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

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Bill 2012 amends the Criminal Code Act 1995 to insert offences of forced labour, forced marriage, organ trafficking and harbouring a victim. The amendments also seek to ensure that the slavery offence applies to conduct which renders a person a slave, as well as conduct involving a person who is already a slave. It extends the application of existing offences to deceptive recruiting and sexual servitude to non-sexual servitude and all forms of deceptive recruiting and increases penalties for debt bondage offences. It also amends existing definitions to broaden the range of exploitative conduct that is to be criminalised.

The Crimes Act is to be amended to increase the availability of reparation orders to individual victims of Commonwealth offences. Consequential amendments are proposed to the Migration Act, the Proceeds of Crime Act and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act. Although these offences are described as new, most amount to definitional changes to existing offences in divisions 270 and 271 of the Criminal Code. The important new offences concern the expanded definition of servitude, to which I shall return, organ trafficking and forced marriage.

Organ trafficking is currently covered, though not exclusively, by the human trafficking provisions. These amendments have the support of the coalition and it is to be hoped that the cases to which they will apply will be extremely rare. There appears to have been only one discontinued investigation in Australia, although it is estimated that globally up to 15,000 kidneys are bought and sold illegally each year. The trade is allegedly substantial in China, Pakistan, Egypt, Colombia and the Philippines.

The bill also introduces prohibitions against forced marriage. According to some estimates, there may be up to 1,000 forced marriages a year involving Australians and it appears to be a growing problem. The personal trauma that can arise from such practices was graphically portrayed on the ABC's Four Corners program almost exactly a year ago, and similar examples have been aired in several community forums since then. The current offences against people trafficking and sexual servitude may not provide sufficient coverage, and it seems clear that an explicit prohibition is required. The coalition therefore strongly supports the introduction of a new offence to deal with this problem.

However, the bill also includes an offence of strict liability for being a party to a forced marriage; that is, if the prosecution establishes that a person was forced into marriage, the other party is presumed to be guilty of an offence, unless he or she can establish a lawful excuse. This is sought to be justified on the basis that the elements needed to establish the excuse would usually lie peculiarly within the knowledge of the accused and it would be significantly more difficult for a prosecution to disprove than for the accused to establish. However, the imposition of strict liability in criminal matters effectively abrogates the presumption of innocence and the right of the accused to remain filed to trial. The justification offered by the government does not take account of the great reluctance of the courts to draw inferences from an accused person's failure to give evidence in the very limited circumstances in which that is permitted.

It is astonishing that these fundamental rights and presumptions are not addressed in the bill's statement of compatibility with human rights, other than the bland and erroneous statement:

The provisions of the Bill do not affect rights to a fair trial and fair hearing, the presumption of innocence and minimum guarantees in criminal proceedings, nor do they affect existing legislation relating to procedural fairness.

That statement, authored by the Attorney-General's Department, is plainly and entirely wrong, and it is a professional disgrace to whoever wrote it that it should have been included. The proposed strict offence of being a party to a forced marriage, in fact, does most of those things, as I shall explain in the committee stage of the debate. In my view, the statement of compatibility, by focusing on the right to privacy, which has always been hedged by probable cause, misstates the position while ignoring fundamental rights with which we can permit very little interference.

Last year when the Human Rights (Parliamentary Scrutiny) Bill was debated in the Senate, I explained why the coalition opposed the introduction of statements of compatibility. I said, if I may be excused for quoting myself:

… there is risk that a declaration of compatibility (or incompatibility) … might be regarded as … conclusive. In fact, it is merely the expression of the opinion of the Executive Government. The whole point of enhancing Parliament's ability to scrutinise the human rights impact of legislation is to empower the Parliament rather than the Executive; it is the opinion of the former, not the latter, that matters in deciding whether legislation is human rights compliant.

