Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill is about the rights of children; it’s about protecting their wellbeing. The sexual grooming of children is not something we like to think or talk about, but the truth is that the more we think and talk about it, the less opportunity there is in our community for it to happen.

This bill started as focused on online grooming. As a mother, with other parents around, seeing the prevalence of children being online and exposed to harm inspired me to draft a bill that created a law similar to what was generated in Australia. But, through the process of understanding how our laws work here, it’s changed a lot. It has changed to include both online and real-life grooming activities. Before, this bill legislation was parked in two different spaces: we had harmful digital communications, which covered online activity; and it had grooming, which was quite antiquated. To make a long story short, for grooming you have to drive to a park or you have to travel to the site where the activity is created, which is antiquated and doesn’t reflect the fact that grooming, today, combines both real-life and online activities which culminate in sexual offences. What this bill does is bring together those two acts into one space. It condenses our legislation, it modernises our law to reflect the reality that our children live in, and, hopefully, it makes it easier to prosecute those perpetrators that prey upon our children.

The new offence creates that someone who is over 18 years, if they communicate by words or conduct—so it’s not online or real life; it’s just words or conduct—with a person who is under 16, with the intent to facilitate the young person in engaging with or being involved in conduct that is a sexual offence. Those offences are listed already in the Crimes Act, and my bill refers to those specific offences.

I’d like to acknowledge submitters. I’d like to acknowledge all of those coalface NGOs who came and spoke about the reality of dealing with sexual grooming, and how we can try and strengthen our legislation to prevent it from happening. In particular, I would like to acknowledge Willow Duffy from Safeguarding Children, who I ended up, after her submitting, speaking with, in order to help craft this bill to make our laws work better for New Zealanders. I learnt a lot in the process. I learnt how grooming works, and, I think, as part of introducing and talking about the changes that were made at select committee regarding this bill and about how my thoughts came across—instead of going through all of the submissions we’ve received, I think it’s probably more appropriate to summarise the learning that I undertook, which is how grooming occurs.

So grooming is a process by which an adult prepares a child, significant others in their environment, to enable sexual abuse to occur. It’s, essentially, creating a web of deceit. There’s a lot of premeditation, and it does happen. It’s important that we know about it so we can identify it and point it out before it gets to the point of sexual offending occurring. Grooming can involve a range of behaviours that seek to build trust, increase access to a child. They cement authority of the perpetrator, and compliance of a child to sexual abuse. It’s important to recognise that grooming targets not only the child but also other individuals around the child, and those who have access to minding and looking after them, and often a whole community can be affected.

Behaviours associated with grooming are not necessarily sexual or directly abusive or even illegal. They can co-exist with regular behaviours—behaviours that build trust and increase access, use power, authority, and compliance. Many acts—and this is important to note, which is the difficulty in crafting this legislation—on their own may not be criminal or abusive in their own right, but they do lead to criminal activity. They can be distinguished by motivation to facilitate and/or conceal sexual abuse.

There are six stages in grooming, and I’ll go through them as quickly as I can. Targeting a child: it’s important to note that offenders or perpetrators will target and identify a child because they are perceived as being vulnerable. These vulnerabilities may be emotional neediness, isolation, neglect, or even a chaotic home life or a lack of parental oversight.

Second, they gain trust. Perpetrators work to gain the trust of parents or caregivers to lower suspicion and gain access to a child by providing warm yet calculated attention and support. The perpetrator gains a child’s trust by gathering information about the child, getting to know their needs, and finding a way to fulfil those needs.

Once the perpetrators begins to fill those child’s needs, they get more important within that child’s life. They utilise tactics such as gift-giving, flattery, money, and meeting other basic needs. They can also look after them and take them off the parents’ hands to help out if they’re busy already. Tactics may also include increased attention and affection as well.

Once this has been established, the child is isolated. A perpetrator will reinforce their relationship with the child by creating situations to be alone together. They can include babysitting, coaching, special trips—a whole range of things. Using this time, they will cultivate a sense that they love or even understand a child in a way that others cannot, including their parents. These are the isolation tactics that we should know in order to learn and identify them within our communities. They remove children from their natural protective factors of having caring people around them. At this point, a child is vulnerable.

Once emotional dependence and trust has been built, the perpetrator progressively sexualises the relationship. This occurs through talking, taking pictures, and creating situations where sexual activity can take place. This stage can often move quicker than you and I would ever expect, especially with the online availability of exchanging photographs.

