Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The Commonwealth does have strong laws in this area. There are a range of challenges that the government faces, particularly when dealing with combating child pornography and sexual abuses of children. There is no impediment to prosecuting people or undermining of efforts to protect children under the current laws. There are successful prosecutions that show that the current legislation is working. The government will introduce reforms to further strengthen Commonwealth child sex offences laws and bring them into line with domestic and international best practice.

It is important that we do maintain our vigilance in this area. The government has released a consultative paper detailing the proposed reforms and, of course, invites public comment on the proposals. This government is providing action in this area. It is recognised as a difficult area, because you do need cooperation across the field, with the states and territories on the one hand and the Commonwealth government on the other, and you need international assistance as well. But, as I have indicated, this government is proposing reforms—comprehensive reforms that have been looked at. They are more comprehensive than those introduced by those opposite. Senator Bernardi, I understand, knows this area somewhat, but what this government is doing is looking at how we can include additional measures, such as new offences for sexual activity committed online, new aggravated offences where the offender is in a position of trust or the victim has a cognitive impairment and new aggravated offences targeting online child pornography networks. What we can say from this perspective is that this government has looked at how we can strengthen these laws, how we can ensure that we can deal with this area— (Time expired)