Among those cheering Wednesday’s start of the Albanese government’s groundbreaking ban on social media accounts for under-16s was former Liberal MP David Coleman, who lost his seat in May.
Coleman, who’d been assistant minister to Prime Minister Scott Morrison for mental health and suicide prevention, was communications spokesman under Peter Dutton. Pushed by Coleman’s advocacy, the Dutton opposition adopted the idea of a ban, which also was being pursued by the South Australian Labor government.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas had been spurred into action by his wife, Annabel West, who’d just read Jonathan Haidt’s seminal 2024 book The Anxious Generation, documenting the devastating effect of the “great rewiring of childhood”.
