Dec. 10 before the case is heard.
Technology giant Meta last week began sending thousands of Australian children suspected to be younger than 16 a warning to downland their digital histories and delete their accounts from Facebook, Instagram and Threads before the ban takes effect.
The government has said the three Meta platforms plus Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube must take reasonable steps to exclude Australian account holders younger than 16 or face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($32 million).
Malaysia has also announced plans to ban social media accounts for children under 16 starting in 2026.
Malaysian Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil said this week his Cabinet approved the move as part of a broader effort to shield young people from online harm like cyberbullying, scams and sexual exploitation. He said his government was studying approaches taken by Australia and other countries, and the potential use of electronic checks with identity cards or passports to verify users’ ages.
WELLINGTON (Reuters) -The New Zealand government announced on Thursday an inquiry into the disappearance of the Phillips children, who were hidden by their fugitive father in dense bush without discovery for several years.
“The inquiry will look into whether government agencies took all practicable steps to protect the safety and welfare of the Phillips children,” Attorney-General Judith Collins said in a statement.
Tom Phillips disappeared with his children in late 2021, in a case that drew national attention for his ability to evade arrest.
In September, Phillips was shot dead in a standoff with police following a robbery at a small rural store. A police officer was also shot multiple times in the standoff but he was later discharged from hospital.
One of Phillips’ children was with him during the shooting and the other two children were later found at a campsite in the remote wilderness. Police have said they believe people in the area helped Phillips, but no arrests have been made.
The inquiry, which will determine whether agencies could take steps to prevent or resolve similar situations more quickly or effectively, will deliver a final report in July 2026. The inquiry will be conducted in private.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer in WellingtonEditing by Matthew Lewis)
SYDNEY (Reuters) -A constitutional challenge against Australia’s social media ban on children younger than 16 has been filed in the nation’s highest court, two weeks before the world-first law is set to take effect.
A campaign group called the Digital Freedom Project said on Wednesday it launched proceedings in the High Court of Australia in a bid to block the law, with two 15-year-olds, Noah Jones and Macy Neyland, as plaintiffs in the case.
More than one million accounts held by teenagers under 16 are set to be deactivated in Australia when the ban on platforms including YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram starts on December 10.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Digital Freedom Project said the ban “robs” young Australians of their freedom of political communication, an implied right in the constitution. Australia does not have an express right to free speech.
“The legislation is grossly excessive,” the statement said.
Neyland said the law would ban young people from expressing their views online.
“Young people like me are the voters of tomorrow … we shouldn’t be silenced. It’s like Orwell’s book 1984, and that scares me,” she said.
The Digital Freedom Project’s president is John Ruddick, a member of the Libertarian Party in the New South Wales state Parliament.
After news of the legal challenge broke, Communications Minister Anika Wells told Parliament the centre-left government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, would not be intimidated by threats and legal challenges.
“Despite the fact that we are receiving threats and legal challenges by people with ulterior motives, the Albanese Labor government remains steadfastly on the side of parents, and not of platforms,” Wells said.
Australian media has reported that YouTube also threatened to launch a High Court challenge on the grounds the ban burdened political communication.
Governments and tech firms around the world are closely watching Australia’s effort to implement the ban, one of the most comprehensive efforts to police minors’ social media access.
The ban was passed into law in November 2024 and is supported by the majority of Australians, according to opinion polling.
The government said research showed the over-use of social media was harming young teens, including causing misinformation, enabling bullying and harmful depictions of body image.
Companies that fail to comply with the ban could face penalties of up to A$49.5 million ($32.22 million).
($1 = 1.5361 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Michael Perry)
If you were traversing the ancient Tethys ocean some 115 million years ago and encountered gigantic lamniform sharks, you’d most definitely need a bigger boat.
Lamniformes, an order of sharks that includes the great white of Jaws infamy, evolved around 135 million years ago and may have begun as wee, shallow water-dwelling creatures—around 3 feet long. But over time, they evolved into massive, fearsome fish that ruled the world’s oceans, for example the extinct megalodon that might have surpassed 50 feet long.
Previous evidence suggested that lamniformes swelled in size to hit the top of the marine food chain around 100 million years ago. Now, fossilized vertebrae found in Australia push this timeline back some 15 million years. These vertebrae appear to have belonged to a type of lamniform called a cardabiodontid, a hefty mega-predatory shark that swam among huge marine reptile neighbors such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs while dinosaurs roamed land.
SHARK SPINE: Fossilized vertebrae belonging to a massive, 115-million-year old shark. Photo by Mikael Siversson.
This ancient ocean beast weighed more than 3 tons and measured between around 20 and 26 feet long, scientists reported in Communications Biology. According to statistical analysis of data from almost 2,000 modern sharks, the authors suggest that this ancient shark ballooned in size relatively early in its evolutionary history, about 20 million years after lamniformes emerged.
“This discovery changes the timeline for when sharks started getting really big,” said study author Mikael Siversson, a paleontologist at the Western Australian Museum, in a statement. “It turns out, they evolved a giant body size much earlier than we originally thought and were already top predators in shallow seas.”
The cardabiodontid vertebrae were discovered at a dig site called the Darwin Formation in northern Australia, which was once part of a shallow shelf bordering the Tethys ocean that sat between modern-day Australia and Europe. The same site has also revealed ancient marine reptiles, ray-finned fish, and other types of sharks.
The shark fossils were a rare find: Their skeletons are made of rubbery cartilage and don’t tend to stick around, so most known shark remnants are teeth. But these vertebrae were partially mineralized, keeping them relatively well preserved over the millennia.
Overall, the recent cardabiodontid findings reveal “a lot about how ancient food webs worked” Siversson said, and show “just how important Australia’s fossil sites are for understanding prehistoric life.”
An Australian senator who has long campaigned for the Islamic women’s garment known as the burqa to be banned in the country has been suspended from parliament for a week for her protest on Monday in which she wore the full body covering into the chamber and refused to remove it.
Pauline Hanson of the anti-immigration One Nation party was accused of racism by fellow lawmakers when she walked into the parliament wearing a burqa on Monday. Hanson called the move — which she has now done twice in a decade — a protest against her colleagues’ refusal to allow her to introduce a bill that would ban burqas and other face coverings in public.
Once inside, Hanson refused to remove the burqa, leading the Senate to be suspended for the remainder of that day.
The protest was met by outrage by some of her fellow senators, with Australian Greens leader Larissa Waters calling it a “middle finger to people of faith.”
“It is extremely racist and unsafe,” Waters added.
Independent Senator Fatima Payman looks on as One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson wears a burqa in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Nov. 24, 2025.
AAP/Mick Tsikas/REUTERS
On Tuesday, the Senate voted 55 to five on a motion that condemned Hanson’s actions as being “intended to vilify and mock people on the basis of their religion” and calling them “disrespectful to Muslim Australians.”
Following the motion, Hanson was barred for seven consecutive Senate sitting days, which will mean her suspension will continue when parliament comes back into session in February of next year after its holiday break.
Speaking to Sky News Australia, Hanson rejected accusations that her protest had vilified or mocked Muslims.
“At the end of the day this is Australia. It is not the Australian cultural way of life. I just want equality for all Australians and I don’t want to see the suppression or oppression of women in this country,” she told the news channel.
Hanson previously wore a burqa to Parliament in 2017, but this week was the first time she was punished for it. When she did it in 2017, she said it was to highlight what she called security issues posed by the garment, which she linked to terrorism.
California could see an early start to the annual flu season, as a combination of low vaccination rates and late mutations to the virus may leave the state particularly exposed to transmission, health experts say.
Already, there are warning signs. Los Angeles County recently reported its first flu death of the season, and other nations are reporting record-breaking or powerful, earlier-than-expected flu seasons.
Typically, flu picks up right after Christmas and into the New Year, but Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional physician chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said she expects increases in viral activity perhaps over the next two to three weeks.
“We’re expecting an early and likely sharp start to the flu season,” Hudson said.
Last year’s flu season was the worst California had seen in years, and it’s not usual for there to be back-to-back bad flu seasons. But a combination of a decline in flu vaccination rates and a “souped-up mutant” is particularly concerning this year, according to Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco.
“That may translate into more people getting infected. And as more people get infected, a proportion of them will go to the hospital,” Chin-Hong said.
The timing of this new flu subvariant — called H3N2 subclade K — is particularly problematic. It emerged toward the end of the summer, long after health officials had already determined how to formulate this fall’s flu vaccine, a decision that had to be made in February.
H3N2 subclade K seems to be starting to dominate in Japan and Britain, Hudson said.
“It looks like a bit of a mismatch between the seasonal flu vaccine strains” and the new subvariant, Hudson said.
It remains unclear whether subclade K will reduce the effectiveness of this year’s flu shot.
In California and the rest of the U.S., “things are quiet, but I think it’s just a calm before the storm,” Chin-Hong said. “From what we see in the U.K. and Japan, a lot more people are getting flu earlier.”
Chin-Hong noted that subclade K is not that much different than the strains this year’s flu vaccines were designed against. And he noted data recently released in Britain that showed this season’s vaccines were still effective against hospitalization.
According to the British government, vaccinated children were 70% to 75% less likely to need hospital care, and adults were 30% to 40% less likely. Flu vaccine effectiveness is typically between 30% to 60%, and tends to be more effective in younger people, the British government said.
Even if there is some degree of mismatch between the vaccine and circulating strains, “the flu vaccine still provides protection against severe illness, including hospitalizations,” according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
“Public Health strongly encourages everyone who has not received the flu vaccine yet this year to receive it now, especially before gathering with loved ones during the holidays,” the department said in a statement.
But “while mismatched vaccines may still provide protection, enhanced genetic, antigenic and epidemiological … monitoring are warranted to inform risk assessment and response,” according to scientists writing in the Journal of the Assn. of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Canada.
Because the vaccine is not a perfect match for the latest mutated flu strain, Chin-Hong said getting antiviral medication like Tamiflu to infected patients may be especially important this year, even for those who are vaccinated. That’s especially true for the most vulnerable, which include the very young and very old.
“But that means you need to get diagnosed earlier,” Chin-Hong said. Drugs like Tamiflu work best when started within one to two days after flu symptoms begin, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
There are now at-home flu testing kits that are widely available for sale for people who are showing signs of illness.
Also worrying is how the flu has surged in other countries.
Australia’s flu season came earlier this year and was more severe than usual. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said that nation saw a record flu season, with more than 410,000 lab-confirmed cases, up from the prior all-time high of 365,000 that were reported last year.
“This is not a record we want to be breaking,” Dr. Michael Wright, president of the physician’s group, said.
Hudson noted Australia’s flu season was “particularly hard on children” this year.
L.A. County health officials cautioned that Australia’s experience isn’t a solid predictor of what happens locally.
“It is difficult to predict what will happen in the United States and Los Angeles, as the severity of the flu season depends on multiple factors including circulating strains, pre-existing immunity, vaccine uptake, and the overall health of the population,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said.
The new strain has also thrown a wrench in things. As Australia’s flu season was ending, “this new mutation came up, which kind of ignited flu in Japan and the U.K., and other parts of Europe and Asia,” Chin-Hong said.
On Friday, Japan reportedly issued a national alert with flu cases surging and hospitalizations increasing, especially among children and the elderly, accompanied by a sharp rise in school and class closures. The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said children ages 1 through 9 and adults 80 and up were among the hardest-hit groups.
Taiwanese health officials warned of the possibility of a second peak in flu this year, according to the Central News Agency. There was already a peak in late September and early October — a month earlier than normal — and officials are warning about an uptick in flu cases starting in December and then peaking around the Lunar New Year on Feb. 17.
Taiwanese officials said 95% of patients with severe flu symptoms had not been recently vaccinated.
British health officials this month issued a “flu jab SOS,” as an early wave struck the nation. Flu cases are “already triple what they were this time last year,” Public Health Minister Ashley Dalton said in a statement.
In England, outside of pandemic years, this fall marked the earliest start to the flu season since 2003-04, scientists said in the journal Eurosurveillance.
“We have to brace ourselves for another year of more cases of flu,” Chin-Hong said.
One major concern has been declining flu vaccination rates — a trend seen in both Australia and the United States.
In Australia, only 25.7% of children age 6 months to 5 years were vaccinated against flu in 2025, the lowest rate since 2021. Among seniors age 65 and up, 60.5% were vaccinated, the lowest rate since 2020.
Australian health officials are promoting free flu vaccinations for children that don’t require an injection, but are administered by nasal spray.
“We must boost vaccination rates,” Wright said.
In the U.S., officials recommend the annual flu vaccine for everyone age 6 months and up. Those age 65 and up are eligible for a higher-dose version, and kids and adults between age 2 and age 49 are eligible to get vaccinated via the FluMist nasal spray, rather than a needle injection.
Officials this year began allowing people to order FluMist to be mailed to them at home.
Besides getting vaccinated, other ways to protect yourself against the flu include washing your hands frequently, avoiding sick people and wearing a mask in higher-risk indoor settings, such as while in the airport and on a plane.
Healthy high-risk people, such as older individuals, can be prescribed antiviral drugs like Tamiflu if another household member has the flu, Chin-Hong said.
Doctors are especially concerned about babies, toddlers and young children up to age 5.
“Those are the kids that are the most vulnerable if they get any kind of a respiratory illness. It can really go badly for them, and they can end up extraordinarily ill,” Hudson said.
In the United States, just 49.2% of children had gotten a flu shot as of late April, lower than the 53.4% who had done so at the same point the previous season, according to preliminary national survey results. Both figures are well below the final flu vaccination rate for eligible children during the 2019-20 season, which was 63.7%.
Among adults, 46.7% had gotten their flu shot as of late April, slightly down from the 47.4% at the same point last season, according to the preliminary survey results, which are the most recent data available.
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, flu vaccination coverage had been slowly increasing; downturns in coverage occurred during and after the pandemic. Flu vaccination levels have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels,” according to the CDC.
The disparaging of vaccinations by federal health officials, led by the vaccine-skeptic secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has not helped improve immunization rates, health experts say. Kennedy told the New York Times on Thursday that he personally directed the CDC to change its website to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism.
Mainstream health experts and former CDC officials denounced the change. “Extensive scientific evidence shows vaccines do not cause autism,” wrote Daniel Jernigan, Demetre Daskalakis and Debra Houry, all former top officials at the CDC, in an op-ed to MS NOW.
“CDC has been updated to cause chaos without scientific basis. Do not trust this agency,” Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, added on social media. “This is a national embarrassment.”
State health officials from California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii on Friday called the new claims on the CDC website inaccurate and said there are decades of “high quality evidence that vaccines are not linked to autism.”
“Over 40 high-quality studies involving more than 5.6 million children have found no link between any routine childhood vaccine and autism,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said Friday. “The increase in autism diagnoses reflects improved screening, broader diagnostic criteria, and greater awareness, not a link to vaccines.”
Hudson said it’s important to get evidence-based information on the flu vaccines.
“Vaccines save lives. The flu vaccine in particular saves lives,” Hudson said.
Many Australians are waiting years to see public medical specialists. In some cases, the wait stretches more than six years for a neurologist or over three and a half years for urgent neurosurgery. Doctors warn these delays are causing “irreversible complications” and even life-threatening conditions. Under the taxpayer-funded Medicare system, patients can see public specialists at little or no cost with a referral from a general practitioner. Yet demand far exceeds capacity. Health authorities insist they are adding more specialists and improving referrals, but shortages persist, especially in the most understaffed specialties.
Tonga has been given a tough draw at next year’s Rugby League World Cup, including a showdown with arch-rivals Samoa at Parramatta.
The Kristian Woolf-coached Tongans have been drawn in Group C, which means they play matches against Group B sides England, Samoa and Lebanon.
Their round-three showdown with Samoa on November 1 at CommBank Stadium is set to be a sellout after 44,682 fans watched the Samoans beat Tonga 34-6 at Suncorp Stadium in this year’s Pacific Cup.
Defending World Cup champions Australia will kick off the 10-nation men’s tournament against Pacific Cup holders and Group A rivals New Zealand on October 15 at Allianz Stadium.
The Kangaroos, who swept England 3-0 in the recent Ashes series, will then play the remaining Group A sides Fiji and the Cook Islands in the following weeks.
Group A’s four sides play each other once in the three round-robin clashes ahead of the semi-finals, and the final at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday, November 15.
The semi-finals will be held at Newcastle’s McDonald Jones Stadium and Sydney’s Allianz Stadium.
Group B and C feature three teams apiece, but sides in each will play three games against those in the opposite group.
Tonga, PNG and France make up Group B.
Tonga have been handled a difficult draw in the men’s tournament. (Getty Images: Matt King)
The top two sides from Group A go through to the semi-finals, while the six teams in Groups B and C will form a ladder of their own, with the top two playing semis.
That makes Tonga’s task, which includes clashes against England in Perth on October 17 and their showdown with Samoa, tougher than any other team’s.
World Cup titles for men, women and wheelchair will be contested in Australia and Papua New Guinea, with 14 nations and 26 teams playing 53 matches across 31 days.
The Women’s World Cup boasts eight sides with Australia, Samoa, England and Wales in Group A. Group B consists of New Zealand, PNG, France and Fiji.
Each team will play three matches against the other teams in their group. The top two teams from each group will progress to the semis.
Australia and Samoa will open the tournament at CommBank Stadium on October 16.
The same two-group format applies in the Wheelchair World Cup, with England, Ireland, Wales and the USA in Group A and Australia, Scotland, France and New Zealand in Group B.
All the wheelchair showdowns will be held at Wollongong’s WIN Entertainment Centre.
Australian Rugby League (ARLC) chairman Peter V’landys said the World Cup would build on the success of both domestic and international rugby league.
“Rugby League World Cup 2026 couldn’t come at a better time on the back of record-breaking NRL and NRLW seasons, a successful Ashes series, and the most exciting Pacific Championships ever,” he said.
“Representing your country is the ultimate honour and doing so in a World Cup is the ultimate stage. The talent, skill, physicality, passion and raw emotion on display will be something like we have never seen before.
“This will be the best and most successful Rugby League World Cup on record.”
Dozens of Topanga residents gathered in the town’s Community House to hear Assistant Fire Chief Drew Smith discuss how the Los Angeles County Fire Department plans to keep Topangans alive in a fierce firestorm.
In the red-brick atrium, adorned with exposed wood and a gothic chandelier, Smith explained that if a fire explodes next to the town and flames will reach homes within minutes, orchestrating a multi-hour evacuation through winding mountain roads for Topanga’s more than 8,000 residents will just not be a viable option. In such cases, Smith told attendees at the town’s Oct. 4 ReadyFest wildfire preparedness event, the department now plans to order residents to shelter in their homes.
“Your structure may catch on fire,” Smith said. “You’re going to have religious moments, I guarantee it. But that’s your safest option.”
Wildfire emergency response leaders and experts have described such an approach as concerning and point to Australia as an example: After the nation adopted a similar policy, a series of brush fires in 2009 now known as Black Saturday killed 173 people, many sheltering in their homes.
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Some in the bohemian community of nature lovers, creatives and free spirits — who often pride themselves on their rugged, risky lifestyle navigating floods, mudslides, wildfires and the road closures and power outages they entail — are left with the sinking realization that the wildfire risk in Topanga may be too big to bear.
Water tanks called “pumpkins” are available to helicopters to be used during a fire at 69 Bravo, an LAFD Command Center along Saddle Peak Road in Topanga.
They see the shelter-in-place plan as a perilous wager, with no comprehensive plan to help residents harden their homes against fire and no clear, fire-tested guidance on what residents should do if they’re stuck in a burning home.
“Do we need to have some way of communicating with first responders while we are sheltering in place? Would the fire front be approaching us and we’re just on our own?” asked Connie Najah, a Topanga resident who attended ReadyFest and was unsettled by the proposal. “What are the plans for helping people through this season and the next season while we’re waiting to have widespread defensible space implementation?”
No fire chief wants to face the scenario of a vulnerable town with no time to evacuate. But it is a real possibility for Topanga. Smith, speaking to The Times, stressed that the new guidelines only apply to situations where the Fire Department has deemed evacuations infeasible.
“If we have time to evacuate, we will evacuate you,” Smith said.
Emergency operations experts say not enough has been done in their field to address the very grim possibility that evacuating may not always be possible — in part because it’s a hard reality to confront. It’s not a small problem, either: Cal Fire has identified more than 2,400 developments around the state with at least 30 residences that have significant fire risk and only a single evacuation route. Topanga is home to nine of them.
“We’re pretty isolated. We’re densely populated. Fuel and homes are intermixed. It’s an extremely dangerous area.”
— James Grasso, president of the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness
Recent fires, including the 2018 Camp fire in Paradise and Woolsey fire in Malibu, have made the issue too hard to ignore.
In Topanga, Najah has a ham radio license so she can stay informed when power and cell service inevitably go down. The elementary school relocates out of town during red-flag days. A task force including the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, the Fire Department and other emergency operations agencies publishes a Disaster Survival Guide and distributes it to every household.
“The survival guide was born out of necessity,” said James Grasso, president of TCEP, who also serves as a call firefighter for the county Fire Department. “We’re pretty isolated. We’re densely populated. Fuel and homes are intermixed. It’s an extremely dangerous area, particularly during Santa Ana wind conditions.”
The guide had instructed residents to flock to predetermined “public safe refuges” in town, such as the baseball field at the Community House or the large parking lot at the state park, to wait out fires. If residents couldn’t make it to these, there were predetermined “public temporary refuge areas” within each neighborhood, such as street intersections and homes with large cleared backyards, that provide some increased chance of survival.
But when the Fire Department determined the spaces were not capable of protecting the town’s entire population from the extreme radiant heat, it pivoted to sheltering in place — the last and most dangerous option listed in the old guide.
Connie Najah, a 16-year resident of Topanga, points out photographs from the Topanga Disaster Survival Guide of places that were once considered “public safe refuges” to be used during a fire.
The survival guide’s old plan was consistent with what emergency response experts and officials have argued across the globe, but it failed to meet typical safety standards for such an approach.
The report argued that, due to tightly packed combustible structures amid an accumulation of flammable vegetation, “nearly all” communities are “unsuitable” for sheltering in place.
David Shew, a trained architect and firefighter who spent more than 30 years at Cal Fire, said that for a shelter-in-place policy to be viable, a community would need to undertake significant work to harden their homes and create defensible space — work that has not been done in most California communities.
It’s “not really safe for people to just think, ‘OK, I’ve done nothing but they told me to just jump in my house,’” he said.
And once a house ignites, suggestions that Smith offered up at ReadyFest like sheltering in a bathroom are of little use, said Mark Ghilarducci, a former director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
“Under certain circumstances, your home could potentially provide a buffer,” he said. But if a house is burning and surrounded by fire in the wildlands, “you’re in a position where you are essentially trapped, and your bathroom’s not going to save you.”
Smith said, however, that the Fire Department had done its own analysis of the Topanga area and determined that the fire dynamics in the area are too extreme for Topanga’s proposed public shelter spaces to be effective.
“There is no way that we can 100% eliminate the fire risk and death potential if you live in a fire-prone area.”
— Drew Smith, assistant fire chief at the Los Angeles County Fire Department
During hot, aggressive fires like the Woolsey, Franklin and Palisades fires, Smith said, “for 30 to 100 people, you need a minimum of clear land that’s 14 acres, which is 14 football fields.” Many of the safety areas in the survival guide, such as an L.A. County Public Works water tank facility, are barely larger than 1 acre.
The department argues sheltering in place, although far from guaranteeing survival, eliminates the risk of residents getting trapped on roadways, unable to see, with almost no protection.
“There is no way that we can 100% eliminate the fire risk and death potential if you live in a fire-prone area,” Smith said.
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1.Topanga resident James Grasso, president of Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, walks toward a baseball field that was once declared a public safe refuge to escape to during a fire at the Topanga Community Center.2.Connie Najah stands on a portion of Peak Trail that was at one time considered a public temporary refuge area during fires in Topanga.
Regardless of what residents (or emergency response experts) think of the department’s approach, the safest thing residents can do, experts say, is to always, always, always follow the department’s orders, whether that’s to evacuate, find a safety zone or shelter in their homes. The department’s plan to keep residents alive depends on it.
Still, the history of shelter-in-place policies — and their more aggressive companion, “stay and defend,” which involves attempting to actively combat the blaze at home — looms heavy.
After more than 100 bush fires swept through southeast Australia in 1983, killing 75 people in what became known as Ash Wednesday, Australian fire officials adopted a “stay or go” policy: Either leave well before a fire reaches you, or prepare to stay and fend for yourself. If you’re living in a high fire hazard area, the philosophy goes, it is your responsibility to defend your property and keep yourself alive amid strained fire resources.
Around the same time, California considered the policy for itself after dangerous fires ripped through the Santa Monica Mountains, Ghilarducci said. State officials ultimately decided against it, choosing instead to prioritize early evacuations. Cal Fire’s “Ready, Set, Go!” public awareness campaign became the face of those efforts.
In 2009, an explosive suite of brush fires broke out, yet again, in southeast Australia and seemed to confirm California’s worst nightmare: 173 people lost their lives in the Black Saturday tragedy. Of those, 40% died during or after an attempt to defend their property, and nearly 30% died sheltering in their homes without attempting to defend them. About 20% died while attempting to evacuate.
Afterward, Australia significantly overhauled the policy, placing a much greater emphasis on evacuating early and developing fire shelter building standards.
Nearly a decade later, California confronted its own stress test. The Camp fire ripped through Paradise in the early morning on Nov. 8, 2018. The time between the first sighting of the fire and it reaching the edge of town: one hourand 39 minutes. The time it took to evacuate: seven hours.
Among the miraculous stories of survival in Paradise were the many individuals who found refuge areas in town: a predetermined safety zone in a large, open meadow; the parking lots of stores, churches and schools; a local fire station; roadways and intersections with a little buffer from the burning trees.
But the same day, the intensity of the Woolsey fire in the Santa Monica Mountains — similarly plagued with evacuation challenges — unsettled fire officials. It’s in these conditions that Smith doubted Topanga’s refuge sites could protect residents.
Stuck without many options, the Fire Department began slowly thinking about refining the policies that proved disastrous for Australia. The Palisades fire brought a renewed urgency.
Just a month before ReadyFest, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone stirred anxiety among emergency response officials when he appeared to endorse a stay-and-defend policy,telling KCAL-TV, “We’ve always told people that when the evacuation order comes, you must leave. We’ve departed from that narrative. With the proper training, with the proper equipment and with the proper home hardening and defensible space, you can stay behind and prevent your house from burning down.”
The department later clarified the statement, saying the change only applies to individuals in the Santa Monica Mountains’ community brigade who have received significant training from the department and operate under the department’s command. (The brigade is not intended as a means for members to protect their own homes but instead serve the larger community.)
Now, residents worry the policy to shelter in place is coming without enough preparation.
A worker stops traffic that has been reduced to one lane on a portion of Topanga Canyon Boulevard for underground cable installation Nov. 19.
A Times analysis of L.A. County property records found that roughly 98% of residential properties in Topanga were built before the state adopted home-hardening building codes in 2008 to protect homes against wildfires.
However, a significant number of Topangans have opted to complete the requirements regardless. Various fire safety organizations in the Santa Monica Mountains have visited more than 470 of Topanga’s roughly 3,000 residential properties to help residents learn how to harden their homes. These efforts are, in part, why the National Fire Protection Assn. designated the mountain town as a Firewise Community in 2022.
There are some relatively simple steps homeowners can take, such as covering vents with mesh, that can slightly reduce the chance of a home burning. But undertaking a comprehensive renovation — to remove wood decks, install noncombustible siding and roofing, replace windows with multipaned tempered glass, hardscape the land near the house and trim down trees — is expensive.
A report from the community development research nonprofit Headwaters Economics found a complete home retrofit using affordable materials costs between $23,000 and $40,000. With high-end materials that provide the best protection, it can cost upward of $100,000.
“We’re not the only rural community. All over the state, people are having to deal with this.”
— Connie Najah, 16-year resident of Topanga
Many Topangans have taken up the challenge, anyway. Grasso, who lost his home in the 1993 Old Topanga fire, has slowly been hardening his property since the rebuild. He’s even built a concrete fire shelter against a hillside with two steel escape doors and porthole windows.
Researchers have found comprehensive home hardening and defensible space can reduce the risk of a home burning by about a third, but not bring it down to zero. (Albeit, none have tested Grasso’s elaborate setup.)
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1.Nancy Helms stands on top of “dwarf carpet of stars,” a succulent plant that surrounds a large area of her home as a fire prevention method on Rocky Ledge Road in Topanga.2.Ryan Ulyate uses metal sculptures of plants and cactus outside his home in Topanga. He has eliminated any brush or flammable plants near his home and surrounds it in gravel to prevent his home from catching fire.3.Ryan Ulyate shows a vent opening that he covered with metal filters to prevent embers from entering his home if a fire occurs in Topanga.
Wildfire safety experts hope the state someday adopts building standards for truly fire-proof structures that could withstand even the most extreme conditions and come equipped with life-support systems. But any such standards are years away, and the L.A. County Fire Department has to have a plan if a fire breaks out tomorrow.
For Grasso, fire risk is a risk like any other, like the choice to drive a car every day. In exchange for the beauty of living life in Topanga, some folks will learn to accept the risk and do what they can to mitigate it: Harden a home, fasten a seat belt. Others — especially those unable to take the drastic steps Grasso has been able to — will deem the beauty of life in Topanga not worth the risk of getting trapped by flames.
“The amount of money it takes to get to this point is too cost-prohibitive for us at this moment,” Najah said. “It’s really a tough place to be in. … It’s not going to be easy, and we’re not the only rural community. All over the state, people are having to deal with this.”
Times assistant data and graphics editor Sean Greene contributed to this report.
Sydney — A far-right Australian politician sparked outrage Monday after donning a burqa at the country’s parliament, in a display that other lawmakers condemned as racist, unsafe and disrespectful.
Pauline Hanson of the anti-immigration One Nation party was seeking to introduce a bill in the Senate that would ban full face coverings in Australia — a policy she has campaigned on for decades.
Just minutes after other lawmakers blocked her from introducing that bill, she returned wearing a black burqa and sat down.
Her display was meet by outrage from her fellow senators.
Australian Greens leader in the Senate Larissa Waters said the move was “the middle finger to people of faith.”
“It is extremely racist and unsafe,” Waters added.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who also serves as leader of the government in the Senate, condemned it as “disrespectful.”
Senator Pauline Hanson, leader of Australia’s One Nation political party, wears a burqa in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Nov. 24, 2025.
AAP/Mick Tsikas/REUTERS
“All of us in this place have a great privilege in coming into this chamber,” Wong said. “We represent in our states, people of every faith, of every faith, of all backgrounds. And we should do so decently.”
Hanson refused to remove the burqa and the Senate was suspended.
It is the second time she has donned the Muslim clothing in parliament.
In 2017, she wore a full burqa in the Senate to highlight what she said were the security issues the garment posed, linking it to terror.
In a statement posted later Monday on a Facebook account that she endorses, Hanson called her actions a protest against the Senate rejecting her proposed bill.
“So if the Parliament won’t ban it, I will display this oppressive, radical, non-religious head garb that risk our national security and the ill-treatment of women on the floor of our parliament so that every Australian knows what’s at stake,” Hanson wrote. “If they don’t want me wearing it — ban the burqa.”
Independent Senator Fatima Payman looks on as One Nation party leader Pauline Hanson wears a burqa in the Senate chamber at Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Nov. 24, 2025.
AAP/Mick Tsikas/REUTERS
Hanson has previously described Islam as “a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own,” and she claimed in a 2016 speech that Australia was being “swamped by Muslims.”
Her party has seen its support among the public increase as the country’s main conservative opposition remain beset by infighting. A poll this month reported by The Australian Financial Review showed the One Nation party with a still modest, but record 18% support.
That comes as a government envoy said in September that Australia had failed to tackle persistent and intensifying Islamophobia.
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia is home for YouTube star Jordan Barclay, the place where he was born, went to school and built a company worth $50 million by age 23 that produces gaming content for 23 million subscribers.
Now, with a world-first social media ban on Australian children younger than 16 set to take effect on December 10, he is thinking of leaving his Melbourne studio and moving abroad.
“We’re going to move overseas because that’s where the money is going to be,” said Barclay, whose seven YouTube channels include EYstreem, Chip and Milo, and Firelight.
“We can’t afford to keep doing business if advertisers leave Australia.”
Nine participants interviewed by Reuters in Australia’s social media industry, estimated to generate annual revenue of A$9 billion ($5.82 billion), did not put a dollar figure on the ban’s impact but agreed it could lead to a drop in advertisers and views.
YouTubers, who get paid 55% of ad revenue and up to 18 Australian cents per 1,000 views, could be hit hardest, said social media researcher Susan Grantham at Griffith University.
“If it is one clean sweep and all these accounts disappear, then instantaneously, it’s going to be detrimental to the influencer economy.”
The law requires companies to block the accounts of more than a million people under the cut-off age, punishing “systemic breaches” with penalties of up to A$49.5 million.
While teenagers can still watch YouTube without an account, the site’s algorithm will fail to drive traffic to popular posts, reducing views.
Equally, creators on YouTube, TikTok and Meta’s Instagram stand to lose earnings through promotions if the number of their followers fall, Grantham said.
Advertisers are also on edge about campaigns targeting younger audiences, said Stephanie Scicchitano, general manager at Sydney-based talent agency Born Bred Talent.
FEWER SPONSORSHIP DEALS AS BAN DEADLINE NEARS
Barclay’s company Spawnpoint Media sells advertising to companies such as Lego and Microsoft, but clients’ interest in sponsorship deals has declined as the ban approaches, he said.
“They’re worried about what the ban could mean later,” he said. “If it expands, if it grows … it makes sense for us to invest overseas and not here.”
The United States could be among his options, he said, pointing to more favourable laws and government support in such markets.
Some creators are already leaving to avoid the curbs, such as influencers the Empire Family, who told followers in October they were relocating to Britain.
The careers of those creating content featuring children younger than 16, such as family vloggers and child influencers, were particularly at risk, said Crystal Abidin, the director of the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab.
“They agree that in order to continue, it’s an easy decision to immigrate,” she said.
Children’s musicians Tina and Mark Harris, whose Lah-Lah YouTube channel has 1.4 million subscribers, said, “Any negative impact on income is going to hurt.”
CONCERN ABOUT LASTING REPUTATIONAL HARM
But their main concern was lasting reputational damage from the government’s description of YouTube’s harm to children.
“Parents will get the jitters and stay away from YouTube in droves,” Mark Harris said.
“Maybe that’s hyperbole, we just don’t know.”
Initially exempted from the ban, Alphabet-owned YouTube was added later at the urging of Australia’s internet regulator, which said 37% of minors reported seeing harmful content on YouTube, the worst showing for a platform.
The ban “does a disservice” to creators of high-quality content for children, said Shannon Jones, who runs Australia’s largest YouTube channel, Bounce Patrol, with more than 33 million subscribers.
Byron Bay creator Junpei Zaki, 28, whose output is mostly drawn from interactions with 22 million followers across TikTok and YouTube, expects the ban to cause a “guaranteed drop” in likes and comments from Australia.
“It … does feel like I’m ignoring my Australian audience that helped get me here, because they can’t interact.”
HIT MAGNIFIED FOR SMALLER CREATORS
Zaki estimates he will lose 100,000 followers to the ban, a blip in his global reach, but warned that smaller creators with domestic audiences would be hit harder.
At the House of Lim food stall in Sydney’s west, 15-year-old owner Dimi Heryxlim has built a following by posting vlogs of his routine running the kitchen after school.
Losing access to his TikTok and Instagram accounts “will be a bad thing”, he said, as some customers recognise him from his videos, but he plans to return as soon as he turns 16.
“If I can’t get my account back, I’ll just get a new account and start everything from scratch,” said Heryxlim.
($1 = 1.5475 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by Byron Kaye and Clarence Fernandez)
SYDNEY (Reuters) -The Australian city of Darwin’s international airport remained shuttered on Sunday after a tropical cyclone brought destructive winds to the Northern Territory capital overnight.
Fina, a category three cyclone, was on Sunday clocking wind gusts of up to 205kph (127mph) as it moved away from Northern Territory capital Darwin after passing the city late on Saturday as a “severe tropical cyclone”, the nation’s Bureau of Meteorology said.
For residents of Darwin, population of around 140,000, Fina conjured painful memories of Cyclone Tracy, which wiped out much of the city on Christmas Day 1974, killing 66 people, in what was one of Australia’s worst natural disasters.
Darwin International Airport, which closed on Saturday as a precaution over Fina, said on Sunday it was “working to re-establish operations as soon as it is safe to do so”.
“Strong prevailing winds and heavy rain continue,” the airport said in a cyclone alert on its Facebook page.
Authorities on Sunday morning urged Darwin residents to stay clear of downed powerlines across the city. “Now is not the time to be sightseeing,” emergency agency SecureNT said on its Facebook page.
Government-owned Power and Water Corporation said it was not yet able to estimate how many people were without power, with crews starting damage assessments on Sunday morning.
Several homes and infrastructure in the region had been damaged by the cyclone but no-one was seriously injured, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Category three tropical cyclones, two levels below the highest danger rating, typically damage structures, crops and trees and cause power failures, according to the weather bureau.
In March, ex-tropical cyclone Alfred hit neighbouring Queensland, closing schools and leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power.
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; editing by Diane Craft)
BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -Turkey will host the COP31 climate summit in 2026 with Australia leading the negotiation process, a document released at the COP30 summit in Brazil showed on Friday, confirming an earlier announcement that a split hosting arrangement was expected.
The statement was issued by Germany after a meeting of the Western European and Others Group, which was tasked with selecting the 2026 host.
The deal, which resolved a lengthy standoff with both vying to host the U.N. climate talks, set out that Turkey will serve as the venue while delegating negotiating responsibilities to Australia.
“If there is a difference of views between Türkiye (Turkey) and Australia, consultations will take place until the difference is resolved to mutual satisfaction,” the statement said.
A pre-COP summit will be held in a Pacific Island country, and Australia will lead the year-long process that shapes the agenda and priorities ahead of COP31.
(Reporting by William James; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
The breadth and reach of Australia’s grows as livestream platform Twitch has now been added to the list of banned platforms for users under 16 years of age. The nationwide ban is the first of its kind and encompasses Facebook, X, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and recently .
According to the , Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Twitch had been included because it was “a platform most commonly used for livestreaming or posting content that enables users, including Australian children, to interact with others in relation to the content posted.”
No other platforms are expected to be added before the law goes into effect next month. Grant also said on Friday that Pinterest would not be included in the ban because the core purpose of the platform was not online social interaction.
Under the ban, platforms are expected to take “reasonable steps” to prevent underage users from accessing their platforms, and face steep fees for failure to comply. While may provide a workaround in some instances, the law still creates an enormous barrier to entry for users under 16.
Earlier this month, its lawmakers had reached a bipartisan agreement to enact a similar ban for users under 15, though details were scarce. In the US, several states have attempted to enact such a ban including and , though these measures either failed to pass or are held up in court. Even laws that don’t go as far, such as requiring parents to grant permission for teens to open social media accounts, are facing stiff opposition on First Amendment grounds.
Concern around minors’ social media in the zeitgeist as surrounding the these platforms have on their youngest users.
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australia’s internet watchdog on Friday said it would include Amazon.com-owned live streaming service Twitch in its upcoming teen social media ban, but will not add image-sharing platform Pinterest to the list.
From December 10, Australia will become the world’s first country to bar people aged 16 years and under from using social media, with penalties up to A$49.5 million ($32 million) for companies that fail to take “reasonable steps” to comply.
($1 = 1.5494 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)
Melbourne, Australia — Technology giant Meta on Thursday began sending thousands of young Australians a two-week warning to downland their digital histories and delete their accounts from Facebook, Instagram and Threads before a world-first social media ban on accounts of children younger than 16 takes effect.
The Australian government announced two weeks ago that the three Meta platforms plus Snapchat, TikTok, X and YouTube must take reasonable steps to exclude Australian account holders younger than 16, beginning Dec. 10.
California-based Meta on Thursday became the first of the targeted tech companies to outline how it will comply with the law. Meta contacted thousands of young account holders via SMS and email to warn that suspected children will start to be denied access to the platforms from Dec. 4.
“We will start notifying impacted teens today to give them the opportunity to save their contacts and memories,” Meta said in a statement.
Meta said young users could also use the notice period to update their contact information “so we can get in touch and help them regain access once they turn 16.”
Meta has estimated there are 350,000 Australians aged 13-to-15 on Instagram and 150,000 in that age bracket on Facebook. Australia’s population is 28 million.
Account holders 16-years-old and older who were mistakenly given notice that they would be excluded can contact Yoti Age Verification and verify their age by providing government-issued identity documents or a “video selfie,” Meta said.
Terry Flew, co-director of Sydney University’s Center for AI, Trust and Governance, said such facial-recognition technology had a failure rate of at least 5%.
“In the absence of a government-mandated ID system, we’re always looking at second-best solutions around these things,” Flew told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
The government has warned platforms that demanding that all account holders prove they are older than 15 would be an unreasonable response to the new age restrictions. The government maintains the platforms already had sufficient data about many account holders to ascertain they were not young children.
Social media companies will face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (about $33 million) if they are found to be failing to prevent people under 16 from creating accounts on their platforms.
Meta’s vice president and global head of safety, Antigone Davis, said she would prefer that app stores including Apple App Store and Google Play collect the age information when a user signs up and verifies they are at least 16 year old for app operators such as Facebook and Instagram.
“We believe a better approach is required: a standard, more accurate, and privacy-preserving system, such as OS/app store-level age verification,” Davis said in a statement.
“This combined with our investments in ongoing efforts to assure age … offers a more comprehensive protection for young people online,” she added.
Dany Elachi, founder of the parents’ group Heaps Up Alliance that lobbied for the social media age restriction, said parents should start helping their children plan on how they will spend the hours currently absorbed by social media.
He was critical of the government’s only announcing on the complete list of platforms that will become age-restricted on Nov. 5.
“There are aspects of the legislation that we’re not entirely supportive of, but the principle that children under the age of 16 are better off in the real world, that’s something we advocated for and are in favor of,” Elachi said. “When everybody misses out, nobody misses out. That’s the theory. Certainly we expect that it would play out that way. We hope parents are going to be very positive about this and try to help their children see all the potential possibilities that are now open to them.”
There was significant resistance to the legislation last year, however, including from some children’s advocacy groups.
The CEO of the Save the Children charity Mat Tinkler said in a statement a year ago, when the ban was approved by Australian lawmakers, that while he welcomed the government’s efforts to protect children from harm online, the solution should be regulating social media companies, rather than a blanket ban.
He said the government should “instead use the momentum of this moment to hold the social media giants to account, to demand that they embed safety into their platforms rather than adding it as an afterthought, and to work closely with experts and children and young people themselves to make online spaces safer, as opposed to off-limits.”
The Australian Human Rights Commission, an independent government body, also expressed “serious reservations” over the law before it was approved, saying last year that there were “less restrictive alternatives available that could achieve the aim of protecting children and young people from online harms, but without having such a significant negative impact on other human rights. One example of an alternative response would be to place a legal duty of care on social media companies.”
Turkiye will host next year’s COP31 summit in the city of Antalya, ending a long standoff with Australia over the location of the top United Nations climate meeting.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Thursday morning that Australia had reached an arrangement with Turkiye to host negotiations in the lead-up to the 2026 UN climate meeting along with Pacific nations while Turkiye will assume the presidency of the official meeting.
“What we’ve come up with is a big win for both Australia and [Turkiye],” Albanese told the Australian public broadcaster ABC Radio Perth.
The announcement comes as this year’s COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belem is due to close on Friday.
Australia had been pushing to host COP31 next year as a “Pacific COP” alongside low-lying South Pacific nations, which are increasingly threatened by rising seas and climate-fuelled disasters.
Despite Australia’s efforts, Turkiye refused to back down in its bid to host the summit.
Turkiye had said that as an emerging economy, it would promote solidarity between rich and poor countries at its summit, which would have a more global rather than regional focus.
Turkiye will now have just 12 months to plan the meeting at the Antalya Expo Center due to the unusually long process to secure hosting duties and the lack of procedures in place to handle a situation in which two countries wanted to host at the same time.
The presidency of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change traditionally rotates among five regions: Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe and others.
Australia and Turkiye both fit within the latter category of Western Europe and others, meaning that Australia will now have to wait another five years until it can bid to host the meeting again.
Ethiopian Minister for Planning and Development Fitsum Assefa Adela announced last week that her country had already secured the support of African negotiators to host COP32 in 2027.
‘Disappointed it’s ended up like this’
Papua New Guinea (PNG) quickly voiced frustration with Australia for dropping its bid to cohost the COP with its Pacific island neighbours.
“We are all not happy and disappointed it’s ended up like this,” PNG Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko told the AFP news agency.
“What has COP achieved over the years? Nothing,” Tkatchenko said. “It’s just a talk fest and doesn’t hold the big polluters accountable.”
Australian Senator Steph Hodgins-May from the Australian Greens party said Australia’s withdrawal from hosting the meeting reflected the current Labor government’s “continued coal and gas approvals” as Australia continues to increase its exports of fossil fuels.
“This is extremely disappointing, but it shows that the world recognises Australia’s significant role in making dangerous climate change worse,” May said.
According to the International Energy Agency, both Australia and Turkiye are heavily dependent on coal, oil and gas for energy, but both countries have also been making progress in renewable energy.
Australia’s federal Labor government had hoped to showcase renewable energy progress in the state of South Australia by hosting the conference in the state’s capital, Adelaide.
However, the proposal was complicated by the city’s struggle to cope with a significant toxic algal bloom that has been taking place offshore for eight months.
Algal blooms are one of many complications caused by warming oceans, an aspect of climate change that climate scientists and other experts said can be improved only by rapidly reducing dependence on fossil fuels.
A dead fish washes up on Glenelg Beach on July 13, 2025, in Adelaide, Australia, during a toxic algal bloom [Tracey Nearmy/Getty Images]
