Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A child's innocence is precious. Each one of us needs to protect that innocence, both online and offline. The Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Minors Online) Bill 2017 is a very important part of this government's efforts to help protect children online. The bill is colloquially known as 'Carly's law' and stems from the tragic death of Carly Ryan, who was 15 and started chatting online with Brandon Kane, who claimed to be an 18-year-old musician from Melbourne with similar interests to her. During 18 months of online contact and phone calls, Carly fell in love with Brandon, but there was no Brandon Kane, just a 50-year-old predator and paedophile—Garry Francis Newman, who was pretending to be Brandon Kane. He eventually convinced Carly to meet him on a secluded beach at Port Elliot in South Australia. He assaulted and suffocated Carly and then threw her in the water to drown.

When detectives found Newman he was online as Brandon Kane once again, talking with a 14-year-old girl in my state of Western Australia. Newman was sentenced to life in prison. In her sentencing remarks, the judge said:

Garry Newman deserves a life behind bars for his grossly perverted plan to deceive, seduce and murder Carly … It was a terribly cruel thing you did to this beautiful, impressionable 15yr old child. I say child because that's what she was, a child that fell in love with the idea of the handsome, musically inclined and rather exotic Brandon Kane, the real man was in fact an overweight, balding, middle aged paedophile with sex and murder on his mind.

Carly's mother, Sonya, does not want any other child or parent to suffer as she and Carly did. She formed and incorporated the Carly Ryan Foundation to raise awareness in children, teens and young adults about the risks of various online mediums, chat rooms and social networking sites, where people like Garry Newman operate. The internet is the most fabulous tool for most of the 3.4 billion people who use it, but we need to know how to protect our children from Garry Newman and other online predators and paedophiles. I was concerned to read that there was a 47-year-old man charged with child sex offences online, involving 28 children. He was grooming them online. He was even offering children money. There were kids all over the country, including in my state of Western Australia. The AFP in that article said that online child exploitation increased by 54 per cent in the last 12 months.

The online predators are the ones who wait and watch Facebook pages and other social media sites for potential victims. They are the ones who groom and manipulate children online. They do everything they can to gain that child's trust. They offer, as we heard, money, free iTunes cards, a free phone—one that mum and dad do not know about—and other gifts to create a sense of obligation in the child. They ask them how old they are and where they live. They make comments like, 'You are cute,' 'You are sexy,' 'I care about you more than anyone else in your life,' and, 'I love your pictures.' The offender will ask the child for more photos and may then even send them provocative or sexually graphic photos telling the child to hide them away, perhaps in a decoy app like the Secret Calculator. They ask whether the child or children can stay away from home overnight and whether they can keep a secret. At some point they will ask to meet in real life.

Like Garry Newman, they will create a fake online profile with fake photos. They will appear to have similar interests to the child. They may seek to use a fake ID to join groups like Kik Messenger. I suspect others will create fake identities to use Facebook's Lifestage, a video-sharing social media app aimed at young people under 21. I understand that to start an account you need only your phone number, and every video children post is fully public. There are other apps like a Spotafriend using GPS locators which allow young people to connect with strangers. This is Tinder for teens—Tinder, of course, being the dating app. Yellow is another app that uses GPS locators to connect teens with strangers. It is used by more than five million teens globally—a prime hunting ground, I would think, for online paedophiles.

These continuous and rapidly evolving technologies and the anonymity that the internet provides have resulted in unprecedented opportunities for the harm and sexual exploitation of children. In 2015 the government passed the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act, creating the Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner, a one-stop shop for online safety, for everything from reporting serious cyberbullying—and there are resources for educators and parents as well—to the reporting of illegal content, how to protect your privacy online and how to have image based abuse removed. There are a range of resources available on the site, and I encourage every person to use these resources. In addition to this, the AFP's ThinkUKnow program helps educate parents, teachers and kids about issues such as online grooming and cyberbullying and how to keep themselves safe when they are using the internet and how to use the AFP's 'report abuse' button.

Members know that I have given hundreds of cybersafety presentations to schoolchildren, and I am no longer surprised at what the children are doing online. One of the reasons I am so supportive of this bill is that I actually know firsthand that children are going to meet people in person whom they have only previously met online. How do I know? It is because I ask them and they say so. In one class alone, seven 11-year-olds had the courage to admit to me that they are doing exactly that. My office received a phone call from a mother of an 11-year-old girl who, after listening to my presentation, went home to say, 'I realise I am being groomed online for sex.' That is at the age of 11. So I am deeply concerned at the sheer number of primary- and early-high-school-age young people who admit to meeting people in person whom they have previously only met online. In my most recent classes for year 8, there were six and eight in each class who had the courage to admit that.