Indeed, this government has given itself a free pass on the human rights implications of the bill. Unfortunately, it was introduced before the Joint Committee on Human Rights was seized with responsibility to examine it. However, it is likely that the wielder of rights supposedly conferred by international instruments, which so blinded the authors of the statement of compatibility, would have had the same effect.

The Senate should not, under any circumstances, interpret these remarks to mean that the coalition sympathises with those who are complicit in forcing a person into a marriage. We support the introduction of that offence. We also propose an amendment to remove any doubt that that offence would apply to a party to a marriage. There is no doubt that forced marriage is akin to slavery and that it is our responsibility as legislators to ensure that our law enforcement agencies have the laws and the means with which to deal with it. I caution, however, that there are many practices against which we as a society set our faces without abolishing the fundamental rights of an accused person.

I turn now to the existing offences of slavery and enforced servitude, which are to be broadened to include forced labour rather than sexual servitude. The intention of the amendments is to capture the apparently increasing incidence of slavery-like conditions outside the sex industry—for example, in hospitality. The existing definitions, which require the use of force and threats to maintain the condition of servitude, will now include the use of coercion, threat or deception. Coercion will include duress, psychological oppression, abuse of power or taking advantage of a person's vulnerability. The prohibition does not extend to conditions justified or excused by or under a law.

The explanatory memorandum states that it also does not extend to lawful detrimental action under standard relationships between employers and employees. However, the extent to which this is the case is not clear. The terms 'psychological oppression' and 'taking advantage of a person's vulnerability' have a strong subjective element, and it is not inconceivable that they might even be alleged in an industrial relations context for a collateral purpose. Evidence to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs on duress indicated that a significant number of AFP investigations under the existing provisions referred to the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Duress and abuse of power are concepts that are well understood at common law and in equity and applied in the courts. Psychological oppression and taking advantage of a person's vulnerability might be indicators of duress or an abuse of power, but listed, as the government proposes to do, as separate criteria they risk watering down the definition and taking the offence into unintended areas. In the coalition's view, the other criteria of forced duress, detention and abuse of power do provide legal certainty, which is important given the potential consequences of a contravention and to avoid a potential for the arbitrary use of the legislation.

The penalties to be imposed range from four years to 25 years imprisonment. These are broadly within the spectrum of existing penalties under the current provisions of the code and the coalition does not oppose them.

The coalition yields to nobody in its condemnation of the practices which are the subject of the bill, which is why we support the bill. Sadly, the traffic in human beings continues in one form or another, some 206 years after the Royal Navy put an end to the transatlantic slave trade. The offences contemplated by the bill cannot be tolerated in any civilised society and, with the exception of the defective provisions I have noted and for the reasons I have explained, the coalition lends it our support.

As I have said, I will elaborate further upon those defective provisions when the bill reaches its committee stage. However, I take this opportunity to reiterate my view that the proper discussion of human rights in this parliament must transcend the self-congratulatory adoption of fashionable causes or focusing on who is more antidiscriminatory than whom. It also involves the scrutiny of bills such as this, which clothes itself in the language of human rights, to locate the true implications for those who might find themselves, rightly or wrongly, accused and at the mercy of the enormous prosecutorial power of the state. That the drafters of this bill—the Attorney-General's Department, the Human Rights Commission and the raft of stakeholders who hold themselves out as the vanguard of human rights—could be so uniformly heedless of the abrogation, contained in this bill, of the presumption of innocence and the right to silence speaks volumes about the current quality of the human rights debate in this country.

John Madigan (Victoria, Democratic Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Bill 2012 and the removal of our recognition in law of the reprehensible crime of sexual servitude in Australia. There are many very important aspects of this bill which will add to the wide-ranging scope and strength of the Criminal Code Act 1995, the Crimes Act 1914 and other complementary acts.