Finally, maintaining control: once sexual abuse is occurring, perpetrators commonly use secrecy, blame, and threats to maintain the child’s participation and continued silence. In order to maintain control, perpetrators use emotional manipulation, and the child may feel that the loss of the relationship or the consequences of exposing it would be more damaging and humiliating than continuing the unhealthy relationship—for example, the fear of losing a place in a team or selection, or having parents finding out.

There is a lot of thought, planning, and actions that go into the grooming process. However, through changes in legislation and training to recognise and respond to grooming, we have the ability to interrupt this behaviour and prevent sexual offending from occurring.

I’ll be honest: I’m no big fan of the theory of deterrence. It’s no secret that I am not a fan of the idea that just harsher penalties and a bigger stick have an impact on someone’s inclination to commit a crime, but this is one area where the literature says that there is a case that it may work, and I’d like to acknowledge my learned colleague Dr Emily Henderson, who is also on the Justice Committee, who has done a lot of research in this space.

The premeditation and planning that goes into child grooming is immense, so it’s really important that we acknowledge that having an offence in this space that may enable an earlier intervention is worth it. I really hope that this law will make it easier, if possible, for police to bring a prosecution before the courts. I also hope that it means that more intervention takes place before sexual offending occurs.

Changes in legislation will not be enough to bring this. We should also potentially have, in New Zealand, child protection and safeguarding training for anyone working with or providing services for children or young people. We could be a whole lot better in that space.

The more connected we are as a community, the more likely we’ll be able to see the vulnerable who are being preyed upon. The more we take notice of each other and are connected to each other, this will strengthen the ability to intervene as early as possible. Bills like this make small changes, but I really hope that they will make a big difference. Thank you.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and it’s my pleasure to speak on this bill and to acknowledge that we in the National Party will be supporting Ginny Andersen and the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill, which seeks to do—[Interruption] thank you, Mr Shaw; nice to hear from you—some reasonable things to focus on what it is a worrying offence for many parents, in particular, and young people, of grooming of young people. And, as it was introduced by this member, it included potential prison terms of between seven and I think 10 years originally for the more serious offence “with the intention of causing harm”.

I suppose the point I want to make in the very short time I have before the House rises is the clashing dissonance that many people will have in their minds when they consider here is Parliament, it’s passing legislation to put people into prison for grooming young people through the internet and phones—not actually doing anything but grooming; preparing them to do something—with the news that we got today that a male who raped four young women ended up with nine months’ home detention.

So here we are in Parliament. We pass legislation. We’re tough. We’re saying “We’re not going to stand for any of this nonsense. We’re going to bring in these prison terms for people who are grooming, doing stuff, sending texts and emails to young women.” And I agree. Society should send a powerful message that that is not appropriate and they should be sent to prison if caught for the things in this Act. But we’ve got to face the reality that a young man who raped, was convicted of raping four girls, doesn’t go to prison at all and ends up with nine months’ home detention. And so there’s a clashing dissonance between what Parliament is trying to do to send a message.

What is the justice system about? It’s not just about looking after the needs of the perpetrators of crime; it’s actually about denouncing the act, whether it’s grooming young people for potential crimes or raping people. It’s denouncing the act, it’s about providing justice to victims, and it’s also about making clear that there are serious consequences for serious crimes. And we haven’t got the balance right, it seems to me, at the moment.

I agree with the High Court judge who pointed out that that case, in that instance of the young man raping four girls and getting nine months’ home detention, was manifestly inadequate and yet it hasn’t been changed—it hasn’t been changed. So I think we’ve got some real issues as a country where Parliament passes laws with serious prison terms for serious crimes and we’re not seeing them actually in reality. And here we are in Parliament passing another law or talking about another law identifying another crime, and this one is grooming young children, and indicating penalties. The member introduced it with very substantial penalties. It’s now been wound back, because, actually, they didn’t tie up with existing penalties on the law code, down to a period of three years of imprisonment. But I just wonder if anybody was actually ever caught under this, would they serve three years? I doubt it very much.

So that’s something we need as a country to think about quite seriously so that our justice system does those things which I outlined. Not just look after the needs of the perpetrator of the crime but also denounce the act, send a clear message that serious crime has serious consequences, and provide justice to the victims.

Order! The debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House is suspended and I’ll resume the Chair at 9 a.m. tomorrow for an extended sitting to consider the Government’s orders of the day. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 10 p.m. to 9 a.m. (Thursday)