Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As a psychologist and a proud member of the Morrison government, I am committed to making Australian communities safer places to live and work. In fact, the safety of Australians is at the centre of my decision-making, whether that means supporting local community organisations in my electorate of Reid or strengthening national strategies to protect all Australians.

I know that families living in my electorate of Reid sleep better at night knowing that our government has put in place significant protections against child exploitation. In 2018, the government officially opened the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. This has meant that Australia has a single entity driving a coordinated national response to counter the sexual exploitation of children. An initial $68.6 million over four years was invested in this initiative. Our work in this area is exceptionally strong, as it needs to be. Our greatest duty is the protection of our youngest and most vulnerable Australians.

Despite decades of efforts by law enforcement, child sexual exploitation and abuse is a growing global epidemic. Law enforcement here in Australia is seeing an alarming increase in reports of child exploitation committed by Australians within our country and of Australians increasingly travelling offshore to offend. That's why our government passed world-leading legislation allowing us to cancel the passports of known child sex offenders, preventing them from going offshore to commit child sex offences. We cancelled or refused the passports of more than 3,700 offenders. We have revoked a record number of Australian citizenships of child sex offenders.

To protect young Australians from sexual exploitation, we have also strengthened protections in place for the online world. As a psychologist, I am especially concerned with the vulnerable position children are in when navigating the internet. Young people are particularly vulnerable because their brains are still developing, which increases their risk of being exploited through posting personal information and images online. They are also less likely to identify predatory or grooming behaviours.

The Morrison government has taken unprecedented steps to protect children from the risks posed by the online environment. We have invested more than $100 million to arm parents and children with the tools that they need to navigate safely through the digital world and to help people who fall victim to online harm. In a world first, the Morrison government introduced Australia's eSafety Commissioner, and I want to commend the work of the eSafety Commissioner, who has done amazing work to produce resources and practical advice for children, teenagers, carers, parents and older Australians. The eSafety Commissioner has the power to order platforms to remove a range of harmful materials, including cyberbullying directed at children, image based abuse or the unauthorised distribution of intimate images and some categories of illegal and harmful online content if hosted in Australia.

Our need to protect the most vulnerable members of our community extends beyond the digital world. The Morrison government's Safer Communities Fund is a great example of how we have achieved this. I know this grant program has practical and positive impacts across the local communities because my electorate of Reid is a prime example. Since I was elected, this program has provided more than $667,000 worth of security upgrades for schools and places of worship in my area.

In my electorate we have the most diverse range of people, belonging from very different faiths, so it's important that these places of worship are protected and that people feel safe and secure. These places are community hubs where people connect, where families, young people and the elderly come together. In Reid, both St Mary and St Merkorious Coptic Orthodox Church, in Rhodes, and the Sri Karphaga Vinayakar Temple, in Homebush West, have benefited from this very program. Their new CCTV and security infrastructure has meant that people feel safe attending worship services, undertaking charitable work or conducting youth programs in these buildings.

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