Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question, and I recognise the significant work he has done as chair of both the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement and the parliamentary friends of ACCCE group.

Nothing is more important than the safety and security of our children. The coalition government has always been serious about tackling this insidious crime. This morning we launched our country's first National Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Child Sexual Abuse. This new strategy will further focus our work over the next decade. It includes over $131 million to resource our law enforcement efforts, which build on our record investment to establish the world-leading Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. Sadly, last year alone the centre received over 22,000 reports of child sexual exploitation; that's an average of over 60 a day. And we all know that not every instance will be reported. That is a terrible statistic that we must all work hard to make sure we can reduce.

Clearly, with the COVID pandemic, there have been more opportunities for children to be online and opportunities for predators to be out there grooming children. This is something that this government is very committed to doing its best to stamp out, and we are doing that by giving police and law enforcement agencies some pretty tough new powers.

This Friday is Day for Daniel, Australia's largest child safety education and awareness day. I pay tribute to the work of Bruce and Denise Morcombe, who I met with recently. They work tirelessly to make our community safer, in memory of their son. Their work is greatly appreciated by both ACCCE and the AFP, and I know that many Australians right around the country will support Day for Daniel on Friday.

The AFP and federal agencies will always be ready to support the work of state police forces when it comes to crimes against children. They are currently doing that in the case of four-year-old Cleo Smith, who disappeared from a campsite in Western Australia. Our thoughts are with the family, and I can assure them that the advanced capabilities of federal law enforcement are being deployed to aid local efforts to find Cleo.

Australians can be certain we will continue to equip our law enforcement and intelligence agencies with the tools and resources they need to combat this very serious crime, especially crimes against children.

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