McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in support of the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill at this the second reading. We support the bill and the amendments that have been made at select committee and I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the officials that have done a lot of work on this bill. It was a complicated bill and not only did we have to rearrange it but we had to understand it and its flow-on effects with other pieces of legislation. So in that respect I'd like to acknowledge Chelly from the officials and I won't give her full name but she did a really good job there helping us to understand the changes that did not occur and the changes that did occur.I also would like to acknowledge the submitters that came to select committee: 25 gave written submissions and six came in for oral submissions. I'd also like to acknowledge the Justice Committee. We've worked well together on this piece of legislation and it's pleasing to be able to come to the House where we all support a good bill as it passes through. Finally I'd like to acknowledge Ginny Andersen who brought this bill to the House. She said she did this as a mother; she did this for all mothers. She did it for all grandmothers for all the women out there—and the men—who have children who are being affected by what's occurring now in this digital age. We've heard personal stories from across the House about how young ones in the lives of our members here have been affected by digital communications by people who pretend to be someone that they're not. What I've picked up in just the few speeches that we've heard tonight is there are signs there for parents to look out for and they're common signs; when your child starts to become reclusive when they start to lose weight when they don't stop looking at their phones and in fact start stealing them from others—these are standard signs that we as parents and grandparents can pick up on to make sure we can protect our youth our rangatahi as they move forward in what is becoming a very digital world.I'll get to the bill now. This bill amends the Crimes Act 1961 so it will protect children who are at risk of harm from exploitation through digital communications. When presented at first reading the bill was set to introduce two new offences. Both were to protect under-16-year-olds from sexual exploitation and grooming. The first proposed offence was if someone over 18 years old who communicated with an under-16-year-old by digital communication—so that just means communicating by text message or through social media as an example—so that they are intentionally misleading the young person as to the older person's age or identity and then arranging to meet with them that would have made that an offence.The second offence was for someone over 18 years old to communicate with someone under 16 years old by again digital communication with again the intention of causing harm to or being reckless as to whether or not that person is being harmed. I'm reminded here about a case we heard during the harmful digital communications bill recently where a parent sent their own child sexually explicit photographs of the other parent in order to harm that other parent. The result was that the child was the one that was harmed and should never have been sent such messages. This bill also sought to increase the penalty for an existing offence in the Crimes Act whereby the author of the bill wished to increase from seven years to 10 years the penalty that relates to actually meeting up with a young person following digital sexual grooming. After hearing from officials and submitters during the select committee process the bill was changed to replace those two first offences with just one offence and the proposed increase in penalty from seven years to 10 years was dropped because it didn't align with the existing penalties for similar offences that are already in the Crimes Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act. So as a select committee—with advice from officials and after hearing from submitters—we agreed to change the two offences by making concerns coverable by one offence which is new section 131AB which is headed up Grooming for sexual conduct with a young person".The changes we made will mean that if a person is aged over 18 years and they communicate by words or conduct with a person who is under the age of 16 and they have the intent of engaging them in or being part of conduct that is explicitly outlawed within the Crimes Act then they can be prosecuted. So it's taking the best of those two proposed first offences and placing them into one.Those crimes already explicitly outlawed refer to certain clauses detailed in section 98AA(1) of the Crimes Act 1961 and include dealing with a person for the purpose of sexual exploitation where selling buying transferring bartering renting or hiring a person for that purpose; also where a person is detained confined imprisoned or kidnapped; and where a person is removed received transported imported or brought to a place for sexual exploitation; and where a person is induced to sell rent or give themselves for the purpose of sexual exploitation. This added clause makes it clear that a potential victim does not need to have responded to any of the grooming attempts they just needed to be a participant in it. For those with concerns about knowing the age of a person they may be interacting with there is a defence to this new clause and that is that the accused took reasonable steps to ascertain the age of the young person and they believed on reasonable grounds that the young person was over the age of 16. A former police officer told me the story of a case some 20 years ago where a 33-year-old male who called himself a photographer advertised in the paper for young models. With promises of fame he arranged for photo shoots with many of these young girls in a dirty garage. Only one girl complained but many lives were affected by that one person. The same police officer told me of another story about how a 26-year-old chef was dismissed after it was found that he had been text messaging a 14-year-old girl. Thankfully that was stopped before anything major happened.These are the stories of near misses and we don't get to hear of all the ones that we could not stop. This bill will make a difference to the lives of our youth and gives consequence to those who take advantage of them. In that respect ACT thanks Ginny Andersen again for bringing such a good bill to the House and for getting cross-party support for something that will help all parents in this country feel safer for their children. On that basis ACT commends this bill to the House."