Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Crimes Against Children and Community Protection Measures) Bill 2017. There is no-one in this chamber who wouldn't agree that the changes we're seeing in society, the changes we're seeing with the internet around child sex abuse and in making it easier for a lot of things to happen that have never happened before because the internet didn't exist—that all of this is really frightening. When my two children were young there was no access to the internet for them. There was no social media. In a very short time the online world has, sadly, made our children more vulnerable.

There is huge growth in the number of people who are viewing and sharing child abuse images. The volume is so large that the Australian Federal Police can't investigate and prosecute more than a very small proportion of the crimes. The AFP receive more than 10,000 reports of child sexual exploitation every year. That's the known number, but it would appear that children often do not report disturbing online activity, even when the offender attempts to contact them outside the internet. If we just look at online grooming, sexual solicitation incidents: in a significant US study, only one-quarter of the children who had encountered a sexual approach reported it to a parent, and only 10 per cent of approaches were reported to the police, to the internet service provider or to any other authorities, such as a teacher. Very little research has been undertaken on the impact on children of these attempted solicitations. The same study indicates that approximately a quarter of the children who had been solicited for sexual purposes reported being extremely upset or afraid, with younger children—those 10 to 13 years—reporting a greater adverse impact. In spite of that, they're not necessarily reporting what we all know is a crime.

Similar findings have been reported in the small Australian survey of adolescent students. Only one-quarter of the children who had been sexually solicited told a parent. No reports were made to police. One-third of the children didn't disclose the solicitation at all. These studies, known as the Finkelhor and NAPCAN studies, provide support for the view that children often keep cyberfriendships—that's the name they're given—a secret from parents and sometimes friends.

We know there is a crime happening there. We have a real problem. Sexual predators are making use of technology on apps that the rest of us use every day, like Snapchat, FaceTime and Skype. Not just Australian children, but children in countries all over the world, are victims of cyber sex abuse. The modern day patterns of behaviour and the use of technology that enable 21st century paedophiles and criminals to harm our children are a frightening evolution of these disgusting people. So reforms that target and punish the offenders are welcome in this bill. We will vote for this bill and wholeheartedly support the object of keeping children safe. There are many things we support in this bill, including the new grooming offences that are contained in it, and the clarification that this bill provides on the scope of some of the child sex offences that are contained in the Criminal Code.

I particularly support the change in terminology. As a former journalist I know words are not something that you take lightly. They have meaning and implications for people. I support the change in words to describe the material in question. 'Child abuse materials' is a much stronger phrase than 'child pornography', which doesn't recognise the seriousness and exploitation of these images. Children are harmed in their creation, but the abuse is repeated every time someone else views those photos, and each of those people should be punished.

In their efforts to be tough on the sexual predators of children, though, I think the government have failed to take the really tough steps that should be put in place for the sake of children everywhere. That's why we will move amendments in the Senate to ensure that the punishment fits the crime. We want to see higher maximum sentences. We believe courts should be able to lock up the worst offenders for life. Predators who go overseas to prey on vulnerable children should face tougher penalties. We want to see the laws better recognise and respond to the technological ability offenders have to watch child abuse remotely through webcams and live streaming, and are sure that this is as much a crime as being in the same room as a child who is being sexually abused. We want to see the people who incite or direct the production of child abuse material—for instance, in online chat rooms—face severe penalties for encouraging people to do hideous things to children.

We want to see these people punished, we want them off the streets and we also want policies that work. Sadly, mandatory sentencing doesn't work, and I'm going to speak about that in a little bit more detail. There are a number of other amendments that we will move. As an example, we think that the defence based on a valid and genuine marriage, which currently exists for child sex offences, should be removed. Both the Law Council of Australia and Anti-Slavery Australia have called for this.

I add that, if you're serious about protecting children—which I believe everybody in this place is—why would you slash the Australian Federal Police budget? They are already unable to investigate the reports that they get. The AFP suffered a $184 million cut in the last budget, and 151 AFP officers have been let go this year. Seriously, a bill won't make up for the fact that the capacity to enforce the law has been weakened by this government.

I turn to the issue of mandatory sentencing. We do reject the mandatory minimum sentences in this bill because they won't work and they lead to fewer convictions. And that's not something any of us want to see; we want to see more convictions. The government's own Attorney-General's Department says that mandatory minimums should be avoided, as they can create an incentive for defendants to fight the charges, even in clear-cut cases. What that means is that victims are more likely to need to go to court—to go through a torturous court process—simply because of the application of mandatory minimum sentences.