Our kids love the internet. They love their devices. It is their world, and they are brilliant with technology. Probably that is why I am out there saying to them, 'This is how to help keep yourself safe.' This is their world. They love it. They are great with the technology. They need to know who to go to when they need help and when they need to know about the online risks and challenges.

With research showing that 92 per cent of teens are online daily, including 24 per cent who say they are online almost constantly—and the kids tell me that they have their devices 24/7—protection and deterrence are essential. I know why this legislation is so important. I hear directly from young people about what is going on online. This bill is the next step the government is taking to protect Australian children from those who would seek to do them harm online. It will not be the last step. This bill's purpose is the prevention of harm and exploitation of children. It will improve the protection of children by creating a new offence that complements existing online child sex offences for preparatory conduct. This will include grooming or procuring a child for sexual activity.

The bill also extends the criminalisation of the use of the internet and social media as a forum for predators to groom or procure children to engage in sexual activity to a broader range of conduct. This offence builds on the proactive policing of online sexual offences, allowing law enforcement to take action against online predators sooner and with greater consequences. That is very good. The bill introduces a tough new offence—and I am very happy about that—that criminalises acts done using a carriage service, any of the devices, 'to prepare or plan to cause harm, procure, or engage in sexual activity' with a child—that is, someone under the age of 16. It will allow intervention by law enforcement agencies prior to sexual activity or other harm. People found guilty of this, and I hope those who are doing it are found guilty, may now be punished by up to 10 years imprisonment. Importantly, this will also include those who misrepresent their age, like Garry Francis Newman and all the rest out there doing this. I know from discussing this issue with local and federal police that they are particularly concerned about children's safety online.

This year, as I said, represents the 10th anniversary of Carly's death, and this legislation is Carly and her mother's amazing legacy. Her mother, Sonya, has put an enormous amount of energy into the Carly Ryan Foundation, and I pay tribute to her for that. I want to mention Carly's quilt, that we saw here in the parliament recently. I was with Minister Keenan at that launch. To see the beautiful hearts on that quilt that were made out of Carly's clothing was profoundly moving. It showed great courage by Sonya to tell her story at that gathering.

Given the rapid changes in technology, and the way that the predators are using it, this will not be the last piece of legislation to come before this House. This is very important legislation to help with the online protection of our children. I congratulate the minister and the government for bringing this into the parliament. I want to encourage parents—I do parent presentations as well—to be involved before the first device is given to their child. I am disturbed at the age that young people have access to the internet. I met a little girl of three who was allowed to download things from the internet. The age is getting younger and younger. Legislation like this is even more important than ever given the age of these young people.

Young people often do not want to admit to what is happening online. I want to refer to the fact that frequently we found that young people often do not talk about the sexual abuse they suffer at the time it is happening. Often it is not until later in life, when a particular incident then provokes that memory, that they deal with the problem. What is worrying me, particularly in this space, is: how many of these young people who are going to meet people in person that they have only met online, are the victims of a form of sexual abuse that we do not know about because they are not talking about it? How many of them later in life will have to deal with this—it will be a problem in their mental and physical wellbeing? I see that as a latent problem out of the numbers of young people that I know are going to meet people online that they have only met first online.

When I talk to parents, one of the things I ask them is: right at this moment where are your children, what are they doing and who are they with? Most parents can answer that question as to where their children are at that moment. But I then make the comment that when they are online we need to be able to answer those three question. We are not going to be with our children all of the time, and all of the time they are online, and that is why the young people need to know how to be as safe as they possibly can be when they are online.

I want to commend, in my last moments, the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, and her team for the work they are doing to help protect our children online. I also encourage every parent and everyone in this House, if they have not had a look already, to look at the resources that are available online. The school in my electorate that got in touch with the Children's eSafety Commissioner was able to have some very damaging content removed quite quickly. Quite often, one of the most important things for the individual to lessen the harm, the hurt and the damage is to get the content removed quickly. That is where the Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner comes along. I am very proud that our government is being so proactive in this space, and I commend this bill to the House.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the government for working with the Nick Xenophon Team to bring the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Minors Online) Bill before the parliament. In my electorate there is a picturesque seaside town called Port Elliot, which is located on the perfectly curved shore of Horseshoe Bay. However, it is also the place where a great tragedy occurred—the murder of a beautiful young girl who had just turned 15. Her name was Carly Ryan. She was a young girl in my electorate in the Adelaide Hills. Ten years ago Carly was lured to her death on the beach by a 47-year-old paedophile, who had lied about his age online. His name is Garry Newman. He was described by the judge in sentencing as 'an overweight, balding, middle-aged paedophile with sex and murder on his mind'. He murdered Carly because she refused his advances. He suffocated her by pushing her face in the white sand of Horseshoe Bay, before throwing her in the sea.

