Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Superannuation, Financial Services and Financial Technology) | Hansard source

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

COMBATTING CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION LEGISLATION AMENDMENT BILL 2019

The Combatting Child Sexual Exploitation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 is another example of the steps this Government is taking to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation.

It is an unfortunate reality that sexual predators seek to target the most vulnerable members of society. These practices are vile and we must constantly review our laws to ensure they are well suited to targeting any emerging forms of child sexual abuse.

The Bill will increase the protection of children by:

responding to key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and

addressing operational difficulties the Australian Federal Police, Australian Border Force and Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions are facing in investigating and prosecuting new trends in child exploitation.

Failing to report and failing to protect

In December 2017, the Royal Commission released its Final Report which detailed too many instances of people, who had been entrusted with looking after Australia's children, doing too little to protect those children from unimaginable harm. When vulnerable people were being subjected to sickening abuse, these people knew of the harrowing circumstances and did nothing. Rather than reporting to police and taking protective action, they turned a blind eye or even took actions to conceal the abuse.

In line with the recommendations of the Royal Commission, this Bill will introduce two new offences into the Criminal Code to criminalise Commonwealth officers who exercise care, supervision or authority over children and fail to report child sexual abuse, or negligently fail to reduce or remove the risk of child sexual abuse to those children.

These reforms send a clear message: the safety of our children should always be put first. The Commonwealth has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and expects all Commonwealth officers who are charged with caring and supervising children to fulfil their obligations to protect those children.

Persistent child sexual abuse overseas

This zero tolerance extends to the actions of Australians while they are overseas.

It is common for sexual deviants to travel to foreign jurisdictions where criminal laws and child protection frameworks are weak, and opportunities to exploit vulnerable children are abundant.

In response to other recommendations of the Royal Commission, the Bill strengthens the laws in the Criminal Code for persistent child sexual abuse committed overseas by removing difficulties associated with prosecuting repeated instances of abuse.

The Royal Commission highlighted that it is often the worst forms of offending – the repeated, regular and ongoing sexual abuse of children – that are the most difficult to prove. This is because child victims of this kind of sustained exploitation commonly have difficulties distinguishing between particular occasions of abuse.

The amendments address these difficulties by reducing the number of occasions required to prove the offence. This helps to ensure perpetrators of persistent sexual abuse against vulnerable children overseas are not evading justice.

Defence for overseas child sex offences and forced marriage

In another effort to hold Australians predators more accountable for sexual crimes against children overseas, the Bill restricts the ability of offenders to escape culpability by claiming they were legally married to the child. Closing this loophole is crucial, as some countries permit girls as young as 10 to marry.

The Bill will also strengthen the existing forced marriage offences to ensure they explicitly capture all marriages involving children under 16. Child marriage is a pernicious practice that seriously harms the development and wellbeing of victims, with disproportionate impacts on girls and young women. Children trapped in early marriages are often subject to physical and mental abuse, rape and forced pregnancy. The Bill sends a clear message that this morally reprehensible practice will not be tolerated.

Child abuse material, child pornography material and child-like sex dolls

The Bill also strengthens the Commonwealth framework of offences to ensure a comprehensive, technology-neutral and future focused response to all forms of child pornography material and child abuse material. In particular, the Bill will clarify the law to ensure that the abhorrent new trend of child-like sex dolls, used to simulate sexual intercourse with children, is clearly and robustly stamped out in Australia.

The Bill will also introduce two new offences for possessing or controlling child pornography or child abuse material in the form of data stored on a computer or data storage device. Every single time child abuse material or child pornography material is viewed, the child portrayed in that material is re-victimised and their trauma compounded. We must strive to ensure our laws protect children from the dangers posed by abusers who operate online.

These offences will ensure that child sexual abuse is appropriately criminalised and penalised at a Commonwealth level, and will help to achieve better, more consistent outcomes for Australian survivors.

By introducing these offences into the Criminal Code, the Bill will also give Commonwealth prosecutors the tools they need to bring perpetrators to justice for the full range of their online offending. This can include anything from obtaining child abuse images via the internet, to storing those images locally or remotely, to sending material onto third parties.

Conclusion

I urge my colleagues to support the passage of this critical legislation. Together we can demonstrate we are committed to ensuring children can grow up free from the evil of sexual abuse and exploitation.

