Page 2078 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 8 May 2012
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Before I go to the prohibition order scheme and the amendments being proposed by the government, I will speak to the important measures in this bill that go to the fundamental intent of the child sex offender scheme—that is, the need to achieve as far as possible a national scheme that imposes broadly consistent obligations and deterrent measures on registered child sex offenders. These key measures are, firstly, the increases to the maximum penalties for 21 offences relating to a failure to satisfy reporting obligations from two to five years; secondly, new obligations about changes of name aimed at removing potential avenues to subvert the police’s ability to monitor registered offenders; and, thirdly, new reporting obligations about personal online information that recognise that children can be targeted by offenders through the internet.
The reforms in this bill make sense. Where convicted child sex offenders have engaged in conduct that is posing a risk to the lives or sexual safety of a child or children, this bill allows police to intervene and apply to the Magistrates Court for an order to prohibit this conduct. As I have previously discussed in this place, the concerning conduct that will be prohibited by the court will vary from offender to offender and will depend on the behaviour and personal circumstances of each.
This flexibility is one of the scheme’s most important aspects, not only because it will allow these orders to be tailored to address the particular behaviour of the registered offender but because it also ensures that the scheme is compatible with the human rights framework. The government has extensively considered how best to balance the competing human rights and interests that arise in this bill. From the outset of the development of the scheme, the government has focused on introducing a scheme to provide better protection for children from convicted child sex offenders. We have been mindful that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure that there are appropriate laws in place to protect children which extend not only to ensuring that a child’s human rights are not violated but also that a child’s human rights are freely enjoyed.
This reform also addresses the human rights of offenders. The bill’s explanatory statement canvasses the human rights that are limited by this reform. Following the performance of the proportionality analysis that is required by section 28 of the act, the government concluded that the bill is compatible with the Human Rights Act.
Since introducing the bill the Victorian Law Reform Commission has released a report on sex offender registration. This report reviewed the registration of Victorian sex offenders and the management and use of information about these offenders by law enforcement and child protection agencies.
One of the recommendations in the Victorian report is the introduction of a prohibition order scheme similar to that in this bill. The report notes:
While child protection prohibition orders restrict the freedom of movement of people who are living in the community after having completed a sentence for an offence involving sexual abuse of a child, they appear to be a reasonable and proportionate limitation to that important freedom if a judicial officer is required to balance the competing interests at stake in an individual case.
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