Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, wish to speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Deepfake Sexual Material) Bill 2024. It strengthens existing Commonwealth criminal offences and creates new offences to respond to the online harm caused by deepfakes and other artificially generated sexual material, and we know how vitally important it is to have this legislation.

We are all aware of instances of AI digital creations and altered images, and it is horrific. Digitally created and altered sexually explicit material that is shared without consent is a damaging and deeply distressing form of abuse. Many of us have seen people in our areas and right across the country who are deeply distressed when this happens. It is an insidious behaviour. It is degrading, humiliating and dehumanising for victims. We know that such acts are overwhelmingly targeted at women and girls, perpetuating harmful gender stereotypes and gender based violence. I know that everyone in this House joins with me in the actions that we take, as a government and as a parliament, to end gender based violence, and we have had record commitments when it comes to many investments. It's important to act right across the sphere of all that government can do, and we are in fact doing that in this bill as well, because we know that digitally created explicit material adds to very harmful gender stereotypes. That's why this bill, along with all of our other measures, is vitally important when it comes to all of us working together to end violence against women and children.

This bill will deliver on a commitment made by the Albanese government following the National Cabinet meeting that was held in May to address gender based violence. This commitment recognises the urgent and collective need to respond to the growing challenges associated with artificially generated sexual material. The bill creates a new offence that applies where a person uses a carriage service to transmit sexual material depicting an adult person and they know the person depicted does not consent to the transmission of the material or they are reckless as to whether the other person consents. The new offence will carry a maximum penalty of six years imprisonment. It will apply to sexual material depicting adults, with child abuse material continuing to be dealt with under very serious, dedicated separate offences in the Criminal Code. The bill repeals previous offences in the code dealing with non-consensual sharing of private sexual material. The new offences are based on a consent model to better cover both artificial and real sexual material.

It's vitally important to have this legislation in place. As I say, these measures add to the already record amounts of funding that we have put in place, since we came into government, to end violence against women and children in one generation. We have our national plan. We have a major investment in providing frontline services. We have announced in the budget our 'leaving violence' payment, which is now permanent. We are working with all of the states and territories—and we call on all the community, as well, to work with us—with the aim of ending violence against women and children. I know I've spoken on this in the House many times, and I know it's an objective that we all share. That's why taking the action in this bill is vitally important. With the growth of AI and the horrendous depictions that we see, it's important that we pass this bill and that we keep speaking publicly about this and about the action that needs to be taken. I commend the bill to the House.

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