George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Hinch. I acknowledge that throughout your career as a broadcaster this was an issue in which you took a great deal of interest. It was very much in the public interest that you should have done so. I am delighted that you have, as one ought to have expected, carried that interest into the Senate.

Senator Hinch, the Australian government, working collaboratively with state and territory governments, is very, very concerned about this issue and has a number of different initiatives and programs which it supervises or in which it participates. There is, for example, as you would be aware, I am sure, Senator Hinch, the National Child Offender Register. That is a register of all offenders who have been convicted of offences against children—not only sexual offences, I might say, but a large proportion of them, sadly, are sexual offences. That is a database that is accessible to the relevant authorities, in particular the state and territory police and the Australian Federal Police, across Australia. The database is accessible, it is updated, it is contemporised so that wherever a child sex offender, or an offender against children in any respect, is in Australia that data is immediately accessible to the local police. That is just one initiative that the Australian government participates in.

Secondly—and, as you know, this been much in the news lately—the Australian government funds the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In fact, it was Mr Tony Abbott, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, who initially called for the creation of that royal commission. We are delighted that the then Prime Minister Julia Gillard agreed to the view of Mr Abbott that that royal commission should be established. We have, as you know, heard a great, great—(Time expired)