Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the government for working with the Nick Xenophon Team to bring the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Minors Online) Bill before the parliament. In my electorate there is a picturesque seaside town called Port Elliot, which is located on the perfectly curved shore of Horseshoe Bay. However, it is also the place where a great tragedy occurred—the murder of a beautiful young girl who had just turned 15. Her name was Carly Ryan. She was a young girl in my electorate in the Adelaide Hills. Ten years ago Carly was lured to her death on the beach by a 47-year-old paedophile, who had lied about his age online. His name is Garry Newman. He was described by the judge in sentencing as 'an overweight, balding, middle-aged paedophile with sex and murder on his mind'. He murdered Carly because she refused his advances. He suffocated her by pushing her face in the white sand of Horseshoe Bay, before throwing her in the sea.

I am here today to speak in support of this legislation, which we in the Nick Xenophon Team call 'Carly's law' because of that meeting on the beach and because, at the time, none of Newman's behaviour online was illegal. No law was broken before he murdered her. Nothing could have been done by police to intervene if they had been alerted. So this legislation is designed to close that loophole.

Newman began grooming Carly when she was only 14 years of age, chatting to her online by pretending to be 20-year-old Brandon—a sensitive young man who played the guitar. I spoke to Carly's mum, Sonya, my constituent, who has the Carly Ryan Foundation based in my electorate. I asked her if I could have her permission to tell her daughter's story. Sonya told me she was not an absentee parent when it came to monitoring Carly's internet use. Sonya followed the guidelines. Carly could only use the computer in the main living area when her mother was supervising. Keep in mind that this was a decade ago, when, arguably, there were fewer social media sites and apps children could use to talk to strangers online.

Sonya watched her daughter fall in love with fictitious Brandon, communicating with him over the internet, by telephone and by email. Carly invited Brandon to her 15th birthday party. Brandon could not make it obviously—because he did not exist—but his adoptive father, Shane, went in his stead. When Newman, pretending to be Shane, turned up on the doorstep and began trying to insinuate himself into the household, Sonya was deeply suspicious and warned her daughter, but it was too late. Newman continued to use his internet alter ego to manipulate Carly, convincing her to go to Horseshoe Bay to meet Brandon in person.

When detectives tracked Newman down in his Victorian home 11 days after Carly's murder, they found him logged online as Brandon Kane. He had been chatting to a 14-year-old girl in Western Australia. Brandon was one of 200 fake online identities Newman had created for the purposes of meeting young girls. This bill will make it an offence to prepare or plan to cause harm and to procure or engage in sexual activity with a person under 16 years of age. This includes a person lying about their age to a child under 16 as part of that plan to harm a child.

Earlier versions of this bill were introduced by my colleagues Senator Xenophon and Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore. The government's version of 'Carly's law', which has been achieved in consultation with the Nick Xenophon Team, aims to avoid any unintended consequences raised during the Senate inquiry process into those early versions. This version addresses those unintended consequences, so it achieves its aim, and that is to criminalise the preparative nature of online behaviour intended to cause harm to children.

Legal academic Associate Professor Gregor Urbas from the University of Canberra referred to these changes in his submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. The Senate committee is currently examining this bill and is due to release its report on 13 June. Along with the Law Council of Australia and the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Professor Urbas noted that there are existing laws that criminalise online behaviour, including preparatory conduct. However, the professor advises that these offences are relatively recent and their precise scope is not always clear, leaving gaps. For example, prosecutors cannot prove grooming for a sexual purpose. This legislation aims to close these gaps. This bill complements existing online offences, extending criminalisation of the use of the internet and social media to a broader range of conduct. Carly's Law takes a precautionary approach by criminalising the grooming of children at a much earlier stage, capturing those predators who misrepresent their age to set up a meeting. I cannot think of any legitimate reason for an adult to lie to someone under age, pretending to be a minor in order to build a relationship and build trust that leads to a physical meeting.

Early intervention is what Sonia Ryan is seeking, and it is what the 90,000 people who signed her change.org online petition are also seeking. The advice Sonia received from detectives in South Australia is that if Carly's Law had been around a decade ago police would have been able to charge Newman for his predatory online grooming behaviour. It gives power to the police to detain an individual before a child has to go through something horrific. Sonia sees Carly's Law as a meaningful legacy for her beautiful, kind, loving daughter. Choice was taken away from Carly and from Sonia, but we can do something to help prevent this tragedy happening again. In a digitally connected world, Carly's Law aims to give children in Australia opportunities to live a life free from predatory behaviour.

UNICEF estimates that there are more than four million websites featuring minors, including many that target children as young as or under the age of two. More than 200 new pornographic images of minors are circulated every single day. Last year the Australian Federal Police reported that the number of referrals it had received for child exploitation material had more than doubled from 4½ thousand in 2014 to 11,000 by the end of 2015. This is becoming an epidemic. The authorities who hunt these online predators say that paedophiles can gain access to children faster and more easily, making volumes of social networking avenues available to them. These avenues include Facebook, Facebook Messenger, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, World of Warcraft, Moshi Monsters, Minecraft, Pokemon Go—and that is besides basic Skype and email.

One of the latest ones parents need to know about is called Yellow, which I have also heard described as a bit like Tinder for teens. Yellow is a location-based social networking app that helps young people between the ages of 13 and 17 connect with each other in the locality where they live. Yellow combines Snapchat, Instagram and GPS technology. Young people between the ages of 13 and 17 become friends with one another in their locality by swiping right on their profile in a design similar to Tinder. But, according to the Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner, the safeguards to verify your age on Yellow are not robust enough for their liking. There is nothing to stop adults pretending to be under 18 years of age, which makes this an ideal tool for predators. This app really is a predators' paradise. Social networking apps like Yellow are one of the reasons the length of time it takes paedophiles to groom children and to make contact with them is getting even shorter.

Back when Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton was Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police he said the length of grooming time between first contact online and physical meeting could be as little as two weeks. Technology is evolving so rapidly that it is hard for parents, let alone law enforcement agencies and the legal system, to catch up, so when we recognise a problem we need to act quickly. Our young are often more comfortable with these new forms of communication than are those charged with their protection, leaving our children open to exportation.

The Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner reports that teenagers spend 33 hours a week online outside of school. Parents might be able to control who comes in and out of their front doors but they cannot always control who comes in and out of their homes via the internet, even with supervision and sophisticated computer filters. A briefing hosted by the eSafety Commissioner in Canberra this week pointed out that the average household has about 15 internet connected devices available at any one time. With the vast majority of teenagers today having smartphones, it is even more challenging for parents to monitor who their children are communicating with. Carly's law, as I like to call this, is an early intervention tool for when parents, friends, teachers and law enforcement agencies become suspicious of a potential online predator trying to sneak in through the back door, but it is just one tool.

I cannot finish this speech without commending Sonya for her work to protect children through the Carly Ryan Foundation. Since her daughter's death she has tried to bring some good out of this evil by dedicating herself to raising awareness of young people to online dangers. She set up the Carly Ryan Foundation in my electorate in 2010. It is an organisation run entirely by volunteers. I was recently at a school where Sonya gave an online safety presentation to a group of teenagers. You could hear a pin drop when she told her family's story.

Something powerful happens when a human opens up about their inner pain. Sonya is not some nagging adult who does not know a thing about technology or who is telling children how to run their lives. She is a mum who lost her daughter. Sonya told me that after her education talks she is often approached by young people who want to share their bad experiences online, who want to confide with her. They know that something is not quite right but they do not always know exactly how to pinpoint that. She does what she can to support them, and steers them to appropriate help.

Sonya could not protect her daughter but she can to what she can to protect other children. Her efforts led to her being nominated as South Australia's Australian of the year in 2013. But that is not why she works so hard for online safety and why she has advocated so long for changes to laws. Our children deserve the best and, as my colleagues have said in the past, if Carly's law, this legislation, can stop just one young person from becoming a victim then we have done our job, and it is worth it.

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