Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Attorney-General, Senator Ludwig. Can the minister explain how the government can really claim to be serious about stopping child pornography when it is happy to have laws in place which allowed Rodney Peter Smith of Maldon in Central Victoria to walk free and escape any jail time, despite the fact that he was convicted of downloading more than 40 hours of child pornography videos and 7,569 illegal images?

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

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Given that among Rodney Peter Smith’s pornography collection were images of girls, mostly between five and 10 years old, involved in sexual acts with themselves, boys, adults, animals and babies, will the minister commit to review this case and report back to parliament on how it could toughen these laws so that no person convicted of having such horrendous child pornography will be able to simply walk free without spending any time in jail?

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

I think what is very important here is to deal with the broad issue. What this government has done firstly is to release a consultative paper dealing with the proposed reforms and has invited public comment in respect of that. If Senator Fielding wants to participate in the process, I would encourage him to provide public comment in relation to how we can best address some of these heinous crimes that are committed in our community, particularly those against children.

The proposed reforms that this government is looking at are, as I have indicated, those areas of new offences for sexual activity committed online, because there is an online environment and we understand the concerns that people have in relation to this environment. We are also looking at how you deal with new aggravated offences where the offender is in a position of trust or the victim has a cognitive impairment. It is also important to ensure that, where new aggregated offences exist, targeting online— (Time expired)

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Is the minister aware of comments made by Carol Ronken from Bravehearts on the Rodney Peter Smith pornography case? She said:

… offenders are not being held accountable for their actions.

She also said:

The message that seems to be coming out is that these [offences] are not being treated seriously.

Will the Rudd government now admit that there is an urgent need not only to toughen the federal penalties but also to have minimum jail sentences for such horrendous cases of child pornography? Will the government set out a detailed time line of when it will implement minimum jail sentences for such horrendous cases of child pornography?

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

In relation to the comments made by Bravehearts, I cannot say that I have personally seen those. I do understand that the Attorney-General may have seen those. I can take that part of the question on notice and see what additional comment the Attorney-General may have in respect of those particular comments.

As I outlined earlier, this government is looking at reforms to further strengthen Commonwealth child sex offence laws. I think it is clear that there is great concern in the community, particularly around those issues of sexual activity committed online. It is one of those areas where this government has committed to looking very seriously at how we can deal with additional measures. We want to do it in a comprehensive way to ensure that the community is protected from the perpetrators of these quite heinous crimes against children. The government has released a consultative paper dealing with those areas that we have talked about and looked at— (Time expired)