Mandatory minimum sentences also mean that there is less incentive for people to plead guilty or to provide information to the police. We need the people who are identified and caught to spill their guts about the other people who are involved in these heinous crimes. We need to have leverage to be able to get information out of them. This is not just me, the member for Macquarie, having an opinion. This is looking at the facts and the evidence, and what that evidence shows us is that mandatory sentencing does not provide that opportunity. Mandatory sentencing means there's less incentive for people to plead guilty, and the other side of it is that juries are less willing to convict. We see, time and time again, that juries are much happier to make a conviction. That's what the evidence shows. You need only talk to the Law Council of Australia to see that evidence.

Lest there be any doubt about Labor's record in this area—and I would really urge the government to consider these things closely, not have some knee-jerk political reaction to them—Labor always has and always will fight to protect children here and overseas from exploitation and abuse.

We're proud of our record under Prime Ministers Keating, Rudd and Gillard, which included introducing world-leading offence categories targeting Australians who engage in sexual abuse of children. That was in 1994. We brought federal, state and territory governments together in 2009 to implement the National Framework for Protecting Australia's Children, which included a funding commitment of $63.6 million over four years from the Commonwealth government. We introduced new child abuse preparatory offences and other protection measures in 2010. We established the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the first inquiry of its kind at a national level. The royal commission, among other things, has inquired into how systems have failed to protect children and made recommendations on how to improve laws, policies and practices to prevent and better respond to child sexual abuse that occurs in institutions. We appointed Australia's first National Children's Commissioner in 2013 to advocate for the rights of Australia's young people, and we introduced the vulnerable witnesses act in 2013. We are committed to doing everything that can be done to protect children from harm and abuse, and we wholeheartedly support the object of this bill. We have no tolerance for child sexual abuse.

In the time that remains, I would like for a moment to put aside the fact that mandatory minimum sentencing is an easy, populist, but costly and discriminatory, criminal justice policy that has never actually worked and look at the fact that mandatory minimum sentencing also ignores judicial discretion. Judicial discretion is at the heart of our criminal justice system. It allows the law to be applied to the immeasurable ways in which a crime presents itself. If we remove judicial discretion, we may as well give the gavel to a robot—and yes, we're talking about child sex offenders. Unless those opposite have a crystal ball that allows them to know every way in which a crime will present itself, I think it is safer for us to look at the history of mandatory minimum sentencing and take our lessons from that.

There has been case after case where mandatory minimum sentencing has not worked. The impact of introducing mandatory sentencing for property offences in the Northern Territory in 1997 is an example of how vital judicial discretion is. I'm going to give you one example that unfortunately speaks volumes—that of a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy, Johnno, who stole pencils. He was taken from his remote community in the Northern Territory and imprisoned 800 kilometres away in Darwin. His mum had passed away when he was a baby, his father had been killed in a motor accident a few years prior, and at the time of his trial and sentencing his grandmother, who was his primary carer, was in hospital. But, in the hands of the jurisdiction with mandatory minimum sentencing, none of that could be taken into account. Johnno didn't need jail time to pull him into line. As it turned out, jail time in fact was the worst answer to this question. Five days out from the end of his sentence, Johnno hung himself with his bed sheet in his cell.

This isn't the same, and I know that those on the other side will say, 'Yeah, but that was pencils,' but this is a principle that runs through our legal system. Without the subjective guidance and discretion of judges we find ourselves in situations where kids are sentenced to jail for stealing pencils. The Law Council of Australia told the Senate committee inquiry that there would be similar unintended consequences. For instance, there could be conduct in a relationship between a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old where images are exchanged and sexual stories shared, yet the day the older partner turns 18 they could be liable for mandatory prison time. That is a potential unintended consequence of this legislation and a key example of why the Law Council opposes mandatory sentencing in all forms.

I point out that the government's own Attorney-General's Department says mandatory minimums should be avoided. This is not political. Prominent Liberals, including former Prime Minister John Howard, members opposite and Senator Marise Payne, have expressed concern about mandatory minimum sentencing in the past. I urge the government not to play politics with this issue. We are on the same side. We all want to see harsher penalties. In fact, as our amendments that will be moved in the Senate will show, we want harsher penalties than those opposite want. Children are too important for there to be word games around this issue. The Labor Party is serious about justice for the victims of sex crimes and appropriate punishment for those who commit these crimes. Like those opposite, we have no tolerance for the sexual abuse of children. That is why each of us is standing here today proposing that this bill go further, that this bill be harder, because these crimes should be met with the harshest of sentences, and it is best that we leave the judges to do the judging.

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