Page 2232 - Week 07 - Thursday, 23 June 2005
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
decides jail is not appropriate—say they just receive a bond—they are still subject to this law. So it seems to cover pretty well anyone who has been convicted of a sex offence against children. I think that is a good thing when we are looking at the protection of children.
Penalties are imposed on sex offenders who do not register or give false information, or who are in employment and do not advise their employers that they have prior offences. There are provisions and penalties in the bill to prevent them applying for work in child-related industries and activities, including—and I think this is essential—performing as a volunteer. This covers one of the classic situations of paedophiles getting into clubs, movements and associations, whether of a cultural, recreation or sporting nature—for example, scouts and junior sporting clubs. Quite often, in the past, they have had an attraction for paedophiles. So sex offenders do not have to be in paid employment; they can be a volunteer and still be covered by this act, and that is a sensible protection.
The bill does seem a little light on in terms of what happens in relation to the provision of information. I note in the regulation-making powers that the exchange of information can be done between the Chief Police Officer and corresponding registrars of foreign jurisdictions, which I assume means other jurisdictions in Australia. Can the minister tell us whether that also applies to overseas jurisdictions? As I said, crime is very mobile these days and we hire lots of workers from overseas. Indeed, despite the fact that we get quite a few from First World countries, some of their regimes in terms of recording sex offenders may not be as good as those in Australia. I flag as a very important thing for this government and other governments in Australia to look at just how tight are the restrictions and checks, to make sure we do not end up with paedophiles from overseas working with children in Australia, simply because some other jurisdictions might be lax in terms of their controls. It is crucially important.
There seem to be significant regulation powers here for the Chief Police Officer, and for the child sex offenders register, as to who can access it and who cannot. There certainly seem to be lots of protections to ensure the information is kept confidential, as well as the penalties for people who might breach that. I assume that is to stop vigilantes or something like that. But, by the same token, I think it is essential that we protect our children and we ensure that, when these regulations come out, proper organisations are able to access the information on the ACT register—I assume they will be, but I do not think it is super clear from this—to ensure that the person they might be employing or the person they might be taking on in some other capacity is, in fact, not on that register and is not someone they need to worry about. There is nothing scary or dramatic about that. It is just like a normal police check to see whether someone has a criminal record. This is about the fact that they are on a register and that they should not be employed in or applying for work in a child-related industry. That is very much the intent of the act.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out in practice, but this national approach is a very significant step forward and is something the opposition has been very keen to see for a long time. It is good that the government has gone ahead and done it. I would certainly expect to see Tasmania and South Australia, the two remaining states, do so in the very near future. When they do, we will actually have a register up and running across the whole country. I think that will be a significant step forward in child protection and in countering this most evil of crimes.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .