Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Will the minister update the House on steps the Morrison government is taking to protect Australian children from exploitation? Is the minister aware of any concerning trends during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. I just don't see any higher priority for our government, for our nation, than protecting Australian children. I want to make sure that we can do everything we can within the Home Affairs portfolio to protect children and women in particular. When you look at the activities online of crime syndicates and those people who are involved in sexual predatory behaviour, you see that we need to provide support to the agencies to defeat those activities and to keep our Australian children safe.

We have managed the budget well, and it's put us in a position where we can prepare our country in the best way possible to deal with this virus and the consequences of it. And the consequences don't just relate to the health impacts on Australians, because we do know that we have seen quite a surge in the number of activities online detected by the Australian Federal Police and the other agencies within the Home Affairs portfolio, particularly around people who are targeting children, who are spending more and more time online.

Now, the AFP have received considerable support in this budget. We've invested $300 million over four years to strengthen the work of the Australian Federal Police, and I'm incredibly proud of the work that they do, particularly at the Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation. I'll be back in Brisbane tomorrow morning to officially open that facility, and it's a $70 million investment that we've been able to make. It's the biggest investment in Australia's history into protecting Australian children from the scourge of those who would seek to abuse children either online or in the real world. I want to praise the work of the investigators, of the intelligence analysts and of the NGOs who will be involved. Bruce and Denise Morcombe will be there tomorrow, and other NGOs will work with us, as they have done over a long period of time, to make sure that we can look at innovative ways in which we can deliver messages to kids at school to help people stay safe online and to make sure that we can speak to parents about having an active discussion with their children to make sure that they are safe online. I want to highlight the fact that from 1 July 2019 to 30 June this year ACE received 21,000 incoming reports of child exploitation. That is compared to 14,000 reports in the previous financial year—a dramatic increase. And, over the period of COVID, the centre identified a 163 per cent increase in child abuse material on the dark web in the three months of April to June of 2020, compared to the same period last year. It's why the work is absolutely essential, and it's why we'll continue to work hard to make sure that our budget is in good shape to help protect Australians and, in particular, children online.