Statutes Amendment (Sexual Offences) Bill – Second Reading speech
Wednesday 14 June 2023
S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (12:54): I rise to indicate my support for this important bill that enacts another Malinauskas Labor government election commitment as part of our Justice for Victims policy. This policy promised to close loopholes that make it easier for people who possess child porn or childlike sex dolls to get bigger sentence discounts or bail.
The possession of child porn and childlike sex dolls is alarming, and it should concern all South Australians that offenders who possess this material are not considered at the same level as other child sex offenders. Therefore, these child sex offences are indictable offences, not currently considered serious indictable offences, and so do not attract lower sentence discounts for guilty pleas in the same way that most other child sex offences do, such as producing child exploitation material and grooming children online, which are serious indictable offences.
The commitment in relation to sentence discounts is fulfilled by amending the Sentencing Act to class possession of child exploitation material or dealing with childlike sex dolls as a serious indictable offence for the purposes of the discounts. These child sex offences would therefore attract lower sentence discounts for guilty pleas compared with other indictable offences. This change will emphasise that possession of child exploitation material and childlike sex dolls is considered equally as serious as other child sex offences. Exploitation of children, whether the offender is directly abusing the child or fantasising about it, is abhorrent.
A similar loophole in the legislation relates to the Bail Act, which this bill will amend to ensure that when considering the gravity of the alleged offence the bail authority must take into account the harm that people who deal with child sex material cause to children by contributing to demand for the abuse of children. Whilst authorities are already free to take this into account—and often do—a legislated principle will specifically draw their mind to the harms of child exploitation material in each case, ensuring a uniform approach between bail authorities, and create a legislative statement of the gravity with which the parliament views this type of offending.
The final aspect of this bill relates to altering the language in part 3, division 12, of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act, which contains offences in relation to commercial sexual services. These include forcing a person to provide commercial sexual services or knowingly using a child in commercial sexual services. The phrasing of 'provide commercial sexual services' will be amended to 'perform commercial sexual acts'. This language much better reflects the exploitative nature of the offending.
These are more important reforms being made by our government to protect children from harm and will be followed by changes to the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935, which are currently before the other place. I commend this bill to the house.
