Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

CRIMES LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (SEXUAL OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN) BILL 2010

General introduction

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by Australia in 1990 and has achieved almost universal ratification, imposes an obligation on States to protect children, at both the national and international level, from sexual exploitation and abuse.

In 1994, the then Keating Labor Government enacted a suite of new criminal offences targeting Australians who engage in the sexual abuse of children overseas, sometimes referred to as ‘child sex tourism’. The introduction of these offences fulfilled Australia’s international obligations to protect children internationally from sexual exploitation. As a result, Australia has an extensive framework in place to prevent, investigate and prosecute all forms of child exploitation. Since then, sadly, the Commonwealth’s response to abuse overseas has stagnated.

This Government is committed to taking all necessary action to prevent harm to children from occurring both in Australia and overseas. The sexual exploitation of children is devastating to the children involved, their families, and their communities.

We have a duty to ensure that with overseas travel commonplace, and the internet making information about destinations more accessible, that Commonwealth laws provide a significant deterrent to abuse and a sound basis for prosecuting offenders.

Equally, rapidly changing technologies and the anonymity that the Internet provides have resulted in unprecedented opportunities for child sex offenders. Our laws need to keep pace with the speed of technological change.

In 2005, the Commonwealth also enacted a range of offences directed at the use of a ‘carriage service’, such as the Internet or a mobile phone, for the sexual exploitation of children. This action was taken in response to the increasing use by offenders of new technical tools, such as the Internet, to engage in the sexual exploitation of children.

This Bill will implement a range of reforms to the 1994 and 2005 offence regimes to ensure that they remain effective and continue to meet the needs of law enforcement agencies in combating contemporary offending.

The proposed reforms will support the Australian Federal Police (AFP), who play a significant role in ensuring children and young people are safe, whether in a real or virtual environment.

The AFP, through its High Tech Crime Operations unit, is responsible for the investigation of crimes associated with Online Child Sex Exploitation and Child Sex Tourism. The Child Protection Operations teams investigate and target offenders who travel offshore and commit sexual offences or sexual exploitation against children. The AFP works closely with foreign law enforcement agencies prosecuting these offenders in the foreign countries or using extra territorial laws and conducting the prosecutions in Australia. The AFP also combats online child sexual exploitation in partnership with State, Territory and International law enforcement agencies, government organisations and industry.

Broader consultation on the proposed reforms between September and October 2008 indicated strong support for the measures in this Bill – from State and Territory Governments, Child Safety Commissioners, and child protection organisations like Child Wise and Save the Children. Save the Children indicated that the changes to the child-sex related offences would “definitely strengthen Australia’s capacity to prosecute would be child sex offenders”, whilst Child Wise supported reforms that would see Australia “again be the leaders in international best practice in relation to the legislation and policing of child sex tourism”.

1. Child sex tourism

The Bill improves the existing child sex tourism regime by introducing a number of critical new offences. These new offences ensure that conduct that would be criminal if it occurred in Australia is also criminal if it is perpetrated by Australians overseas.

The Bill introduces new offences for steps leading up to actual sexual activity with a child. Australians who are grooming or procuring a child for sexual activity overseas may be punished by up to 12 years or 15 years imprisonment respectively. Preparing for or planning sexual activity with a child overseas will be punishable by 10 years jail.

These offences will make it easier for law enforcement to intervene before actual sexual activity takes place, preventing physical harm to the child occurring.

The Government believes that particularly serious conduct should be recognised in Australia’s child sex tourism offence regime, through the introduction of specific offences that carry higher penalties.

Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of sexual abuse.  Abuse is also often perpetrated by people who are in a position of trust in a child’s life. Abuse is also often perpetrated systematically, over an extended period of time.

The Bill introduces new aggravated offences where the offender is in a position of trust or authority or where the child victim has a mental impairment and a new offence of persistent sexual abuse of a child, all carrying maximum penalties of 25 years imprisonment.

In addition, new offences of sexual activity with a young person between 16 and 18 where the offender is in a position of trust will subject offenders to penalties of up to ten years imprisonment.

These offences are consistent with State and Territory child sex offences which apply domestically.

The introduction of such offences sends a strong message to Australians who travel overseas to take up positions, such as teachers or aid workers, for the purpose of sexually exploiting children, that such behaviour will not be tolerated.

The Bill increases penalties for existing child sex tourism offences from 17 to 20 years imprisonment for sexual intercourse with a child under 16 years, and from 12 to 15 years for other sexual activity with a child under 16 years. The Bill also streamlines these offences and makes a clear distinction between these very serious offences, and the new procuring offences.

2. Overseas child pornography and child abuse material offences

Although dealings in child pornography and child abuse material can often be intimately connected with child sex tourism, there are currently no offences applying extraterritorially to dealings in such material by Australians.

Many destination countries lack effective laws against child pornography and child abuse material, or the capacity to enforce them and current Commonwealth, State and Territory offences only criminalise dealings in child pornography or child abuse material within Australia.

The Bill will insert new offences for dealings in child pornography or child abuse material overseas, ensuring that Australians engaging in such behaviour overseas can be prosecuted in Australia.

Child pornography and child abuse material involve the abuse of children and the amplification and broadcast of the original offence through distribution of the material.

Offenders who are found to be possessing, controlling, producing, distributing, or obtaining such material outside Australia will be subject to maximum penalties of 15 years imprisonment. If the offence involves more than one person and conduct on several occasions, it will be punishable by 25 years imprisonment.