I am here today to speak in support of this legislation, which we in the Nick Xenophon Team call 'Carly's law' because of that meeting on the beach and because, at the time, none of Newman's behaviour online was illegal. No law was broken before he murdered her. Nothing could have been done by police to intervene if they had been alerted. So this legislation is designed to close that loophole.

Newman began grooming Carly when she was only 14 years of age, chatting to her online by pretending to be 20-year-old Brandon—a sensitive young man who played the guitar. I spoke to Carly's mum, Sonya, my constituent, who has the Carly Ryan Foundation based in my electorate. I asked her if I could have her permission to tell her daughter's story. Sonya told me she was not an absentee parent when it came to monitoring Carly's internet use. Sonya followed the guidelines. Carly could only use the computer in the main living area when her mother was supervising. Keep in mind that this was a decade ago, when, arguably, there were fewer social media sites and apps children could use to talk to strangers online.

Sonya watched her daughter fall in love with fictitious Brandon, communicating with him over the internet, by telephone and by email. Carly invited Brandon to her 15th birthday party. Brandon could not make it obviously—because he did not exist—but his adoptive father, Shane, went in his stead. When Newman, pretending to be Shane, turned up on the doorstep and began trying to insinuate himself into the household, Sonya was deeply suspicious and warned her daughter, but it was too late. Newman continued to use his internet alter ego to manipulate Carly, convincing her to go to Horseshoe Bay to meet Brandon in person.

When detectives tracked Newman down in his Victorian home 11 days after Carly's murder, they found him logged online as Brandon Kane. He had been chatting to a 14-year-old girl in Western Australia. Brandon was one of 200 fake online identities Newman had created for the purposes of meeting young girls. This bill will make it an offence to prepare or plan to cause harm and to procure or engage in sexual activity with a person under 16 years of age. This includes a person lying about their age to a child under 16 as part of that plan to harm a child.

Earlier versions of this bill were introduced by my colleagues Senator Xenophon and Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore. The government's version of 'Carly's law', which has been achieved in consultation with the Nick Xenophon Team, aims to avoid any unintended consequences raised during the Senate inquiry process into those early versions. This version addresses those unintended consequences, so it achieves its aim, and that is to criminalise the preparative nature of online behaviour intended to cause harm to children.

Legal academic Associate Professor Gregor Urbas from the University of Canberra referred to these changes in his submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. The Senate committee is currently examining this bill and is due to release its report on 13 June. Along with the Law Council of Australia and the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Professor Urbas noted that there are existing laws that criminalise online behaviour, including preparatory conduct. However, the professor advises that these offences are relatively recent and their precise scope is not always clear, leaving gaps. For example, prosecutors cannot prove grooming for a sexual purpose. This legislation aims to close these gaps. This bill complements existing online offences, extending criminalisation of the use of the internet and social media to a broader range of conduct. Carly's Law takes a precautionary approach by criminalising the grooming of children at a much earlier stage, capturing those predators who misrepresent their age to set up a meeting. I cannot think of any legitimate reason for an adult to lie to someone under age, pretending to be a minor in order to build a relationship and build trust that leads to a physical meeting.

Early intervention is what Sonia Ryan is seeking, and it is what the 90,000 people who signed her change.org online petition are also seeking. The advice Sonia received from detectives in South Australia is that if Carly's Law had been around a decade ago police would have been able to charge Newman for his predatory online grooming behaviour. It gives power to the police to detain an individual before a child has to go through something horrific. Sonia sees Carly's Law as a meaningful legacy for her beautiful, kind, loving daughter. Choice was taken away from Carly and from Sonia, but we can do something to help prevent this tragedy happening again. In a digitally connected world, Carly's Law aims to give children in Australia opportunities to live a life free from predatory behaviour.