However, I see in this bill an unintended consequence which may stunt or curtail the course of justice for victims of sexual servitude across Australia. The bill adds new definitions and removes old ones. It clearly defines 'forced labour' and 'forced marriage' but waters down the definition of 'sexual servitude'. It does this by likening sexual servitude to any other form of servitude—when in fact it is quite separate, unique and reprehensible. The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia points out:

… the sex industry might be regulated alongside other industries providing ‘labour’ or ‘services’, as if prostitution has historically posed no special risk with regards to the trafficking and enslavement of women and children.

Prostitution has been widely legalised across Australia. I am not discussing that today but rather what separates sexual servitude from other criminal activities. I am discussing the inherent dignity of all people who work in the industry and the need to ensure our Criminal Code protects and upholds this apparently elusive concept.

It is important for those in this place to know what sexual servitude is. It is critical, when considering this bill, to understand why sexual servitude should not simply be lumped under the definitions provided in proposed sections 270.5, 270.6 and 270.7. Family Voice, an organisation which has been very active in speaking out on this and many other issues, illustrates the distinction quite clearly. Their submission to the inquiry of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee into this bill said:

Sexual servitude is inherently different from other forms of servitude because it involves forced acts of sexual intimacy—the violation of a woman's body, essentially repeated acts of rape. This is not the same as being forced to perform domestic labour or work in a sweat shop.

They go on to point out that criminal law generally treats rape and sexual assaults as crimes which are distinct from other forms of assault. So I ask: why should we not continue to do so in the Criminal Code? Why should we repeal all references to sexual servitude from the code?

This place should be aware of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, which was written in 2000 to supplement the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. Article 3 outlines what it means to be 'trafficking in persons'. It says:

“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs …

Article 3 goes on to say:

The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a)—

the paragraph I just read—

of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used …

The UN is quite clear about this—clearer on this than on many other issues it tasks itself to deal with.

It is important that we recognise that and amend this bill to truly reflect the severity of sexual servitude, to give it the legislative recognition that it deserves.

In many debates that enter this place, we hear two distinct sides. We as representatives of the people are lobbied by activist organisations and are generally kept well informed as to how we should vote on any particular issue. Mr Acting Deputy President, that has not been the case with this legislation. You are undoubtedly aware of the value I place on a worker's rights, including the right to an adequately unionised workplace. However, who represents the sex worker? Who upholds their dignity at work? Whatever you may believe about the morality of their line of work, I would like to see a day when businesses do not profit from the exploitation of vulnerable men and women. Until that day comes, we must ask who will protect their right to maintain and restore their inherent human dignity? Not the Eros Foundation; not the Scarlet Alliance. These organisations are industry groups, attempting to ensure that their industry is not dragged through the mud so much that there are calls for it to be re-criminalised. No, it is up to us in this place and those in the other place. We must ensure that those who claim to be exploited, those who are being coerced, threatened or deceived into sexual servitude are categorically protected by all the appropriate layers of the law.

I have circulated amendments to this legislation, not to complicate it or to confuse the matter, but to correct what I believe is an unforeseen consequence. I am concerned for the victims of sexual servitude and want to ensure that they are given as much of a legal platform as possible in the court of law. Proposed section 270.4, coupled with proposed section 270.7, will possibly restrict a victim's ability to successfully litigate. It is important that a victim of sexual servitude is not told that they have no recourse to litigation because 'it was in the contract'. Unfortunately, that is essentially what this legislation will say to certain victims should it not be amended.

It is for this reason that I have offered a number of amendments to this bill. Although I support this bill in principle, I ask all senators to support these amendments, which will strengthen the law.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak tonight on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Bill 2012. It is extremely sad that now, in the second decade of the 21st century, we stand to debate a bill regarding one of the most disgusting crimes that people can commit against other people—that is, slavery. It is an archaic crime, one that does not seem to have a relevance to this time or to this place. However, despite how much we may wish to ignore it, slavery is a crime which still takes place in contemporary Australian society. Hidden, out of sight and out of mind, rare cases of forced labour, forced marriage and organ trafficking are believed to be occurring or have occurred in Australia.

