Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the recent and understandable political clamour regarding the financial services royal commission and the current aged-care and disability care royal commissions, it would be easy to lose focus on some of the urgent and critical recommendations outstanding from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. I'm pleased to say that this government has not lost that focus. I acknowledge the committed work of the Minister for Home Affairs in ensuring that our coalition government continues to deliver on this most serious of matters.

I'm pleased to say that most of the measures in this bill are unlikely to be controversial. I think all of us are deeply disturbed and concerned about the growing trend of sex dolls designed to look like children, while the possession of child pornography, whatever its intended use, surely has no place in Australia. The possession of such materials, including such dolls, is a significant indirect encouragement to in person offending against a child and an affront to Australian values. This bill to prohibit them is timely and important.

Just as important are the new offences relating to a failure to report in schedule 1. Thirty-two and a half per cent of child sexual abuse survivors heard by the royal commission said that their abuse took place in a government run institution. Eight per cent of all survivors were in youth detention and 31 per cent were in schools. These kinds of institutions are a particular risk. The royal commission found:

… children are more likely to be abused in institutional contexts where the community has an unquestioning respect for the authority of an institution.

Though that cannot always be said of our political system, our schools and correctional services have enjoyed the public's respect. We must do all we can to reduce the risk of offending in these kinds of institutions. The majority of government institutions where abuse took place were operated by state and territory governments. However, not all of them were. For example, more than 100 survivors were abused in the armed services, and of course there were many offences which occurred within religious institutions.

Only a quarter of survivors heard by the royal commission disclosed their abuse at the time it occurred. One of the most important reasons for that non-disclosure was the fact that they did not expect to be believed. Twenty-six per cent of survivors who did choose to disclose as children retained that expectation. We must do all we can to give children confidence that if they report sexual offences not only will they be believed, but their complaints will be acted upon.

As the royal commission found, in the absence of legal obligations many institutions and staff did not report abuse outside their institution. Schedule 1 will ensure that Commonwealth officers will face criminal sanctions if they fail to report such abuse. It will fulfil the intent of recommendations 33 and 36 of the royal commission's criminal justice report, and it will give greater confidence to those who wish to disclose.

I want to speak in particular about the provisions in schedules 5 and 6. Our relationships with other cultures and other nations rightly recognise that they have their own practices, their own norms and their own unique heritage. We celebrate that diversity. We seek to learn from one another and to work together on our shared interests and values. However, there are some practices that are fundamentally abhorrent and unacceptable, regardless of their historical standing in another culture. One such practice is forced underage marriages. Globally, around one in every seven girls aged 15 to 19 are married. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, four in 10 girls are married before the age of 18 and one in eight are married before they are 15. Not only can a girl under 16 not give her fully informed consent to a marriage, in violation of her accepted human rights, but it can have lasting impacts on intergenerational health and life prospects. Early marriage is associated with early child-bearing, which carries health risks for the mother and child, prevents women from accessing an education and increases the likelihood of intergenerational poverty and disadvantage.

Though forced marriages are more prevalent overseas, unfortunately we know that they do involve many young Australians. Between the forced marriages ban in Australia in 2013 and the inaugural My Blue Sky conference on the topic last year more than 230 cases had been referred to the Australian Federal Police; however, there had been no prosecutions. At the My Blue Sky conference the AFP's Commander Lesa Gale described the significant barriers to prosecution of forced marriage, including the difficulty of obtaining evidence from other countries and the reluctance of victims, especially young victims, to give evidence against family members.

As Australians, we believe that no-one under the age of 16 can consent to sexual activity, or by extension to marriage. As such it should be clear to us that any marriage undertaken by anyone under the age of 16 is, by that definition, a forced one. Schedule 5 of this bill helps us to meet that community expectation, as well as overcome some of the challenges in securing prosecutions by using that self-evident definition in the act. Under Schedule 5 of the bill we would no longer require as much evidence from overseas, nor the active co-operation of vulnerable and intimidated children. The simple fact of age, when established, will be sufficient for prosecution.