UNICEF estimates that there are more than four million websites featuring minors, including many that target children as young as or under the age of two. More than 200 new pornographic images of minors are circulated every single day. Last year the Australian Federal Police reported that the number of referrals it had received for child exploitation material had more than doubled from 4½ thousand in 2014 to 11,000 by the end of 2015. This is becoming an epidemic. The authorities who hunt these online predators say that paedophiles can gain access to children faster and more easily, making volumes of social networking avenues available to them. These avenues include Facebook, Facebook Messenger, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, World of Warcraft, Moshi Monsters, Minecraft, Pokemon Go—and that is besides basic Skype and email.

One of the latest ones parents need to know about is called Yellow, which I have also heard described as a bit like Tinder for teens. Yellow is a location-based social networking app that helps young people between the ages of 13 and 17 connect with each other in the locality where they live. Yellow combines Snapchat, Instagram and GPS technology. Young people between the ages of 13 and 17 become friends with one another in their locality by swiping right on their profile in a design similar to Tinder. But, according to the Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner, the safeguards to verify your age on Yellow are not robust enough for their liking. There is nothing to stop adults pretending to be under 18 years of age, which makes this an ideal tool for predators. This app really is a predators' paradise. Social networking apps like Yellow are one of the reasons the length of time it takes paedophiles to groom children and to make contact with them is getting even shorter.

Back when Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton was Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police he said the length of grooming time between first contact online and physical meeting could be as little as two weeks. Technology is evolving so rapidly that it is hard for parents, let alone law enforcement agencies and the legal system, to catch up, so when we recognise a problem we need to act quickly. Our young are often more comfortable with these new forms of communication than are those charged with their protection, leaving our children open to exportation.

The Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner reports that teenagers spend 33 hours a week online outside of school. Parents might be able to control who comes in and out of their front doors but they cannot always control who comes in and out of their homes via the internet, even with supervision and sophisticated computer filters. A briefing hosted by the eSafety Commissioner in Canberra this week pointed out that the average household has about 15 internet connected devices available at any one time. With the vast majority of teenagers today having smartphones, it is even more challenging for parents to monitor who their children are communicating with. Carly's law, as I like to call this, is an early intervention tool for when parents, friends, teachers and law enforcement agencies become suspicious of a potential online predator trying to sneak in through the back door, but it is just one tool.

I cannot finish this speech without commending Sonya for her work to protect children through the Carly Ryan Foundation. Since her daughter's death she has tried to bring some good out of this evil by dedicating herself to raising awareness of young people to online dangers. She set up the Carly Ryan Foundation in my electorate in 2010. It is an organisation run entirely by volunteers. I was recently at a school where Sonya gave an online safety presentation to a group of teenagers. You could hear a pin drop when she told her family's story.

Something powerful happens when a human opens up about their inner pain. Sonya is not some nagging adult who does not know a thing about technology or who is telling children how to run their lives. She is a mum who lost her daughter. Sonya told me that after her education talks she is often approached by young people who want to share their bad experiences online, who want to confide with her. They know that something is not quite right but they do not always know exactly how to pinpoint that. She does what she can to support them, and steers them to appropriate help.

Sonya could not protect her daughter but she can to what she can to protect other children. Her efforts led to her being nominated as South Australia's Australian of the year in 2013. But that is not why she works so hard for online safety and why she has advocated so long for changes to laws. Our children deserve the best and, as my colleagues have said in the past, if Carly's law, this legislation, can stop just one young person from becoming a victim then we have done our job, and it is worth it.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Minors Online) Bill 2017, which strengthens the laws keeping children safe online. I acknowledge the contribution by the previous speaker, the member for Mayo, particularly because of its personal nature for her and how close to home this is for her. I also acknowledge the Nick Xenophon Team for the strong stance they have taken on this.

As its name suggests, this bill is about protecting children, which is fundamentally what we are here for. Every law we pass, everything we do is done either to benefit or to protect our kids. The internet has brought about much change to the world. We can access almost any information within a few clicks of a button. The internet has been a great tool for education, particularly for students learning by distance in regional Australia, like my daughter. Children have a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips. They were learning in ways that were not possible a few years ago. Kids today are sharing like they have never shared before. Many of us have children who seem to spend every moment texting or otherwise using their phones or watching videos on laptops. Eighty per cent of teenagers have a social media account. Half of them have been using it since the age of 10. Over 80 per cent of teens use the internet three or more times a day, mostly during the hours from when they get home from school to when they go to bed. Ninety-six per cent of Australian households have wi-fi, giving children the ability to use the internet from their bedroom.

