Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

Through the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Sexual Crimes Against Children and Community Protection Measures) Bill 201 currently before the Senate, the government's seeking to introduce new laws that represent the biggest crackdown on paedophiles in a generation. Current sentencing practices result in manifestly inadequate sentences being handed down to Commonwealth child sex offenders. Since 2012, only around 59 per cent of convicted offenders received a term of imprisonment and, for those that did, the most common period of imprisonment was just six months. To address this, the proposed new laws will see child sex offenders spending longer in jail, being less likely to be granted bail and parole, and they will be more closely supervised following their release, and the most serious Commonwealth sex offenders and repeat offenders will face mandatory minimum sentences. The mandatory minimum sentencing scheme in the bill includes mechanisms for courts to retain appropriate discretion in determining the most suitable sentences for each individual case.