Forced marriages are a particular concern in the context of travel for child sexual exploitation. As many as two million children are exploited in the commercial sex trade around the world, according to UNICEF. This is a particular problem in South-East Asia. An estimated 40,000 to 70,000 children in Indonesia are victims of sexual exploitation, and an estimated 100,000 children are trafficked every year. In total, more than half of all human trafficking and slavery victims in the world are located in the Asia-Pacific. Many of these are coerced into a forced or underage marriage. In 2016-17 more than 50 per cent of referrals received by the AFP on human trafficking were specifically with regard to those who are at risk of being moved abroad to take part in a forced marriage. It is big business. The trafficking industry, driven in part by forced marriages, generates $12 billion annually, according to the International Labour Organization. Unfortunately there are many in our own country who would seek to take advantage of this trade.

There are estimated to be more than 20,000 registered child sex offenders in Australia, with around another 2,500 added every year. No doubt there are many more who commit child sex offences who are yet to be prosecuted. All too many, unfortunately, seek to travel to countries with weaker legal frameworks and enforcement to offend. Almost 800 Australian registered child sex offenders travelled overseas in 2016 alone. Let me say that again: almost 800 Australian registered child sex offenders travelled overseas in 2016 alone. Half of these were medium- to high-risk offenders. This government legislated last year to allow the cancellation of passports for many of these higher risk offenders. However, as I mentioned, not all who would attempt to sexually exploit a child are registered sex offenders.

I met not long ago with a charity in my electorate, Destiny Rescue. Locally, they are based in Warana, but they operate in Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, India and the Dominican Republic to rescue, rehabilitate and protect trafficked children. Working closely with the AFP, their international network of 400 active volunteers helped them successfully rescue over 3,000 trafficked children in 2018 alone. In Australia, Destiny Rescue is currently focusing on preventative education, because it continues to be the case that many of the men caught engaging in child sexual abuse offshore are Australian. Founder Tony Kirwan reports that he continues to see a large proportion of Australian men among those who visit South-East Asia's centres of child sexual exploitation. Currently, a number of those who travel for these purposes seek to bypass existing Australian laws against the child sexual exploitation overseas by entering into a forced marriage with a child. Schedule 6 of this bill will prevent such a marriage being used as a defence against Australian laws and will further deter offenders from travel for this very purpose.

The need for a provision like this is significant. An International Labor Organization study in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, in 2011 interviewed 175 child sex workers. The ILO found children as young as 10 involved in commercial sex work. These children drank alcohol and many had been raped or physically abused. Some were HIV-positive and many had gone through pregnancies and abortions. In some countries, these 10-year-old children are legally permitted to marry, which currently affords Australians who would exploit them a possible legal defence.

Schedules 5 and 6 of this bill are very welcome and they are only the latest in a series of actions undertaken by the coalition government to deal with forced marriage and child sexual exploitation. Back in October 2016, the government announced the formation of a joint working group of Australian police and justice officials to combat child sex offenders and protect children in Australia and overseas. In November of the same year, at the eighth National Roundtable on Human Trafficking, we agreed to produce awareness-raising materials and establish feasibility studies for a code of conduct and public reporting of exploitation in supply chains. We've also announced the Bali Process Government and Business Forum to bring together the 48 Bali Process countries to create policies to tackle human trafficking and slavery.

In Australia we legislated Carly's law, the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Minors Online) Bill, which criminalises acts done online to prepare or plan to harm or engage in sexual activity with a child, while last year, among other measures, we passed the Passports Legislation Amendment (Overseas Travel by Child Sex Offenders) Bill. This allowed the government to deny registered sex offenders a passport, to prevent travel for exploitation, and formed the toughest regime against travel of this kind anywhere in the world.

Domestically, the government fights forced marriages through a service called My Blue Sky, a website, helpline and legal advice service developed in partnership with Anti-Slavery Australia. I should note that if anyone following this debate is in a forced marriage or is concerned about being coerced in the future, or they know of someone or believe someone to be in that situation, they can visit www.mybluesky.org.au or telephone (02)95148115.

There are few, if any, crimes that appal Australians as much as child sexual exploitation and abuse. The measures contained in this bill are practical, I hope uncontroversial, and, I believe, much needed to protect children both in our own country and overseas. I thank the Minister for Home Affairs for his continued dedication to this important battle. I commend the bill to the House.

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