While mobile phones and computers are good if used for the right reasons, they make our children more vulnerable to unsavoury people who would never be let inside the family home. The nature of social media is that we can talk to people without truly knowing who is behind the screen. The anonymity of the internet has created new opportunities for predators to target innocent children. Every week, we see another report in the news of some perverted individual going after a child. Parents across Australia were horrified earlier this year when they read about a man pretending to be a pop star, who asked an eight-year-old for nude images, and the story of the 39-year-old man attempting to meet a 14-year-old girl at a Victorian public pool. Only recently, we saw that a convicted killer had lured a Sydney teenager, using the internet, to the United States.

Social media can be a very dangerous place for children and young people. Internet safety groups warn parents to limit what they share about their children online, because they fear it could fall into the hands of sex offenders. These sites have few safeguards that prevent predators from finding and contacting potential victims. A survey conducted by the Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner found that five per cent of kids aged eight to 13 and nine per cent of teenagers have been contacted by strangers online. Seventeen per cent of teenagers said that they had been exposed to inappropriate content while using social media. Worryingly, the internet makes it easier for predators to connect with each other. There are now sick communities on the internet that share images of child abuse and encourage others to do the same. These recent changes in technology require us to take a smarter approach to child safety. This is why the measures included in this bill are so essential.

As I am a father, there is nothing more important than keeping my children safe. Like every parent across this country, I was sick to my stomach in 2007 when I heard about the case of Carly Ryan, a 15-year-old girl from South Australia tragically taken before her time. Carly was brutally raped and murdered by a 50-year-old man posing online as a teenage musician. Her story is beyond every parent's worst nightmare. Her mother, Sonya, has gone through an ordeal most of us can never imagine. Many of us would feel helpless in that event, but Sonya has shown a great deal of bravery and courage. Since her daughter's death, she has worked tirelessly to change the law for the better. I wish to acknowledge Sonya Ryan and thank her for all of her effort. Her advocacy is an inspiration and something we can all learn from. We owe it to her and to Carly's memory to do all we can to prevent this from ever happening again.

The new offence, called Carly's law, will introduce tough new measures for people preparing to cause harm to a minor. This law will make it a criminal offence to prepare to procure or engage in sexual activity with a child. These measures are absolutely vital for police and law enforcement agencies. Police should not have to wait until it is too late to stop a cyberpredator. This bill gives them greater powers to intervene earlier, before the child is put in harm's way. Carly's law will allow law enforcement agencies the ability to investigate as soon as someone shows signs of being an online predator. The police can take action against these people sooner rather than later. There is no requirement to prove intent to commit the ultimate offence of harming or engaging in sexual activity with a child, only intent to prepare to do so. With this, we are sending a strong message to predators: if you plan to harm a child, you will receive the full force of the law. The maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment will be a strong deterrent to all who seek to prey on vulnerable children.

But we know it cannot stop here. The community expects the government to do all it can to make sure our kids are safe on the internet. The Attorney-General and the Minister for Justice have announced tougher criminal responses and more support services for victims. I wish to thank the member for Stirling for his work in this area.

The Australian Federal Police are partnering with international law enforcement agencies, like Interpol, to combat the scourge of child sex abuse around the globe. The AFP work closely with state and territory police agencies, under the Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team, to direct anti-child-exploitation efforts across Australia. The ThinkUKnow program is an education initiative run by the AFP that teaches school students and parents about cyber safety. Topics covered include online grooming, sexting, privacy, identity theft and fraud. In 2015-16 they delivered 386 presentations to more than 10,000 parents, carers and teachers across the country.

The federal government is taking a leadership role in combating online safety. In 2015, the Attorney-General established the Office of the Children's eSafety Commissioner to provide education to Australian children and young people. There is currently legislation before the House to expand the role of the commissioner to provide online safety support to all Australians. Last year, the government established the national working group on child sex offenders to provide advice on how to improve existing measures. The working group, in collaboration with the National Child Offender System, is examining ways to improve current operational procedures so there is a coordinated national response to child sex offences. Its members include senior people in the police and legal community, who have first-hand experience dealing with child sex crimes across the states and territories. Child sex crime is a national issue that requires a national solution. I look forward to reading the working group's findings.

The Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Minors Online) Bill 2017 sends a clear message: planning to harm or sexually exploit Australian children will never be tolerated. I say this as a former police officer and as a father. Just as in real life, kids should be allowed to be kids. They deserve to grow up in a safe community, free from predators trying to take away their innocence. These are sensible measures to tackle the new challenge for police and law enforcement agencies. Any improvement in the law that helps police detect what are the scum of the earth who walk amongst us, those who seek to take advantage of our most vulnerable and most precious, our children, is a good thing. We owe it to the memory of Carly to stop these depraved people from ever getting their hands on a child. I welcome this bill as part of the government's broader effort to tackle child abuse in all its forms across Australia.

