Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill

We come first to the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill and we begin with the debate on clause 1.

Point of order, Madam Chairperson. Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt, but I seek leave for all questions to be taken as one debate.

Leave is sought for that course of action. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. The question is that clauses 1 to 4 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to take a short call just to outline where this bill got to at select committee, and also where we’ve arrived in terms of trying to crystallise the law in this area. The law in terms of, particularly, child grooming and child sex offences is a complex area. It’s one that is carried in a number of different pieces of legislation. What this bill has attempted to achieve is to bring things into one place and to also acknowledge the fact that the grooming of children happens both online and in real life as well, and sometimes those two instances can be occurring simultaneously.

So, in the past, we had one offence that sat in the Crimes Act, and that required the perpetrator to travel to and to meet up at a designated location in order for it to qualify in the Crimes Act as sexual grooming. There needed to be a travelling to a point, which seemed quite antiquated. The other part of legislation was in the digital harms space when there was posting of online content, and so what this bill does is it brings together both the online offences and also the in-real-life offences into one space to say that if there are actions from someone over the age of 18 towards someone under the age of 16 that are sexual in their intent and there is harm in that intent and it can be proved before a court of law, then that is a simpler way of trying to describe what is going on as sexual grooming. The intent here is to make it more straightforward to bring a prosecution if possible, and in saying so, it’ll always need to be proven in a court of law for that to take place.

The submissions we heard on this bill changed the direction of the bill quite significantly. When we heard from those non-governmental organisations who work at the coalface of dealing with child sexual abuse, a lot of their comments in the submissions were that the bill needed to change in order to respond to the fact that grooming happened in real life and, more often than not, from those known to the child—known to the victim. So this bill has taken on board all of those submissions. We have taken advice from officials from the Ministry of Justice, and we have also worked collegially across all those members in the committee—who I’d like to thank for their contribution—to arrive at a bill that we hope strengthens the law and, hopefully, makes our country safer for young people.

The question is that clauses 1 to 4 stand part.

Thank you very much. I’m happy to take a short call. Can I start, if I might, by acknowledging the member who is in the chair. Ginny Andersen has done, actually, a really sterling job of ushering this through. It is, I think, a good policy intention. Also, as she acknowledged, it has changed quite a bit, and those who look at the bill will see that, actually, a good part of it has been struck out—but I think it might be a mistake, and the member in the chair is welcome to comment on this—but even though a vast majority of the bill has been struck out, the core intention remains.

So my questions to the member are relatively simple. It’s just really seeking an opportunity for her to respond to what this is able to give, this particular bill—what’s it adding on top of existing legislation, because a lot of what we heard was that the likes of the digital harm and harmful communications bill covered a lot of this, and other elements of our criminal Acts. I would appreciate it if she would be able to just elaborate a little bit about what this is achieving beyond what we already have within existing legislation.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The new section 126B would make it an offence for someone over the age of 18 to digitally communicate with a person under the age of 16, intending to cause harm to the young person or being reckless as to whether the young person is harmed—so it replaces that.

In the past, in the previous offence that sat in the Crimes Act, there was an explicit requirement in the Crimes Act for the perpetrator to travel to, and so it, basically, excluded any ability for online harm to be included and it also made it really difficult for a prosecution to be brought when there was an ongoing relationship with the child and the perpetrator. So if they had not made arrangements to travel to an area but yet there was still sexual grooming occurring, that—from police information that was provided to the committee—made it quite difficult to demonstrate before a court of law that there had been sexual grooming. So I think the most significant change that this bill does is it brings both online and in real life into the same space, and it removes that requirement for travelling to a point or a place or a park in order for sexual grooming to be deemed to have occurred.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to just say a few words on this bill, which, as the member in charge, Ginny Andersen, acknowledges, is a modest bill in the sense that it makes a small change to an area which is of obviously great concern to, particularly, parents of teenage children, fearful of the possibility of harm being done to them online and through grooming. Ultimately, after going around and around a bit through the select committee process, we’ve landed on this area where it removes the requirement just to actually physically meet, but it still has an offence in terms of online grooming, and in so far as that may make it easier for the police to deal with people who have evil intent in this area—to hold them to account and to keep people safe—we support it in that respect.

