Julian Simmonds (Ryan, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today the Parliamentary Friends of Combatting Child Exploitation, along with the Minister for Home Affairs, Karen Andrews, and along with the Commissioner of the AFP, Reece Kershaw, launched in Parliament House a new series called Closing the Net. It's a new podcast, a 10-part series. The podcast has interviews from people who are involved in tracking and countering child exploitation, from law enforcement, from government and from not-for-profits who have experienced this and work with survivors of child exploitation. It seeks to have a conversation with all Australians, including parents, about the insidious nature of child exploitation. It's not something any of us like to talk about. But those who prey on our kids rely on our disgust at not wanting to have this conversation, so that is why we need to have it.

A lot of parents don't realise the insidious nature of child exploitation. Over 50 per cent of parents don't talk to their kids being safe online. You wouldn't let your kid go to a playground and mix with people you don't know without supervision, yet too many parents, through no fault of their own, are letting their kids online without any supervision or protection or a discussion about some of the dangers that poses. So please log on, listen to the podcast—get it where you get all your good podcasts—and encourage others to listen to it and have a conversation with their kids.