Exploitation, sexual and otherwise, is occurring through debt bondage, threats and fraudulent recruiting. These practices are all abhorrent to the Australian people and such injustices must be removed from our society. Article 3(a) of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children defines trafficking as:

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of: force or other forms of coercion; abduction; fraud or deception; the abuse of a position of vulnerability; or of the giving or receiving of payments/ benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person; for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation includes at a minimum: the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation; forced labour or services; slavery or practices similar to slavery; servitude; or the removal of organs.

We have information compiled from Australian Federal Police statistics, with research by the Australian Institute of Criminology, finding that in 2009-10, of the 95 per cent of people known to have been trafficked to Australia, 62 individuals were females. Of those 62 individuals, 55 were trafficked for sexual exploitation. This figure rose in 2010-11 with 63 of 71 women trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation. In some of the cases involving sexual exploitation, women have had to work under poor conditions to pay off artificial debts, enforced by the offenders, ranging from $18,000 to $53,000. Their passports were confiscated and they were forced to work up to 12 hours per day, seven days a week.

But slavery is not just about sexual exploitation. Criminologist Fiona David has been investigating slavery in Australia and says this about its nature:

In Australia, we have seen labour trafficking situations involving domestic workers, so for example, a family might bring out a domestic worker from another country to work in Australia as effectively unpaid slave labour around their house. We have also seen situations in the construction industry where again people are recruited through very deceptive means to work in what is described as a forced labour or slavery-type situation.

Ms David continues:

Labour trafficking tends to take place in any industry that has elements of, you know, being part of the informal economy, so that could be construction; that could be agriculture, in some countries and some contexts it also includes fishing or manufacturing.

Of 12 men known to have been trafficked between 2009 and 2011, all were trafficked into industry for non-sexual exploitation, including hospitality, agriculture, horticulture and construction. An example of one case of forced labour involved an Indian man who was allegedly offered employment in restaurants owned by an Australian citizen on the condition that he would not be paid for a full year but that the restaurant owner would provide money for the victim's family each time he returned to India. On arrival, the victim's passport, tickets and other documents were taken by the restaurant owner and he was forced to work excessive hours, seven days a week. There was no evidence presented during trial that indicated that the man had ever received payment or that money had ever been sent to his family.

Other groups regarded as high risk for exploitation and potential trafficking include migrants working in the agricultural sector, domestic workers, international students and those working in the maritime-seafaring sector. The victims of trafficking and exploitation are some of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people, with the overwhelming majority of victims in Australia coming from South-East Asia, in particular Thailand, with smaller numbers of victims from Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines.

These cases have not gone unnoticed, and there have been significant police investigations regarding people trafficking, with a number of victims assisted. Between January 2004 and June 2011 a total of 305 investigations and assessments of trafficking-related offences were conducted by the AFP's transnational sexual exploitation and trafficking teams and 184 victims of trafficking had been provided with assistance through the government funded Office for Women's Support for Trafficked Persons program, the STP program. As at 30 June 2012 there had been a total of 13 matters resulting in convictions and there were four defendants currently facing charges before the courts and 15 matters had been finalised without resulting in a conviction. However, the number of convictions seems to be disproportionate to the number of known offences, and police need a better set of tools to combat these crimes.

The bill we are debating today, the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Bill 2012, is the opportunity the Senate has to provide the police with a better set of tools to cover people trafficking and other related offences. The bill will achieve this through changes to the Criminal Code, the Crimes Act 1914, the Migration Act 1958, the Proceeds of Crimes Act 2002 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979.

