Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

All of us in this House have in our lives children who are important to us. I am the mother of one- and four-year-old boys who are the centre of my existence, and I'm a former foster parent. The welfare of Australian children is one of the driving passions of my life, as a person and as a politician. I talked about this in my first speech. Every time a child in this country is abused, harmed by another person, this parliament has failed. It is our job to protect them. That much should be beyond debate. But we fail far too often. The sexual abuse of children is abhorrent. It sickens me and it sickens everyone in this parliament. I believe, and Labor believes, that the people who commit these crimes must be punished. Most sex crimes are state offences, but as a Commonwealth parliament we play an important and growing role in protecting Australian children. We are responsible for offences that relate to telecommunications and offences that occur overseas, and it is child abuse occurring in these contexts that is the subject of most of this bill, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Crimes Against Children and Community Protection Measures) Bill 2017.

I have the great privilege of working with a lot of organisations within my portfolio area that protect Australian children. One of them is the Alannah & Madeline Foundation. You would remember Alannah and Madeline. They were three and six years old when they were tragically killed in the Port Arthur massacre. The organisation that is their namesake was created by their very brave father, Walter Mikac. The CEO of that organisation is fond of saying that protecting children on the internet is the defining child protection issue of our age, and I don't think any parliamentarian or any parent in the community would have a different view about that. The reality is that children today face dangers that didn't exist 10 years ago. They didn't exist when any of us in this chamber were children. These changes are not academic. They are not the invention of tabloid newspapers. They are absolutely and completely real.

In this country we are seeing massive growth in the number of people who are viewing and sharing child abuse images. Indeed, the volume is so large that the Federal Police do not have the ability to investigate and prosecute more than a very small proportion of perpetrators. The Australian Federal Police receive more than 10,000 reports of child exploitation every year, and we know that that number is growing every year—and they are just the offences that we are aware of. We are seeing incredibly disturbing trends with how the crimes in this area are changing on the internet. We're seeing sexual predators target children to produce abuse materials themselves on apps that many of the children of people in all of our communities use—things like Snapchat and musical.ly. We are seeing the growth of absolutely disgusting trading and selling of child abuse materials on the dark net. We are seeing a growth in the use of FaceTime and Skype to target the abuse of children who are living in poor countries right throughout our region. The Philippine National Police receive over 6,000 cybersex abuse case referrals every month from other law enforcement agencies around the world.

I want to take a moment to mention the men and women working in the Australian Federal Police who have to review, handle and classify this material when they go to work every day. I cannot say how strongly I commend the bravery of the officers who undertake this work. It is so difficult that the Australian Federal Police officers who do it have to work constantly in pairs—they're not allowed to work on this alone—and they have to have regular psychological check-ups. I know from talking to Australian Federal Police officers that the sole reason they go to work to do this, frankly, traumatic work every day is that they care so deeply for the children who are at the other end of these images. I know we speak as one voice as a parliament when we say how much we truly appreciate the efforts of those officers.

Labor believes that, due to these extensive changes in the way that child abuse is proliferating online, there is a need to review the law in this area. That is why the opposition will be supporting this bill, with some amendments. I want to talk about some of the areas that we believe are particularly worthy of support in this bill. One of those is the additional supports that this law will provide to vulnerable witnesses. In this context, of course, we're referring mainly to children who are going to sit in court and testify against adults who are older, who are stronger and who are much more powerful than they are. Those children exhibit incredible bravery in their willingness to tell their stories to try to prevent further abuse of other children. They deserve every protection that the law can provide to them, and we are very pleased to see some improvements made in the bill before the House in this area.

We are supportive of the new grooming offences that are contained in the bill, and we're supportive of the clarification this bill provides on the scope of some of the child sex offences that are contained in the Criminal Code. We also support the change in the terminology that is contained in this bill. The bill changes the words that we use to describe the material in question to 'child abuse materials'. This may sound like a small thing, but it is absolutely not. We talk often in the public realm about this problem being called child pornography, but that does not recognise the seriousness and the abject criminality that is at the heart of these images. These images harm children in their creation. But every time these images are accessed and every time they are viewed, there is an additional violence and an additional abuse being undertaken. That is because, every time those images are looked at, there is further humiliation done to that child. Every time those images are looked at, there are citizens of this country who are doing something to support an industry which only thrives and survives on the abuse of some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

Labor is of the view that the crimes contained in this bill are so horrendous that there are in fact some areas that need a much tougher approach. I want to talk about some of the amendments that Labor will be making to this bill to make sure that the paedophiles who are harming children are locked up for as long as we can manage. Child sex abuse which involves subjecting the child to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, or which causes the death of that child, is barbaric. We want courts to be able to lock up people who commit this horrendous crime—really, what must be the worst crime that can be committed. We want judges to have the power to put those people away for life. Labor will move amendments in the Senate to bring in life imprisonment for aggravated sex offenders.

Labor will be moving further amendments to increase the maximum sentences for the most serious child sex crimes by five years, to 20 and 25 years imprisonment. We believe that predators who go overseas to prey on and abuse vulnerable children should face tougher penalties than those the government has proposed. Labor are particularly sickened by the examples that we are aware of where vile website moderators encourage other people who are part of these horrendous networks to commit crimes against children. People who incite violence and cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment against children deserve further punishment. They are the despicable ringleaders of these child abuse networks. They facilitate the production and distribution of sometimes sadistic and brutal material, and courts must be able to punish them appropriately. Labor will be moving amendments to add aggravated offences to target these vile criminals. We will also target offenders who play a role in coordinating, organising or inciting other people's participation in these most serious sex offences with new aggravating sentencing factors. We want child sex offenders to be appropriately punished and we want to focus on the worst offenders because bringing them down is critical to stopping the proliferation of these absolutely sickening crimes.

Labor have looked at and tackled this bill with only one issue in mind, and that is the protection of children. That is our only goal here. The government's bill contains mandatory minimum sentences, and this is the only section of the bill that we will oppose. We will do that because these sections of the bill will not make Australian children safer. We made this decision very thoughtfully and with extensive expert advice. There is almost a uniform view in the law enforcement and legal community that this is a legal device which will not further protect Australian children—indeed, it may have the opposite effect. Prosecutors are opposed to this measure, and the Law Council and just about every other organisation like them are opposed to it. In fact, the Attorney-General's Department, part of the government that sits on the other side of the House, is also opposed to this measure. Mandatory minimums let guilty people off the hook because juries are less likely to convict them when they know there is no discretion about the sentence. Mandatory minimums mean that criminals will not cooperate with police to bring the kingpins who run these networks to justice. I don't want paedophiles on the street—I've got two children; I shouldn't need to say that. I don't want to put people away for five years—I want to catch the kingpins who are the drivers of this disgusting behaviour and I want judges to be able to put them away for life. That is what Labor's amendments will allow for.

One of the additional issues in this bill is that the mandatory minimum sentences will have very significant unintended consequences. As the bill stands, schedule 6 would attach a mandatory five-year jail term to an 18-year-old in a consensual relationship with a 15-year-old. I want to make that clear to people listening. What the government is proposing would mean that an 18-year-old in a consensual relationship with a 15-year-old would end up in jail for five years. The Law Council has provided examples of some of the behaviour that they believe will be captured by these provisions. One of them is an 18-year-old and a 15-year-old who go on a school trip together. They might be year 10 and year 12 students. They engage in sexual activity overseas. Under this bill the older person in the relationship would be up for a mandatory five-year jail term. That means the judge has no discretion about whether that punishment fits the crime. We are speaking here about 18-year-olds and 15-year-olds who are engaged in sexual activity over Snapchat. This is something that a lot of teenagers do. The Law Council points out that this behaviour between a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old in a consensual relationship is perfectly legal. On the day the older person turns 18, suddenly that person has committed a range of federal offences and will go to jail for a minimum of five years. These are crimes. A consensual sexual relationship between a 15-year-old and an 18-year-old is a crime; I don't devalue that. But does the Minister for Justice really believe that the young people in this relationship belong in jail for five years?

I want to return to the bill at large. I do believe that this parliament needs to send a clear message that the sexual abuse of children is absolutely intolerable and that not only is it intolerable but also this parliament universally regards this as the most heinous crime that can be committed. We will be supporting this bill and we will be strengthening it. We want to send paedophiles to jail for longer. I say that as the parent of two young boys who are right in the age of target for these horrendous criminals. Labor have and always will fight to protect children here and overseas. Indeed, we have a long history of acting to protect children in this way. It was Labor, under former Prime Minister Paul Keating, that introduced some of the first offences that targeted those who sexually abused children, and those were world-leading laws at the time.

The previous Labor government did extensive work in this area. One example is the establishment of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. That was the first inquiry of its kind at a national level. One of the most important roles of that royal commission, which is still underway, is understanding this problem better and providing advice to this and other parliaments around the country about what we can do to improve the law in this area, and we will be keenly awaiting their final report to consider further law reform.

Labor wholeheartedly support the object of this bill. We have no tolerance for child sexual abuse. But we believe this bill needs to contain even stronger messages of condemnation for these horrible crimes. We will be pleased to support this bill with strengthening measures in the Senate.

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