Page 388 - Week 02 - Tuesday, 20 February 2018
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Grooming refers to behaviour designed to build a relationship with a child in order to make it easier for the offender to introduce or engage in sexual activity with the child in the future. The offender may build trust with the child in order to make it easier to sexualise the relationship down the track. This can be done by encouraging sexual behaviour, exposing the child to sexual concepts of explicit material, and encouraging romantic feelings with the child. Importantly, as we have heard from the royal commission, perpetrators can groom not only children but other people in children’s lives, and institutions.
That is why this bill, through proposed section 66(1)(c), makes it an offence to engage in conduct with a person who has a relationship with a young person with the intention of making it more likely that the young person would commit or take part in, or watch someone else committing or taking part in, an act of a sexual nature. Grooming offences already exist in several jurisdictions, including New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia. The purpose of grooming offences is to criminalise behaviour that leads to sexual activity, allowing law enforcement authorities to intervene before the actual sexual activity occurs.
As the royal commission noted, some grooming behaviours are consistent with behaviours or activities in non-abusive relationships, and can even include desirable social behaviours. The difference is the motivation, and that is why conduct in proposed section 66(1)(a) is unlawful without reasonable excuse, and the fault element of intention is included in proposed sections 66(1)(b) and 66(1)(c), where it must be demonstrated that there was the intention of making it more likely that the young person would commit or take part in, or watch someone else committing or taking part in, an act of a sexual nature.
The maximum penalties for grooming offences range from 10 to 21 years imprisonment across Australia. This bill provides for penalties ranging up to nine years for a first offence against a person under 10 years and, for a subsequent offence, up to 12 years.
I also want to comment on amendments which are not in response to the royal commission, relating to the establishment of the Warrumbul court. This bill also amends the Magistrates Court Act 1930 to introduce circle sentencing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders in the Children’s Court. Since 2004 the Ngambra Circle Sentencing Court has been sentencing adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders in the ACT. This bill extends circle sentencing to young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders through the Warrumbul court.
Circle sentencing is an alternative and culturally appropriate sentencing scheme implemented to address the disproportionate incarceration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, reducing recidivism, as well as improving court appearance rates. The process requires that the offender plead guilty to the charges, and involves the offender’s community, usually Aboriginal elders. As Chief Minster Jon Stanhope said when circle sentencing was first introduced in the ACT:
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