The bill will amend the Criminal Code to establish new offences of forced labour, forced marriage, harbouring a victim and organ trafficking; broaden the definition of exploitation to include a range of slavery-like practices; extend the application of existing offences of deceptive recruiting and sexual servitude to apply to all forms of servitude and deceptive recruiting; ensure that the slavery offence applies to conduct which reduces a person to slavery, as well as conduct involving a person who is already a slave; amend existing definitions of exploitation to include a range of slavery-like practices; amend existing definitions to capture more subtle forms of coercion, including psychological oppression and the abuse of power or a person's vulnerability; increase the penalties applicable to the existing debt bondage offences to ensure they adequately reflect the relative seriousness of the offences; clarify the law regarding acts and omissions following the High Court's decision in the Commonwealth DPP versus Poniatowska case; and clarify the intended operation of existing provisions in divisions 270 and 271.

These new offences and provisions would create a standalone offence of forced labour, where a reasonable person in the position of the victim would not consider him or herself to be free to cease providing or leave the place where they provide labour or services because of the use of coercion, threat or deception. Forced labour is currently criminalised where it is connected to the offence of people trafficking. The bill would also criminalise the conduct of a person who uses coercion, threat or deception to bring about a marriage or marriage-like relationship. I would like to make it clear that the criminalisation of forced marriage is not intended to target consensual religious or cultural marriages. The bill also creates standalone offences criminalising trafficking a victim either to or from Australia or within Australia for the removal of his or her organs.

As perpetrators become increasingly aware of investigative and prosecution techniques, changing their modes of operation accordingly, it is essential that we regularly review the offences against slavery and people trafficking to ensure they are responsive to emerging trends. Measures in this bill are intended to ensure our law enforcement agencies have the appropriate tools to investigate and prosecute the broadest range of exploitative behaviour while protecting and supporting victims. Acts of people trafficking, sexual slavery, forced marriage, and exploitation are offences against humanity that need to be stopped at every turn. It is unjust and unacceptable that such offences still occur within this country. This bill seeks to provide law enforcement agencies with a better set of laws to act on these crimes. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Bill 2012. At the outset, I will reiterate that, while the coalition will not be opposing this legislation, we continue to have concerns with a number of issues to do with the wording of the bill as it is currently drafted. The bill amends the Criminal Code Act 1995 to insert offences of forced labour, forced marriage, organ trafficking and harbouring a victim. Approximately 18 months ago, I was in New South Wales visiting a safe house for women who have been trafficked here for sex and I was briefed in relation to the first identified case of a young girl who had been brought into Australia so that one of her organs could be harvested.

The amendments in this proposed bill seek to ensure that the slavery offence applies to the unlawful conduct of individuals who by their actions render or cause a person to be a slave and includes conduct involving a person who is already a slave. The bill extends the application of existing offences of deceptive recruiting and sexual servitude to non-sexual servitude and all forms of deceptive recruiting and increases penalties for debt bondage offences. It also amends existing definitions to broaden the range of exploitative conduct that is to be criminalised.

The proposed bill will amend the Crimes Act 1914 to increase the availability of reparation orders to individual victims of Commonwealth offences. Consequential amendments are proposed to the Migration Act 1958, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979. Although the proposed offences are described in the minister's second reading speech as new, most amount to definitional changes to existing offences in divisions 270 and 271 of the schedule to the Criminal Code Act 1995.

Putting aside the definitional changes for the moment, the bill proposes important new offences relating, as I have already stated, to organ trafficking—and, yes, it does happen in Australia—and forced marriage. I note that the explanatory memorandum is expressed in terms that make it abundantly clear that slavery and people trafficking are among the most abhorrent of all crimes. These heinous offences are major violations of human rights and often result in traumatic and lifelong consequences for victims and their families. Both the coalition and the government are committed to combatting all forms of slavery and people trafficking by ensuring that there is a strong regime of criminal offences in place that are relevant and responsive to emerging issues.

On 19 June 2012, the Senate referred the provisions of this bill to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. I note that coalition senators in their additional comments expressed reservations about certain aspects of the committee's report regarding the current wording of the bill.

As stated in the coalition senator's additional comments, coalition senators were concerned about the very broad definition of the term 'coercion' in the bill. I note that the addendum to the explanatory memorandum explicitly states that the term has been drafted to be 'broad and non-exhaustive in order to supplement the existing framework and ensure the broadest possible range of exploitative behaviour is captured and criminalised.'

