Page 387 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 2018
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I also support the amendment to allow children to be referred to circle sentencing through the Warrumbul court. The benefits of circle sentencing are well established. This option provides an appropriate, culturally sensitive alternative for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders to address their wrongdoing. It may contribute to reducing the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people in detention, which is an issue that every jurisdiction is grappling with.
Finally, as I have already indicated, I stand in support of these amendments today. I thank the ACT government for taking on the recommendations in the report from the royal commission, and I look forward to further amendments in this area in the time to come. The issue of child sexual abuse is underestimated in its prevalence, has been notoriously difficult to prosecute and causes lifelong damage. These amendments will change that and provide better opportunities for victim survivors of child sexual abuse to pursue appropriate redress through the criminal justice system. I understand that the government will be moving amendments, and I signal in advance that we will be supporting these amendments.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee) (12.21): I rise to speak in support of the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2017 (No 2). I want to focus on two aspects of the bill. The first is in relation to the royal commission’s recommendations. The final report by the royal commission was published in August 2017, as members would be aware, and this bill implements a number of recommendations of the report, including introducing a grooming offence, which I will focus on in my remarks.
Before I do that I want to take this opportunity to put on the record my thanks to the commissioners and the commission staff for the work that went into collecting evidence and in the preparation of the extremely thorough commission report. It is a report which reflects the pain and the trauma of so many victims and survivors who came forward to tell their story with the hope that we, and others in our community, both recognise the serious harm of child sexual abuse perpetrated on them and concertedly put in place the legislative and policy measures needed to prevent child sexual abuse, bring offenders to justice and set right the wrongs that the commission has uncovered. While this bill is just one part of addressing the commission’s findings, I am pleased to say that we have been able to bring these amendments forward quickly to address the recommendations.
This bill addresses a gap in the ACT’s criminal statute books by establishing an offence of grooming and depraving young people. While the ACT has offences relating to sexual intercourse, sexual conduct, procuring, indecent material, child prostitution and using the internet to deprave young people, the ACT does not have an existing child-sex-related offence when it comes to grooming.
The proposed amendment to section 66 expands the section to the broader offence of grooming and depraving young people. We know from the royal commission that grooming can take place in person and online. As we heard through the commission, adult perpetrators may use a wide range of tactics and strategies—including grooming, coercion and entrapment—to enable, facilitate and conceal the sexual abuse of a child.
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