The only point I would make is that there is some irony, I suppose, where we are contemplating a bill which relates to child exploitation offences and introduces penalties of up to two years’ imprisonment for doing this, and I think a lot of us will be conscious of the fact that this year a young man was convicted of four rapes against young women and ended up with nine months’ home detention. So I suppose there are broader issues around child exploitation and crimes against young children in the sexual sense in the justice system that I don’t think we manage effectively and the justice system doesn’t manage effectively, in coming up with what we would think would be perverse outcomes as a justice system in that respect, where those convicted of heinous crimes are ending up with very modest sentences, yet at the same time we’re passing a bill introducing two-year prison sentences for grooming activity.

My only question, I suppose, I have to the member is—she clearly sees the significance of the crime involved in this legislation and seeks to denounce that act through this legislation. I suppose the only point is what reflections, if any, she has on the broader context of our justice system, and does it send an equally clear message for more serious sexual crimes as well? It’s certainly our view on this side of the House that we do need to send a clearer message—

💬 Dr Duncan Webb: It’s a members’ day.

—and get that through, and I think it is relevant in the context of this debate to make that point, Mr Webb. So, with those final thoughts, I will end my contribution.

Thank you very much to the member Paul Goldsmith for that substantial contribution, which I will try to respond to. Look, I don’t take lightly at all the seriousness of online harm to young children. As a parent, I am fearful for my own children in terms of what they are exposed to online.

We know for a fact that paedophiles and that predators prey online and impersonate other children in order to gain access to communicating with our children. If we can strengthen our law, if we can increase penalties, and if we can make it incredibly clear that there will be police who will be watching and looking to make sure our online spaces are as safe as possible, that’s got to be a good thing for our general justice system. The more that we see the prevalence of different online platforms popping up, and how difficult it is to monitor what type of communication and how we can make sure that children remain safe when they’re communicating when they think it’s with people who they can trust, I think it’s incredibly important that we consistently review our legislation and make sure that it’s robust enough to act, where possible, as a deterrent to those who seek to prey upon the vulnerable in our society.

Look, a very quick question. Again, I think the member responsible has done a very good bill, a good tweak. At the moment, there’s a lot of discussion, broader than this bill, around age—18, 17, 16—for various jurisdictions. I just wonder if the member might like to comment that if there were changes to the likes of—I don’t know—the voting age to 16—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, no.

Well, actually, it is relevant to what—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): No, no, no—oh, unless the member can convince me.

Absolutely, because in clause 4, new section 131AB, “Grooming for sexual conduct with young person”, states in subclause (1) that “A person aged 18 years or over is liable”. The question following is whether or not we see change to ages such as the voting age—will that change consequently? It is a stretch at one level, Madam Chair, I’d acknowledge, but, actually, it is just trying to get a bit of an indication of whether the member would see some wider changes.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Yeah, yeah, thank you. Before I go on, thank you for that. I think it’s on the margins, but if the member in charge of the bill wishes to reply, then it is up to her.

Well, I probably would say that if the member had been paying attention in committee, he might have known the answer to that, but I recall that we were having quite a good discussion around what we wanted to capture and where to set those ages. So the idea would be that we didn’t want to capture, essentially—and this was after, I remember, Louisa Wall’s bill, where we discussed the same issue—young people exchanging nude photographs with each other, which occurs quite frequently, so I’m told. If you had everything at 16, you would then be potentially criminalising that.

There was a discussion, I remember, that we wanted to set the bar where there was a clear difference. If someone over 18 was having an ongoing communication with someone under 16 and there was sexual content, then those would be the grounds or the sphere to take a look at whether there was inappropriate conduct going on in that space. So that was my recollection of that discussion as to where to set those ages, and I would not see the voting age having an impact upon that. Maybe the change for lawful sex, which is 16—if you wanted to talk about changing that, that may have an impact, but I couldn’t see how the voting age would have an impact upon those ages.

Can I thank the member in the chair, Ginny Andersen, for that. I would just like to put on the record that I do have an excellent recollection; I just don’t have a recollection—which is now, happily, on Hansard—where both of us can agree on what was discussed. Thank you very much.

Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment.