Apparently there was some academic research making the rounds a few years back about this (and legislation moves slow). Of course, the law is still written by tech-illiterates.
There's a really simple solution to this that e-safety refuses to consider. Let anyone make an account but limit public interaction until age is verified. That way they could apply the ban to everything from Reddit and 4chan all the way to Steam and Github without major disruption (well, maybe with Github it'd be a bit disruptive).
And while they're at it they should do something about algorithmic brain rot.
And Gen Alpha is pretty cooked. They're gonna forget entirely about the ban in a week, if they even notice (because the ban only applies to accounts and not many even use social media logged in).
I don't know about you, but in every circle I'm in the concern is just the abysmal implementation that not only doesn't address the actual problems but kind of makes them worse, and it'd be really easy to write a better policy that properly addresses that without any ID being involved.
So ... it gets worse. Apparently they're quietly rolling out a porn ban, and part of that is that you won't be able to "log in to a search engine" without verifying your age. As I understand it a YouTube account is kinda different from your google account but the same isn't true for google search.
In the past I thought that even though I don't like it, social media addiction is the issue of the decade. But half the issue is also digital privacy. This not only fails to meaningfully address social media addiction but it also actively worsens digital privacy. This whole crusade is counterproductive.
As for gmail, I can't find a clear answer or even anyone who's asked the question. The whole account deletion thing is stupid, they should just remove all the safety consequences of having an account (limiting interaction, hiding public profiles, etc). Actually they should just make me e-safety commissioner, because I'd do a far better job.
This post misses another reason for voting being rusted-on Labor. The alternatives are more interested in virtue signalling than actually forming and keeping government. Labor have delivered meaningful results to Australians, in some areas they've not delivered but they've lost every election where they promised solutions to those issues.
Minor parties have historically blocked forward progress. The ETS, the HAFF, the logging ban in Tasmania, etc. Labor has historically delivered forward progress (Renewables, Superannuation, etc).
It's way more than three ... was my first thought, but I'm starting to rethink that. I don't think China would go quite that far, and once China's out a lot of other countries seem unlikely.
India's definitely one. America two. Russia or Israel are three.
I don't buy the allegations against Iran, I don't think North Korea's interest extends all the way here, and Myanmar's got bigger concerns.
I was going to comment on how Gillard's soullessness and treachery made the headline believable, but then I remembered Abbott eating the raw onion and I couldn't pass up the chance.
EDIT: I just went to double check and the first autocomplete on "Tony Abbott" was "Tony Abbott Onion".
She was really an awful prime minister. Her legacy has basically been entirely repealed because she sucks at politics and put her own ambition above moving the country forward.
This is obvious rot, preferential and compulsory voting allows votes to go to smaller parties, not the other way round. Just a random jab at one of the more democratic features of our system.
Compulsory voting means elections are actually won by winning over the center. UK and US centrist politicians like to believe their countries work that way, but in Austraila it actually does.
As for preferential voting ... the main reason Reform is on track for a majority is because of vote splitting between all the other parties. It's unlikely reform could win in a 1:1 contest against a half-way competent opposition. In the case of the US the Republicans rose to power because people hated both options and with preferential voting the normal people could've been persuaded to turn up.
Apparently there was some academic research making the rounds a few years back about this (and legislation moves slow). Of course, the law is still written by tech-illiterates.