What Australia’s teen social media ban could mean for reading
As under-16s are locked out of major social media platforms, online book communities that helped many teens discover reading are disappearing too. What’s being lost, and what might replace it?
Recent articles in Policy
22 December 2025
Australia’s roads are full of giant cars, and everyone pays the price
Australia’s growing love affair with SUVs and utes is reshaping road safety. Larger vehicles don’t just cause more harm in crashes – they may also change how drivers behave.
21 December 2025
How much does it cost to end rough sleeping? An Australian-first study may have just found out
Homelessness in Australia is worsening, with services stuck in crisis mode. Evidence from Finland – and new research in SA and WA – shows a different path is possible.
10 December 2025
Australia’s social media ban puts free speech on the chopping block
Australia’s social media ban for under-16s is being sold as a protection for children, but it raises serious questions about free speech, democratic participation and the perverse effects of prohibition.
10 December 2025
Jobs for mates, by design: the government rejects its own integrity review
The government’s response to the Briggs review abandons legislated reform and leaves ministers wide discretion over appointments across the commonwealth.
10 December 2025
Too many states, too little nation: time to fix the federation
Australia’s federal system was designed for the nineteenth century. Today it produces duplication, dysfunction and state parochialism that frustrate national governance and reform.
6 December 2025
Refugees aren’t politically progressive by default – and policy needs to catch up
Australian settlement policy often assumes refugees will embrace progressive politics. Research and community experience show refugee political identities are far more diverse – with important implications for law and policy.
5 December 2025
Words or action? Dreyfus and human rights at home
Mark Dreyfus has been appointed Australia’s special envoy on human rights. Is the government prepared to match international advocacy with concrete action at home – by finally legislating a Human Rights Act?
1 December 2025
The great failure of the property industry
In every era, certain industries become so large, so politically embedded, and so culturally unexamined that their performance ceases to matter.
30 November 2025
New architecture, old assumptions: Australia and the China question
Foreign Minister Penny Wong speaks of balance, equality and a new regional order – yet Australia’s China policy still carries Cold War assumptions that risk strategy, prosperity and peace.
15 November 2025
Tackling vehicle emissions – the next big climate task
Reducing transport emissions is fast approaching as the next big issue in Australia’s climate debate.
11 November 2025
It’s Ley, or virtually certain Liberal self-immolation
People closer to the action than I are suggesting that the end is nigh for Sussan Ley. They may be right; momentum is often all in these matters.
11 November 2025
Australia-China policy: Guardrails, not walls
An industry networking day in Canberra this week laid bare a simple truth: politics is still beating economics in Australia’s China policy.
Catch up on other sections
More from Policy
23 October 2025
Superannuation and the Canberra Press Gallery's fantasies
17 October 2025
Family violence and migrant women – a better way
14 October 2025
Disarming extremism in the algorithmic age
2 October 2025
Palestine, hate and the fantasy of White Australia
29 September 2025
What should Australian Governments do about ‘mental health’?
