Page 2276 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 4 August 2021
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person. They do this by putting measures in place to adequately address perpetrator behaviour on sentence and reduce the risk of further physical and psychological harm to victims of family violence.
These amendments aim to consider the nature of family violence and the context of family violence offences. In doing this, they increase protections for vulnerable members of the community by ensuring that the court considers sentencing factors such as whether the offending occurred in a private setting and whether children were present at the time of the offending.
This is the first of a two-stage set of reforms to address issues identified by the Court of Appeal in R v UG in February 2020. The government continuously seeks to develop legislation that reflects community standards when dealing with family violence offences.
The first stage, reflected in this bill, creates a requirement for courts to consider family violence as a separate factor in sentencing for a family violence offence. This is to ensure that courts can adequately respond to deter family violence, engage with the need to prevent it, and protect the community.
The second stage will probably require consideration of family violence as an aggravating sentencing factor. Government has heard from stakeholders that there is strong support for the introduction of an aggravated offence approach. We need to ensure that the courts have every appropriate tool available with which to respond to family violence while also acknowledging that a proposal like this is complex and its effectiveness will depend on the detail. This consideration will be complete before the government’s bill later this year, to make a range of other family violence reforms.
This bill also amends the Crimes (Child Sex Offenders) Act 2005 to add the commonwealth offence of possession of a childlike sex doll to the schedule of offences that can result in an offender being on the child sex offenders register and having to meet reporting requirements under the act.
The purpose of a registrable offence scheme is to reduce reoffending or escalation of offending and to protect children from potential predators. This reflects the community expectation that the government will maintain laws that support the safety and protection of children from sexual assault and violence. Adding the commonwealth offence to this scheme helps police to monitor registrable offenders in order to protect the lives and sexual safety of children in the ACT and across other Australian jurisdictions, making sure that the ACT is not perceived as a safe haven for people wanting to commit child sex offences.
Given the potential breadth of application of the commonwealth offence, additional safeguards have been included for the courts to consider when making an order to register an offender convicted of the commonwealth offence. The outcome is that people convicted of the commonwealth offence of possessing a childlike sex doll will be added to the register unless they fall within limited exceptions, including where the court is satisfied that the offender is not a risk to the lives or sexual safety of children.
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