Anne Aly (Cowan, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very honoured to stand up and speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Protecting Minors Online) Bill 2017, which I think is a very important one. I am very happy to support the bill, and I want to iterate Labor's commitment to ensuring children are safe online. As the previous speakers and my colleagues have mentioned, this bill is a response to the death of Carly Ryan, a 15-year-old girl who was murdered by an online predator in South Australia in 2007. It seeks to allow police to intervene in suspected grooming cases by broadening the range of preparatory conduct that is covered by offences in the Criminal Code.

I would like to take this opportunity, before I get into the bill, to pay heed to Carly's mother, Sonya, who lost her daughter very tragically. From that, she established the Carly Ryan Foundation and has fought tirelessly to see this bill come to fruition and to ensure the online safety of all children and that other parents do not go through the grief and anguish that she has gone through. It takes a very rare kind of individual to channel such tragedy into something positive. I think that all of us in the House today and all of us in this parliament today can agree that Ms Ryan, Carly's mother, is an individual deserving of praise. We can all agree that we need to pay heed to her efforts in this space. This year is the 10th anniversary of Carly Ryan's murder. As I mentioned, Carly was tragically killed by an older predator, a man who preyed on her through social media, pretending to be a teenage boy. Carly's mother, Sonya, through the Carly Ryan Foundation, has worked tirelessly to campaign for the changes we are seeing here today.

All Australians have the right to feel safe online, and all parents—and I am a parent myself—should be able to feel safe knowing that their children will not meet the same tragic fate as Carly Ryan. I think it is really hard for people of my generation in particular to understand just how hardwired our young people are. I remember the days that my son, at 15, came running down the stairs and said he had a hundred friends. I said, 'Well, where are these friends?' And he said, 'On Facebook, Mum. On Facebook!' We tend to think of the online world as separate to our offline world, but young people do not see it that way. Their online world is indeed a social reality.

It is sometimes difficult for us to come to grips with how that social reality exists for young people and just how easy it could be for young people to fall into the fate of somebody like Carly Ryan unless we put in place the safeguards and protections to ensure they do not meet such tragic circumstances. Young people do live their lives online, and unfortunately that comes with a lot of risks and a lot of risky behaviour that we did not have to face. I certainly did not have to face those kinds of risks when I was a young person. Those risks are really around the protection of their personal information. I often find that young people have a very different view of the value of their personal information and just how much of it they can share online. They do not really see it the way that we do. Whereas I see it as a kind of window into our private lives and a window into our social world, they see it as an opportunity for sharing and for social connections. So I think there is important lesson to be learned here for all of us, which is that we need to connect more. We need to better understand what the online world means to young people and how we, as the old generation, can connect with young people around those concepts, and also how we come together to protect young people. That is really something that this bill does.

Labor, of course, is committed to ensuring that children are safe online. And I would also like to take some time here to recognise the hard work of the Nick Xenophon Team in progressing the bill and acknowledge our parliamentary colleagues on the Nick Xenophon Team, who also have fought tirelessly for this bill. As I mentioned earlier, the bill will ensure that police have the ability to investigate behaviour that could lead to the harm and sexual exploitation of children. Importantly, it also sends a clear message to the community that the use of technology to harm children will not be tolerated. That is something that I think we need to be a bit more focused on. Last week I met with an agency that works in the area of what it terms trafficking. This is basically men who are outside of a country soliciting—paying for—the sexual exploitation of children as young as three months old in another country. These men get online and actually pay, through an online format, to watch young children. The youngest case this organisation has is of a three-month-old child in the Philippines performing sexual acts. It calls this a form of sexual trafficking.

The truth is that we really do not have enough laws in place to protect these young children who predominantly are in countries overseas. If we are going to protect children as a priority, we should be protecting all children, no matter where they reside, whether they are in Australia or whether they are overseas. We should be protecting them from those online predatory behaviours, as does Carly's law. We need to further the laws that we have around online behaviours that prey on children and young people not just through sexual exploitation, not just by preying on their vulnerabilities, but by grooming them for radicalisation as well.

We really need to be looking at this nexus between humans and technology and how we can regulate online behaviours. We need to accept that we can never regulate the internet. That is a big ask. But we can do much more to introduce laws to regulate online behaviours. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.