I would argue, however, that the breadth of the term 'coercion' in its present form will allow a legal construction which encourages ambiguity and this ambiguity will of course lead to litigation. There is little doubt that the ambiguity and uncertainty which is apparent in the current drafting in the bill, as it relates to the use of the word 'coercion', will be the subject of litigation. This will mean that it is the courts and not the parliament which are the final arbiter of the meaning of such an important term in the context of this legislation. I also note that coalition senators recognised that the failure to precisely define the meaning of the word 'coercion' leaves open the possibility that a broad range of relationships in which power is unequal might be characterised by the courts as 'coercive'.

Coalition senators were also concerned at the broad way in which the bill provides the consent or acquiescence of the victim is not a defence to offences under the legislation. As they stated, 'clearly consent, which has been obtained through duress or force cannot be characterised as true consent'. But the bill, in its present form, does not appear to make the distinction between real and apparent consent. This distinction is highlighted by the way the bill deals with servitude and forced labour offences within marriage or a marriage-like relationship. There is a broad spectrum of unequal and undesirable power relationships within marriages in Australia, ranging from violent and coercive relationships to those where one partner exercises an inappropriate level of influence over the other partner. Clearly, at one end of that particular spectrum, behaviour should be criminalised and at the other end it should not. Coalition senators made the point that given the uncertainty which is evident in the way in which the legislation is currently drafted, it is very hard to discern where in that spectrum the legislation intends the line of criminality to be drawn.

Coalition senators found that when they delved into a number of aspects of the bill many stakeholders are confused or dissatisfied with the approach the legislation takes and believe that further work needs to be done to make clear the ambit and the scope of the legislation. In their conclusion, coalition senators recognised the intended objective of the bill, which is to clarify the law regarding slavery and servitude, but remained concerned that the practical operation of the bill in the real world will leave open significant questions of scope and definition, which will no doubt be the subject of expensive litigation which will need to be resolved by the courts. This lack of clarity and certainty is clearly not a satisfactory situation despite the stated intent of the government in introducing this bill.

As the coalition's spokesperson for the status of women, I have had the opportunity to meet with many stakeholders, in particular in relation to the trafficking of women for sex. I remain dismayed at the long-term destructive impact that these experiences have had on women. Approximately 18 months ago, I had the very humbling experience of visiting a safe house in New South Wales. There I met with women who had been brought into Australia believing that they had come here legally, only to be immediately placed into the illegal sex trade. I had, as I said, the very humbling experience of meeting with a woman who, thank goodness, we managed to get out of the illegal sex trade. She had been forced to service up to 20 clients a day, for little or no money.

We need to recognise that Australians, without a doubt, live in the luckiest country on earth. We therefore have an obligation to do everything within our power to empower our own citizens and those in source countries through education programs and through whatever legislative levers we have available, and more broadly by reducing poverty through our aid programs, to ensure that human life is recognised as being sacrosanct and decrease the currency of this insidious trade in people.

The recent history and actions of both sides of politics confirms that Australia has a regional leadership role to play in this area. I would like to acknowledge the significant and important achievements of the former Howard government in this area. The Howard government's response to people trafficking in the Asia-Pacific region included developing anti-trafficking initiatives between governments and providing aid to the region, which is aimed at alleviating the economic and social conditions that allow trafficking to flourish. In particular, the Howard government and the Indonesian government co-chaired two regional ministerial conferences on people trafficking and smuggling in 2000 and 2003. In October 2003, the former Howard government announced additional anti-trafficking measures and provided a $20 million program targeting sex trafficking in particular.

The program or package included a new Australian Federal Police unit, the Transnational Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking Teams; new visa arrangements for victims of trafficking; victim support measures, including counselling and legal and medical support to be administered by the Office for Women; improvements to legislation, making people trafficking punishable by up to 20 years in jail; and a promise to ratify the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Notably, Australia was already a signatory to this treaty and the treaty was subsequently ratified in 2005.