CRIMES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (POLICE POWERS AT AIRPORTS) BILL 2019

The Government is committed to ensuring that our police can continue to protect the thousands of Australians that transit through the airport network every day.

It is clear that Australia's airports remain an attractive target for terrorists and other nefarious criminal actors. While Australia already has strong and comprehensive aviation security, we need to remain ahead of this very real and evolving threat.

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Police Powers at Airports) Bill will help to ensure that Australia's aviation network remains among the safest in the world. This Bill will give police broader powers to conduct identity checks at major Australian airports, and issue a move on direction where it is reasonably necessary to safeguard the public and safe operation of the airport.

With the amendments contained in the Bill, a person on the premises of a major airport may be issued with a direction to provide evidence of identification only where a constable or Australian Federal Police protective service officer:

This new power is based on advice from the Australian Federal Police that the current requirement to suspect that a person is about to commit, or has committed, a criminal offence before conducting an airport ID check is no longer fit-for-purpose. Police intelligence or observations that a person is behaving suspiciously in the airport – for example, by taking photos or videos of security screening points – will not always meet the necessary threshold. This is not satisfactory in today's threat environment.

The Bill will also empower police officers to direct that a person leave the aviation environment, or not take a flight, for up to 24 hours.

The new move-on power will only be available to police in a limited range of circumstances, including where it is reasonably necessary to prevent or disrupt serious criminal activity at airports or on a flight, or to safeguard the public order and safe operation of these airports. A person may also be directed to move on where they fail to comply with an identity check or a police direction to stop.

Finally, the Bill will create new criminal offences for failing to comply with an identity check, move-on or stop direction, punishable by a fine of up to $4,200. To ensure there are appropriate safeguards on the use of these powers, the Bill will also contain requirements for police officers to comply with certain duties in exercising the new powers – including appropriately identifying themselves and informing a person that failure to comply with a direction may constitute an offence.

A patchwork of Commonwealth, State and Territory laws currently apply across Australian airports. The Bill will address some of this complexity by giving state and territory police and Australian Federal Police officers, including protective service officers, consistent and appropriate powers to manage risks that are unique to the aviation environment.

The new powers will be available in all Australian capital city airports, as well as Alice Springs, Gold Coast, Townsville and Launceston airports, and any additional airports that the responsible Minister determines into the future. In practice, the decision about additional airports at which the new powers may be exercised will be based on operational advice from the Australian Federal Police. The Australian Federal Police has already indicated that Cairns Airport is also intended to be covered by this scheme.

The Bill was considered in detail by several parliamentary committees before Parliament was prorogued. In particular, I would like to thank the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for its contributions, and confirm that the Bill has been amended to implement the recommendations of this Committee.

These amendments are also consistent with the views expressed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills as part of their inquiries into the Bill. The Bill has clearly been considered in detail and, as a result, represents a balanced approach to amending the powers of our law enforcement agencies, while recognising the evolving threat environment at Australia's major airports.

In particular, the Bill now includes an explicit statement that the new identity checking and move-on powers are not intended to interfere with the right to peaceful assembly and do not give police the ability to disrupt or quell a protest that is peaceful and does not affect the public order and safe operation of the airport. The Bill also ensures that a person subject to a move-on direction will be notified of their right to apply for judicial review or an interlocutory order, including the procedure for urgent or expedited applications.

This Bill is further evidence of the Government's commitment to keeping the travelling public safe and secure and ensuring Australia is a world-leader in aviation security. It will provide our law enforcement agencies with the tools and powers they need to do their job effectively – protecting Australia's airports and its citizens from serious criminal and security threats.

TREASURY LAWS AMENDMENT (2018 SUPERANNUATION MEASURES NO. 1) BILL 2019

The Coalition Government is introducing safeguards to ensure the integrity of the superannuation system and streamline compliance with the Superannuation Guarantee.

The Bill introduces an employer shortfall exemption certificate for certain employees with multiple employers. Currently, employees can inadvertently breach the concessional contributions cap from compulsory contributions where they have multiple employers.

This measure will allow certain employees to avoid this outcome by applying to the Commissioner of Taxation for an exemption certificate in relation to at least one of their employers. A certificate will mean that their employer does not have to make Superannuation Guarantee contributions for them for up to one year. It will also mean that employees are not forced to breach their concessional cap. Instead, these employees can choose to negotiate with their employer to receive the higher remuneration.

