Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

PERRETT () (): Discussions about child sexual abuse and the perpetrators are always emotive. Only the survivors of child sexual abuse can truly understand the lifelong damage and the burden they carry from such cruel, evil, cold-hearted events. You only have to read some of the testimony from the royal commission into child sexual abuse detailing the horrors inflicted on them and how that can affect people for the rest of their lives—sometimes lives that end all too early. This is why this is such an emotive issue.

The natural inclination of civilised society is to protect children. They are our hope distilled. If society fails to protect them, we feel we have failed them as a society. I hope this urge to protect is what has motivated the member for Herbert, who has submitted this motion, rather than any political opportunism. However, when we look clinically at the facts, it's hard to see how a publicly available national child sex offender register would contribute to keeping our children safe. Just having a quick look through some of the data from the Australian Institute of Criminology outlines some of the facts around child sexual assault that weren't mentioned in his introduction.

The Personal Safety Survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics highlighted that only 11.1 per cent of abusers were strangers—that is, people not known to the child. Most monsters are family monsters. Sadly, the highest percentage of perpetrators are male relatives. It showed almost 45 per cent of victims were abused by a male relative—an uncle, a brother, a father or a stepfather—and around 40 per cent of abusers were a male family friend or acquaintance of the family. These abusers were not just known to the child but were responsible for the care and protection of these children.

It was only last sitting that I spoke about Chris, my constituent who was abused by his school counsellor at Brisbane boys grammar—a person who was supposed to be caring for him, not some stranger on the street. If the member for Herbert or anyone points out how a publicly available register would have helped people like Chris, then I could support it. But we know the best place for this information about paedophiles and perpetrators is for it to be held by law enforcement and the courts. The statistics show that the vast majority of offenders are those who have not previously been identified or convicted of these crimes. As I mentioned before, they will be a male family member or close family friend who's probably known the child since birth. So strangers lurking in the shadows aren't the major perpetrators of child abuse. They're more likely to be sharing the same roof or the same meal with the child.

Data shows that the recidivism rates of those who have been convicted of child sexual assault are actually relatively low when they're monitored by law enforcement and restrictions are placed upon them by the courts. The member for Herbert's plan would drive such people underground. At the moment, they must report where they live. They must report who lives in their household, what internet accounts they have, what they do for a living—all that can be investigated by the police. If they don't provide the information, they can return to prison for a breach. The member for Herbert's ill-thought-out plan would actually drive such perpetrators underground. There is absolutely no data to support the notion that vigilantism makes children safer, despite what is claimed by people on the airwaves.

What will make our kids safer is if people who are told or are aware of abuse happening don't move these people on to another parish or another school or another church or another mosque so they can then abuse other children. We need to educate children from a young age about safe and respectful relationships. I mean a very young age, and in an age-appropriate way. We should talk to children about consent and about bodily autonomy. A phrase such as 'Come and give me a kiss,' which I heard as a kid, which children hear from their older relatives, should be considered carefully. What are we telling the child who doesn't wish to give that person the hug or the kiss? What should they do accordingly?

Lastly, we must believe children when they tell us about what happened. Too often in the past, as we heard again and again during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, children weren't believed. Adults either didn't believe them or refused to deal with it. Let us never make that mistake again. But, also, let us not delude ourselves into thinking that a flashing warning sign placed publicly out the front of every paedophile's home will make us safe from the boogiemen designed by the Liberal and National parties. Life is a little bit more complicated, more fraught, more nuanced. Let's leave the vigilante work to the 1890s. Let's leave the public lynchings to the 1800s.

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