Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise as chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement to speak about the committee's report examining the Australian Federal Police annual reports of 2020-21 and 2021-22 and the important work of the Australian Federal Police in relation to combatting the terrible crime of child exploitation. One of the committee's key roles is to provide oversight of the Australian Federal Police by examining each of the AFP's annual reports. The role recognises that agencies which have been granted strong, cohesive powers, such as the AFP, should be subject to additional oversight. As chair I'm pleased to report that the committee has not identified any major areas of concern. The AFP met almost all of its performance criteria during the reporting periods and continues to make a valuable contribution to our community.

Like all Commonwealth agencies, one of the challenges faced by Australian Federal Police in recent years has been the COVID-19 pandemic and the outcomes that have arisen on a global scale from the global pandemic. As people began to spend more time online, the AFP responded by ramping up its efforts to combat online child exploitation. This included releasing a podcast called Closing The Net to raise community awareness about the serious risk children face online. The committee also heard that the recent Operation Molto was the largest to be coordinated by the AFP led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. It resulted in 114 people charged and 44 children removed from harm. That's 44 children removed from harm in Australia.

It's easier than ever for predators to reach out to our children. We live in a world that demands an online presence. It is expected that our children will play online games and be familiar with social media from a young age, but what danger is this online presence presenting to the safety of our children? There are real concerns, no doubt. We, as parents and carers, teach our children not to talk to strangers on the street or in a park, but how do those rules differ online? Well, they really don't. Children spend a considerable amount of time playing online games. These games do provide a creative outlet for children and are seen as a bit of fun. But predators have realised that children often aren't monitored closely enough. Only too often, parents and carers aren't familiar with the games. We know that in some of these online games children are coerced into going into another room within that platform, and that's where, unfortunately, grooming of those young children can take place and unfortunately does take place. We need to build resilient children that are aware of the dangers of social media platforms, and, just as importantly, we need to educate parents and carers about those real dangers.

The growth in end-to-end encryption on social media platforms has caused the committee some concern, obviously, and that concern is certainly shared by our law enforcement agencies. End-to-end encryption stops anyone except the sender and the recipient from being able to see the content of the messages, which means that, even with a warrant, law enforcement cannot search messages for child abuse material. We're conducting an inquiry at the moment into child exploitation, and that has carried on from the last parliament. We have invited and requested various platforms of social media to come before us. Yesterday, we heard evidence in camera that was given by Twitch, and for those who don't know what Twitch is—because I really didn't until recently—that's an online platform for playing games. That process means that when you're playing that game it is actually open to everyone and it is public. But the reality is that we know that live streaming of child exploitation material and the abuse of children is happening. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.