House debates

Monday, 15 February 2021

Private Members' Business

Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation

12:02 pm

Photo of Bridget ArcherBridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I've said in this chamber previously, no group in our community is more deserving of our protection than our children. I'm extremely proud of the government's commitment and tangible action to ensure our children are kept safe from harm and that offenders are brought to justice, and I'm very encouraged by the bipartisan support that we see in this place for this issue.

The Australian government has provided the Australian Federal Police with $68.6 million to drive a world-leading response to counter child sexual abuse. As part of this funding, in September 2018 the Minister for Home Affairs announced the launch of the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation, a world-leading centre coordinating responses to counter the online exploitation of children. Collaboration is key to addressing the scourge that is online child sexual abuse. The ACCCE works closely with the states and territories joint exploitation teams—JACETs—as well as with international law enforcement counterparts, industry, nongovernment organisations and research bodies to strengthen the domestic and global responses to these crimes. It was this very collaboration between the Tasmanian JACET, the AFP and the ACCCE that was responsible for a warrant executed against a Tasmanian man in December, who was charged with child exploitation.

We like to think that abusers don't live in our own backyards, but they do. They are our neighbours and in our community and often in positions of trust. Just last week in Hobart, a man who worked at a local childcare centre was charged with producing child exploitation material. In my own northern Tasmanian community, a Riverside man was charged last year with child exploitation after a lengthy AFP investigation as part of Operation Molto. Operation Molto is the most recent ACCCE coordinated national operation, involving police in all Australian states and territories, and has led to 65 offenders being charged with 525 offences and 18 children removed from harm.

That's a very difficult statistic to say out loud, and it brings home the point that these operations are not just about numbers. The fact that 18 innocent children were abused is horrifying and utterly devastating. Sadly, too, as the pandemic has brought a variety of challenges, COVID has also seen a significant increase in the amount of child abuse material downloaded successfully on the dark web. Between April and June of last year there was an average increase of about 163 per cent in activity compared to the same period in the year before.

The government has made the protection of children a priority and has reformed laws to achieve this aim. In September 2019, the Combatting Child Sexual Exploitation Legislation Amendment Act came into effect in response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It addresses difficulties that operational agencies face in investigating and prosecuting new child sexual abuse related trends. Additionally, I spoke in the chamber last year in passionate support of the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Crimes Against Children and Community Protection Measures) Act 2020, which came into force in June last year. This legislated a number of much-needed measures, including mandatory minimum penalties of at least four years imprisonment for the most serious offences and for repeat offenders.

Proper funding and effective legislation both to track down and sentence offenders are necessary but it is imperative that we instil protective behaviour in our children, teaching them how to keep themselves safe online and offline. Recent ACCCE research indicates that only 52 per cent of Australian parents and carers talk to their children about online safety, which is a really scary statistic. As a parent of five myself, I know that I am concerned about the amount of time that my children spend online and recognise that I need to have continuing conversations with them to ensure that they're protected when they're on their devices. The eSafety Commissioner website and the thinkuknow.org.au website, along with terrific organisations such as Bravehearts and The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, are great resources for parents and carers. They have an incredible amount of useful tools and information available to help so that we're all better equipped to deal with the challenges online and to teach our kids to protect themselves.

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