Page 2770 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 16 August 2017
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In broad terms, as well as ensuring that the bill gives effect to the national principles, the government amendments will provide that children are protected in relation to consensual sharing of intimate images; the penalty for sharing intimate images of children is higher than for sharing images of people 16 years of age and older; the language of the bill is consistent with the language already used in the Crimes Act; and the language of the bill does not discriminate against transgender and intersex people.
With the amendments proposed by the government, I believe this bill will be a great step forward for the ACT, and I am pleased that the government is lending its support to this important initiative.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (11.56): I rise to support the series of amendments put forward by the government today. As I mentioned previously, all three parties have collaborated on these amendments and we have agreed that this is the legislation we are going to support. I am very pleased about this. Some of the amendments were initiated by my bill and go part of the way to what I wanted to achieve in my bill, so I am very pleased to vote in support of them and acknowledge once again the tripartisan support in reaching this point.
Some of the amendments that I particularly draw the Assembly’s attention to include ensuring that “distribution” specifically refers to “show”, so that physical distribution, such as putting up posters or showing someone an image on a phone, is part of what we are talking about. I refer also to ensuring that where an intimate image shows something in a “sexual context”—for example, to ensure that if “for a good time call 04xxx” et cetera had been put on someone’s face—this is just as much an “altered image” and is able to be prosecuted. And I refer also to ensuring that the two-year rule is extended to, at the very least, protect young people consensually distributing intimate images of each other. Once more, I thank everyone for the tripartisan nature of our debate here.
MR HANSON (Murrumbidgee) (11.58): As I indicated in my in-principle speech, we will be supporting these amendments. I would like to thank the Attorney-General and his staff, the JACS staff, as well as the Greens. I omitted mentioning the JACS staff in my in-principle speech. They have done a lot of work in this regard as well, and I know they have contributed significantly to the amendments.
As indicated by Mr Gentleman, these are important amendments. They are broadly technical and they are much about making sure that this bill is finely tuned to make sure it sits within the ACT statute book, noting, as I did before, that, with the format of this legislation, a lot of the design came from New South Wales. This will enable it to fit within the ACT statute book, aligning language and making it consistent with other areas of the Criminal Code.
Nothing has changed in terms of the core elements and the intent of this bill. These have been through a very rigorous process. I think that the phone has run pretty red-hot between Mr Dave Ferguson, in the Attorney-General’s office, and Ian Hagan
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