The Australian labor government didn’t have age verification as one of their core policies. Also the specifics in Australia is being done by the esafety commission rather than through parliament. This whole age verification stuff is very undemocratic in nature

lib is when anti genocidal dictator?

The problem here is the lack of a current alternative. As others here have mentioned, peertube might be a future alternative, but I can not help but feel that only fairly ideological people like myself would be interested (in the sense of dropping youtube on privacy grounds). I can’t see “normies” moving elsewhere. That said, maybe a good alternative doesn’t require mass uptake. I mean Lemmy seem pretty cool, albeit I haven’t been here very long at all (like a day lol, although I have lurked for sometime).