In 2004, the former Howard government produced an action plan to eradicate trafficking in persons in support of its 2003 announcement.

In the last budget of the Howard government, a further $38.3 million over four years was allocated, including $26.3 million for new initiatives. Since then, the coalition has continued to recognise people trafficking as a serious criminal affront to human life and has supported a range of anti-people-trafficking measures, most of which have had a sex-trafficking focus.

The newly renamed human-trafficking teams of the Australian Federal Police are at the front line of tackling this continuing and unfortunately burgeoning problem. As a result of the political focus on this insidious trade and as a consequence of changes to the sex-trafficking laws, in 2008, the first person to be found guilty by a jury of holding sex slaves was a 44-year-old Melbourne woman, Wei Tang, who was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. In that case, five Thai women were brought into Australia on the basis that they would work legally in the sex trade. However, once they were in Australia they were told by their criminal overseers that they had to pay off debts of $45,000 each by performing sexual acts for no pay.

People trafficking is a well-established and enormously lucrative business through the Asia-Pacific region, in particular from China, Thailand and Korea. Sadly, our reality as Australians is that Australia is a destination country for persons trafficked out of South-East Asia. I note that there are several reports of immigrants, particularly from India, the People's Republic of China and South Korea, who voluntarily migrated to Australia to work but who were later coerced into exploitative conditions by people closely connected to the criminal people-trafficking racket.

Whilst it is recognised that some of these women travel to Australia under the impression that they will be working in the legal sex trade, a number come here under student visas believing that they will be studying and attending college or university classes or working in their professions, as their visa conditions would dictate. It is only when they reach Australia that their unfortunate and sometimes life-threatening fate becomes known to them—that is, they have been trafficked to Australia for the purpose of being a sex slave. They are told that now they are in Australia they must work to pay off so-called debts that they have supposedly incurred as payment for their successful passage to Australia. It is interesting to note that the Anti-People Trafficking Interdepartmental Committee has reported that all identified suspected victims of people trafficking, including sex trafficking, have entered Australia on valid visas, but evidence of visa fraud was later identified.

Because of its geographic location, Australia is in a unique position when it comes to combating human trafficking. Unlike Europe and Asia, Australia's borders are clearly geographically defined, and until the current government changed the visa entry rules it was difficult to cross to Australian shores without being detected.

People trafficking for the sex trade is an insidious crime. It threatens the lives of its victims. The Australian government, regardless of who is in power, must continue to take action by developing practical initiatives in an attempt to put an end to sex trafficking and other forms of trafficking and slavery in Australia. It is critical that there be bipartisan support for doing what is practicable and possible to stop people trafficking by reducing the appeal of Australia as a destination country for trafficking, by strengthening legislation in the area and ultimately by making the business of trading in people less profitable and therefore less attractive. I am sure that all senators will acknowledge that it is completely unacceptable for even one person to fall victim to this heinous crime of people trafficking. The coalition believe that Australia has a very important regional leadership role to play in this area, and we will continue to work with the government to combat this hideous crime.

In conclusion, the coalition recognise the government's attempts to clarify the law regarding slavery and servitude, but, as set out in the coalition senators' comments in the Senate committee inquiry into this bill, we remain concerned that the practical operation of the law as a consequence of the uncertainty and lack of definitional clarity will leave open many questions of scope and intent which will necessarily need to be resolved in expensive litigation. This is clearly not a satisfactory outcome to such an important issue, which goes to the heart of people's personal freedom and their fundamental human rights.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Slavery, Slavery-like Conditions and People Trafficking) Bill 2012 strengthens the offences related to slavery and increases the prospect of a successful prosecution against those who engage in these heinous offences. Tomorrow I will speak more about this important bill.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And I look forward to hearing you.

Debate interrupted.