To be eligible for a certificate, an employee must be likely to have excess concessional contributions for the financial year and have a least one other employer who is required to make superannuation guarantee contributions for them in that year. This targets the measure to those employees likely to breach the concessional cap because they have multiple employers. It also ensures that employees still receive Superannuation Guarantee contributions from their employment.

The Bill introduces reforms to further support the operation and integrity of the Superannuation Taxation Reform Package announced in the 2016-17 Budget. These measures ensure our superannuation system is fair, sustainable and used for its core purpose. The amendments improve confidence in the system by reducing the extent of tax minimisation and estate planning in superannuation.

The amendments address the possibility of self-managed superannuation fund members' circumventing the cap on tax-free retirement phase assets through limited recourse borrowing arrangements or non-arm's length expenditures.

The Bill includes the outstanding value of limited recourse borrowing arrangements – or LRBAs - in the Total Superannuation Balance of SMSF members who are at particular risk of entering into certain tax minimisation strategies. This measure will stop those members using LRBAs to circumvent the $1.6 million limit on non-concessional contributions.

The Bill also extends the existing non-arm's length income rules to capture non-arm's length expenses. This will ensure that superannuation funds cannot circumvent the contribution caps by using non-arm's length expenditure to inflate their overall income, for example, by borrowing money from a member at a reduced interest rate.

Full details of the measures are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

VETERANS' AFFAIRS LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (PARTNER SERVICE PENSION AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2019

I am pleased to introduce the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Partner Service Pension and Other Measures) Bill 2019. The Bill is designed to improve outcomes for former partners of veterans, and separately, extend benefits available to Australian Defence Force (ADF) members who served on Submarine Special Operations.

As the Minister for Veterans and Defence Personnel, I recognise the Australian community has a clear expectation that veterans and their families will be well looked after, and of course, as a Government, we are absolutely committed to putting veterans and their families first.

Schedule 1 of this Bill will improve financial outcomes for the former partners of veterans. Schedule 2 of this Bill extends benefits available to ADF members who served on Submarine Special Operations. Schedule 3 of this Bill is a technical amendment to align marriage related definitions in veterans' legislation with the definition of marriage made by the Marriage Amendment (Definition and Religious Freedoms) Act 2017 (the Marriage Amendment Act).

The amendments to the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 (VEA) under Schedule 1 align all of the Partner Service Pension provisions for former married and non-married partners to ensure equity in treatment. This will ensure a modern legislative provision that recognises the differences in relationship types and removes any discrimination. Once this Bill is passed, all eligible former partners of veterans will remain on Partner Service Pension after separation from their veteran partner for a period of up to 12 months.

Additionally, where special domestic circumstances apply, including domestic abuse, legislative instrument amendments will allow all former partners to remain eligible to receive Partner Service Pension until they enter into a new relationship. This preventative measure, part of the Government's Fourth National Action Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, will assist partners to leave a violent relationship by providing them with financial support.

The amendments to the VEA under Schedule 2 will extend the benefits available to ADF members who served on Submarine Special Operations. Operations between 31 December 1992 and 12 May 1997 will be recognised as operational and qualifying service, giving access to the Disability Pension and assessment of claims for treatment and compensation, as well as eligibility for the Service Pension at age 60 and the Gold Card at age 70.

Once this Bill is passed, for those veterans involved in Submarine Special Operations between 31 December 1992 and 12 May 1997, their service will be recognised as operational and qualifying service under the VEA. This will allow access to the Disability Pension and assessment of claims for treatment and compensation, as well as eligibility for the Service Pension at age 60 and the Gold Card at age 70.

Further, the period between 13 May 1997 and 30 June 2006 will not require legislative change, and will be subject to future determinations of non-warlike service, providing further support to eligible ADF members involved in Submarine Special Operations.

Schedule 3 is a technical amendment arising from the changes to the definition of marriage made by the Marriage Amendment Act.

The Marriage Amendment Act amended the Marriage Act 1961 (Cth) to remove the restrictions that limit marriage in Australia to the union of a man and a woman and allowed two people the freedom to marry in Australia, regardless of their sex or gender.

These amendments will mean better outcomes for veterans and their families.

I commend this Bill.

Debate adjourned.

Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.