This aggravated offence is directed at people who are involved in heinous child pornography and abuse networks and is intended to reflect the increased levels of harm to children resulting from the demand created by these networks.

3. Online offences

Recent cases have demonstrated the scale of contemporary networks. The Internet has allowed the development of organised, technologically sophisticated rings of child sexual abusers.

The Bill also introduces a new aggravated offence directed at online child pornography networks where the perpetrator is in Australia. This offence will also be subject to the high penalty of 25 years imprisonment, reflecting the gravity of harm caused.

Unfortunately, the Internet is creating demand for new material of ever greater levels of depravity and corruption, and the technology provides new opportunities for abuse to take place.

To combat this, the Bill introduces two new Internet offences. The first is directed at the use of a carriage service to transmit indecent communications to a child, carrying a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment. The offence will prevent the use of the Internet or mobile phone to expose children to pornographic or indecent material.

The second will criminalise using a carriage service for sexual activity with a child. Changes in technology mean that offenders can commit sexual offences against children online without meeting in ‘real life’. For example, an offender might engage in a sexual act in front of a web cam while a child watches online. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 15 years.

Existing carriage service offences criminalise using the Internet or other carriage service, to groom or procure a child for sexual activity. They also criminalise using a carriage service for child pornography or child abuse material. The Bill also raises maximum penalties for existing online child pornography and child abuse material offences, from 10 to 15 years imprisonment.

This Bill will strengthen online offences, ensuring the regime is sufficient to address the contemporary nature of offending.

4. Postal offences

The Bill also introduces a suite of new offences directed at the use of the post for child sex-related activity, such as the distribution of child pornography or for grooming or procuring a child.

Despite the advantages which the advent of the Internet has brought offenders, there is evidence that some forms of child pornography material, such as home made videos, are still being distributed through the post.

The new offences will mirror online offences and ensure that offenders are subject to consistent penalties regardless of the medium that they use.

5. Forfeiture of child pornography

The Bill will introduce a comprehensive new scheme to allow for the forfeiture of child pornography or child abuse material, or articles containing such material, such as computers, derived from or used in the commission of a Commonwealth child sex offence.

Presently the only way that such material can be forfeited is through a post-conviction application under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This is a lengthy process, and entirely unsuitable. Unless a conviction is obtained, child pornography and child abuse material must be returned to the owner, an outcome which is clearly as absurd as it is inappropriate.

6. Consequential amendments

The Bill also makes minor consequential amendments to the Australian Crime Commission Act 2002, the Crimes Act 1914, the Surveillance Devices Act 2004 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 to ensure that existing law enforcement powers are available to combat the full suite of Commonwealth child sex offences, including new offences introduced by this Bill.

Conclusion

This overdue Bill contains a range of measures ensuring that the Commonwealth’s legal framework criminalising the sexual exploitation of children is both comprehensive and effective in dealing with contemporary offending.

Since the introduction of child-sex tourism laws in 1994, Australia has been at the forefront of international efforts to combat transnational child sexual exploitation. These reforms will ensure that Australia’s laws remain progressive and represent best practice both domestically and internationally.

Keeping our children, and the real and virtual worlds they inhabit, safe from predatory sexual behaviour is something I am confident we will all support.

I commend this Bill.

TAX LAWS AMENDMENT (2010 GST ADMINISTRATION MEASURES NO. 1) BILL 2010

This Bill amends the GST law to implement a range of improvements to Australia’s tax laws. These amendments arose from recommendations of the Board of Taxation in its review of GST administration.

Schedule 1 ensures that the appropriate GST outcome is achieved in situations where there are payments between parties in a supply chain, which indirectly alters the price received or paid, for the thing that is supplied.

This is done by creating an adjustment to apply in situations where, for example, a taxpayer supplying things to a retailer for resale makes a monetary payment to an end customer and third party in the supply chain in connection with the third party’s acquisition of the thing.

Views were expressed to the Board that it was not appropriate that payments to third parties that impacted on the price of supplies of goods or services did not result in adjustments. The Board recommended that the law be amended to ensure that manufacturers’ rebates, which in effect change the price of a transaction, result in adjustments for the payer and the third party, reflecting the economic outcome of the transaction.

This amendment ensures that GST adjustments are required in all situations in which consideration is paid by an entity in the supply chain to a third party which effectively alters the consideration paid.

The amendment will apply to third party payments made on or after 1 July 2010.

Schedule 2 clarifies the current rules for attributing input tax credit to tax periods. The GST law is intended to allow taxpayers to attribute unclaimed input tax credits in the current period. This avoids the compliance and administrative costs associated with amending returns for prior periods.

A number of submissions made to the Board of Taxation expressed concerns that the application of the current law was ambiguous in particular circumstances. The Board recommended that the law be amended to remove any doubt that it applies as intended.

The amendment clarifies the GST law by confirming that the rule allowing attribution in the current period applies to all input tax credits. This is consistent with the ATO’s current administration of GST law.

The amendment applies to net amounts in tax periods commencing on or after 1 July 2010.

Full details of the amendments in this Bill are contained in the explanatory memorandum.

Ordered that further consideration of the second reading of these bills be adjourned to the first sitting day of the next period of sittings, in accordance with standing order 111.

Ordered that the bills be listed on the Notice Paper as separate orders of the day.