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From New Zealand pausing puberty blockers to Monaco’s prince rejecting expanded abortion, and Australia’s social media crackdown to Senate double standards, recent events show that nothing is truly settled.

It’s been an eventful few weeks here and overseas. In this article, I’d like to briefly highlight four key happenings.

1. Child gender ‘medicine’: NZ joins move towards caution

In New Zealand, the cabinet has signed off on plans to halt new prescriptions for puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria from mid-December.

The move is explicitly framed as a pause pending further evidence, including a major UK trial.

At the same time, Queensland is only days away from a major decision of its own.

The state’s independent ‘Vine Review’ was commissioned to evaluate the evidence, outcomes and ethics of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, after concerns about paediatric gender treatments.

Interim policy has already shifted: Queensland‘s public hospital network has paused new access to hormonal interventions for gender dysphoric minors pending the review.

The review is due to deliver its final written report and advice by 30 November 2025.

It’s high time that governments were forced to reckon with the risks of experimental interventions on children and to reconsider the evidence, not just the ideology.

It’s encouraging, therefore, to see New Zealand’s move.

2. Social media age ban – and Washington summons our ‘eKaren’

At the federal level, the looming social media ban for under-16-year-olds will come into force on 10 December 2025.

Faced with fines of up to $50 million dollars for non-compliance, numerous affected social media platforms have already started requiring proof-of-age from those suspected to be too young.

The eSafety Commissioner – increasingly dubbed the ‘eKaren’ by her critics – continues to add platforms to the banned list at what is essentially the eleventh hour.

Unsurprisingly, Australia’s approach – one of the most extreme in the world – has drawn international attention.

This month, US House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan sent a letter to Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, labelling her a “zealot” and asking her to testify before Mr Jordan’s congressional committee over concerns that Australia’s Online Safety Act operates as a “foreign censorship regime” affecting American speech online.

Whatever one thinks of the theatre, the underlying reality is important.

Children do need protection from online harms – but this intrusive regime is not the way to achieve it.

3. Hanson’s burqa stunt and a telling double standard

Last week, Senator Pauline Hanson again entered the Senate chamber wearing a burqa after being denied permission to introduce a bill banning full-face coverings in public.

The next day, the Senate voted to censure and suspend her from the chamber for seven sitting days.

Whatever one thinks of the issue, it’s hard not to see a double standard.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong spoke about Hanson having allegedly “mocked and vilified” an entire faith.

But this is the same Penny Wong who has derided statements of Christian belief as “bigotry” and “peddling prejudice”.

Most voices outraged by Hanson’s actions would have no problem compelling Christians to violate their conscience – from referral for abortion, to school policies and more.

The hypocrisy is impossible to ignore.

4. Monaco’s Prince says “no” to abortion bill

Finally, a remarkable development from Europe.

In Monaco, Prince Albert II has refused to promulgate a bill that would have authorised abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy (and 16 weeks in cases of rape), and reduced the minimum age for waiving parental consent from 18 to 15.

Abortion in Monaco was decriminalised in 2019, permitted to date only in cases of rape, life-threatening risk to the mother, or severe foetal abnormality.

While still abortion, it’s a far cry from the shocking abortion-to-birth laws that have swept across Australia in recent years.

Some may assume this pushback could only happen in a strongly Catholic country, yet Monaco’s National Council voted 19–2 in favour of legalisation.

Prince Albert’s intervention shows that leadership still matters.

Where this leaves us

Taken together, these developments show how many seemingly ‘settled’ issues actually aren’t.

Many issues can shift – for better or worse – far more quickly than we often realise.

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Republished with thanks to The Australian Family Coalition. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.