In Wellington, a proposed law that would bar children under sixteen from social media has become entangled in a quieter but equally consequential dispute: whether meaningful democratic participation is possible when the document at the centre of debate cannot leave a minister's office. Education Minister Erica Stanford and Labour find themselves at an impasse that is less about the merits of the ban itself and more about the conditions under which a modern parliament can honestly deliberate. The tension illuminates something enduring — that transparency is not merely procedural courtesy, but t