The politics of a ‘duty of care’: children, climate change and social media in Australia, 2020–2025

The duty of care principle figured significantly in three recent Australian legal cases and political debates about harms to children. This article analyses firstly why the Morrison Coalition government (2019–2022) rejected a Federal Court ruling that it owed a ‘novel duty of care’ to children to prevent climate change harms. We then document the Albanese Labor government’s (2022–) rejection of a 2023 private members' bill intended to impose a duty of care to prevent harm to children. One year later, the Labor government claimed it was applying the duty of care principle when introducing its Online Safety Amendment Bill 2024 designed to ban children under 16 from social media platforms. Drawing on publicly available documents and scholarly research, we argue that despite their ostensible political-ideological differences, both governments demonstrated an overriding commitment to avoiding binding legal obligations to protect children from foreseeable harms.