Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Combatting Child Sexual Exploitation Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 and say upfront that Labor strongly supports the objectives of this bill. This bill implements several recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a royal commission that I'm particularly proud that Prime Minister Gillard initiated and that has done so much to shine a spotlight on horrific child abuse, historical and more recent. I say that as someone who is married to Lea, who basically has worked for 30 years in child protection, initially for 25 years or so as a child protection worker, a social worker, and then later as a lawyer for knowmore, the community legal service giving advice to the people who made submissions to the royal commission and, now, looking after those in the Redress Scheme. At home I've always been very aware of how crucial it is that Australia does all it can, that our states and territories do all they can, to combat child sexual exploitation.

This bill aims to protect children from sexual exploitation by strengthening the Commonwealth framework of offences relating to child abuse material, overseas child sexual abuse, forced marriage, failure to report child sexual abuse and failure to protect children from such abuse. The bill builds on the reforms and policies implemented under previous Labor and coalition governments.

I'm very proud, as I said, to have been a member of the parliament in November 2012 when Prime Minister Gillard announced that she would recommend to the Governor-General that a royal commission be established to inquire into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. Former Prime Minister Gillard is actually in the building tonight—although on the other side of the building, where the red carpet is—and it's great to see that much of the legislative work she created via the royal commission is living on. Following that recommendation, Her Excellency Quentin Bryce, the then Governor-General, announced in January 2013 the six commissioners who would undertake the onerous task of conducting the inquiry. The inquiry was led by Justice Peter McClellan AM, who did incredible work. I'd also like to mention someone who I recommended—that is, former Queensland Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson. He got five minutes of retirement and then went onto the task of being one of the commissioners. Surely, Bob Atkinson is one of Queensland's finest for his work as a police officer on the Morcombe case, then as a police commissioner and then for his work on this royal commission. The workload on this commission was phenomenal. But I don't thank just Bob; I thank all the commissioners and their staff for the incredible work they did over five years.

Just to make it clear, this work will leave scars. This work will leave a lasting imprint on the lives of all the commissioners and their staff. There was very, very disturbing evidence. Some of the de-identified stories I heard at home from my wife made me realise how incredibly tough the work of that royal commission was.

The royal commission received 42,041 phone calls. It received 25,964 letters and emails. The commissioners held 8,013 private sessions, and they made 2,575 referrals to authorities, including the police. This was not a royal commission that did not achieve outcomes—2,500 referrals to authorities! The royal commission handed down its final report in December 2017, and the commissioners made a total of 409 recommendations. This legislation before the House implements just a few of those recommendations.

Recommendation 33 from the royal commission recommends that jurisdictions should introduce a criminal offence for failing to report child sexual abuse. This bill implements that recommendation by creating a new Commonwealth criminal offence for circumstances where a Commonwealth officer who exercises care or supervision over children knows of information that would lead a reasonable person to believe or suspect that another person has or will engage in conduct in relation to a child that constitutes a child sexual abuse offence and fails to disclose that information as soon as practicable to state police or the Australian Federal Police. So, it puts that positive onus on people to step up rather than wilfully close their eyes.

Recommendation 36 from the royal commission recommends that state and territory governments introduce legislation to create a criminal offence for the failure to protect a child within an institution from a substantial risk of sexual abuse by an adult associated with the institution. If you remember the evidence, we heard from all sorts of institutions—sporting clubs, boarding schools, swim schools. Obviously this bill can't implement that exact recommendation, but it does take the substance of that recommendation and creates a new Commonwealth criminal offence for a Commonwealth officer who negligently fails to reduce or remove the risk of a child under their care, supervision or authority being sexually abused if it is part of their actual or effective responsibilities as a Commonwealth officer to reduce or remove that risk.

This bill also strengthens the laws for overseas persistent child sexual abuse. Currently a conviction for criminal persistent sexual abuse of a child overseas requires proof of at least three underlying occasions. The bill will require the minimum number of underlining occasions of abuse that have to be proved to be two. The bill will also criminalise the possession of a child-like sex doll, making such a doll child abuse material for the purposes of the Criminal Code and Customs Act. And a new offence will be created for the possession or control of child abuse material in the form of data held on a computer or contained in a data storage device that was obtained or accessed by a carriage service, thus bringing the Commonwealth in.

More particularly when you consider we're a multicultural community with people coming from all around the globe, the definition of forced marriage will be expanded. The current definition of forced marriage relies on the absence of consent. Prosecuting forced marriage involving children has been inherently difficult as the victims have on their own evidence demonstrated that they have understood the nature and effect of the marriage ceremony. The bill will expand the definition of forced marriage to include all marriages involving children under 16 years of age.

The bill also addresses the abhorrent practice of Australian offenders travelling overseas to abuse and exploit children. These vile individuals target countries that have weak or weaker child protection frameworks and where the offending is less likely to attract attention. This bill will amend the defence contained in the Criminal Code so that the existence of a marriage between the offender and a child will not constitute a defence if the child is under the age of 16.

This is not the first time this legislation or legislation very similar to this was introduced into parliament. A similar bill was introduced into the 45th Parliament but did not actually make its way to the Senate. The bill lapsed at the dissolution of the 45th Parliament, unfortunately. The previous bill was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, and actual concerns were raised about that bill that focused on the mandatory sentencing part of that bill. Importantly, the mandatory sentencing provisions have been removed and are not included in the bill currently before the House. Obviously, the concerns about mandatory sentencing are that, because of the severity of a crime being inflicted on a person, you might not end up with a conviction before the court, as all the evidence shows.

It should be noted that some stakeholders did raise serious concerns with aspects of the bill. I particularly point out that the Law Council expressed concern with regard to the application of absolute liability for committing certain offences created by the bill, and Labor's additional comments to the Senate inquiry accept the response of the Department of Home Affairs and the Attorney-General's Department that the application of absolute liability in these very limited circumstances is appropriate to ensure compliance with the reporting regime established by this legislation. However, I point out that the Labor senators also make clear that the operation of those provisions should be closely monitored following the enactment of this bill. The senators also accepted that it is appropriate for an individual not to be excused from failing to disclose information relating to child sexual abuse, on the ground that doing so might incriminate the individual. Such an abrogation of the privilege against self-incrimination, which has been around for 500 years or so, is not something that should be done lightly. But in the report the Labor senators ultimately accepted that in these very limited circumstances it was necessary to do so to ensure that the reporting requirements introduced by this bill are effective and the operation of those previsions would be closely monitored to see how they play out, because it is a drastic change.

Obviously, we do so because all 227 senators and MPs in this place would agree that child sexual exploitation is abhorrent. Children are the most precious and vulnerable members of our community. They deserve our protection and support. Labor is committed to protecting Australian children, and there is nothing more sickening than child sexual exploitation. As I mentioned at the start, I'm married to someone who has spent their whole life fighting that, so I've heard about it so often. Labor has no tolerance for these crimes, and any claims otherwise are completely misleading. I do remember a former Western Australian MP suggesting that. Thankfully, he is no longer in this parliament, but I will never forgive him for suggesting so at that despatch box. Thankfully, he is not here now, because it really stuck in my craw, considering the amount of my life that I've devoted to combating that.

As I said, Labor strongly supports the objectives of this bill, which implements several recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse—a royal commission that the Labor Party initiated—and builds on these reforms and policies implemented under Labor governments and then the coalition. Labor will watch the government's next steps closely to ensure that the bill is implemented as intended and that all of those royal commission recommendations, as much as possible, are rolled out. But, fundamentally, Labor supports the measures in the bill and will support it, and I commend it to the House.

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