Child Sex Offenders Registration (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill
12/09/2013
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (16:21): Of course, I will be speaking in support of this bill on behalf of Dignity for Disability. First, I thank the Attorney-General and his departmental staff, in particular, Kim Eldridge and others, for a comprehensive briefing on this bill. It certainly sounds as though research and work on this bill has been undertaken comprehensively in the development of this legislation.
I acknowledge, as I think we all do, that this is not an easy area of the law, nor is it easy to police. As Dignity for Disability has found in its three years in the Parliament of South Australia, there is a significant problem in this state with child sex offenders targeting children with disabilities, in particular, as victims. People with disabilities are far more likely to be victims of all types of abuse. The cases that have been brought to my attention, known as the Christies Beach bus case and the St Ann’s case, to name two, are horrific and demand attention, resources and legislative reform so that we can protect some of our state’s most vulnerable citizens—children.
Unfortunately, we find that some of our most serious predators are so expert, so covert, in their offending behaviour that they will never appear on a child sex offender register because they have never been charged. For all those who are charged and/or convicted, they can become highly skilled at working around the reporting requirements of being a registered offender.
Certainly, in many of the cases that have occurred, it is not teachers who are child sex offenders; it is the people who work in a more secondary role with children—instead, it is the bus drivers, taxi drivers, SSOs, out-of-school-hours-care workers, sporting coaches and extra-curricular activity officers who can—and I stress ‘can’—be the offenders. This in no way suggests that the vast majority of people who perform these roles are not doing the right thing. I am sure that 99 per cent of these people do a fantastic job, but there is a small number who do these horrendous things and try to bend the system to suit their own criminal offending and abhorrent behaviour.
I appreciate that this bill attempts to solve some of the methods offenders have used and do use to work the system. Rarely does an issue evoke so much strong emotion in a community as child sex offences, and I think that strong emotional response is very well understood by everyone in this place today.
It is extremely difficult to balance a citizen’s right to basic freedoms while also ensuring that vulnerable South Australians are protected and safe from some of our most serious alleged offenders—and I say ‘alleged’ because some of these offenders will remain that way forever so difficult is it to get a conviction when a child with an intellectual disability and/or communication disability, for example, is sexually abused, with the current limitations of our current justice system.
Of course, Dignity for Disability hopes that the disability justice plan, which we have been working alongside the Attorney-General on—not always agreeing, but working constructively—goes some way to resolving some of these matters. I realise it is not the place of this bill to resolve the many challenges our justice system presents, particularly to people with disabilities, but I do hope it is a step in the right direction.
In regard to this bill, I have a few questions I would like to put on the record for answers at some point from the minister. They are as follows:
1. How many people are on the South Australian child sex offenders register?
2. How many of the people on the register are known as ‘young love’ cases?
3. Is it possible to find out how many people on the register have committed offences against children with disabilities specifically?
Furthermore, I know that the Attorney-General is aware of the incident the Hon. Bob Such from the other place raised in the media regarding a 12 year old distributing an image of his genitals which could result in the young man being put on the register.
I am aware that the Attorney-General answered questions on radio this morning, and I appreciate that it is not the intention of this bill to see young people making mistakes ending up on the register. However, that does not change the fact that this child could indeed wind up on that register. We need to legislate so that we capture the people on the register we know to put our children at risk, without unintended consequences for those making silly or poor decisions, particularly as adolescents.
I also know that this bill is designed to give police the discretion to closely monitor the offenders they know need to be monitored while providing more freedom to those who are on the register but in reality provide little or no threat to the community. It will allow people who are on the register for so-called ‘young love’ reasons to have less onerous reporting requirements; however, it is not ideal that they wind up on there in the first place. I am not sure if there is a way we can use spent convictions legislation to deal with this, perhaps, but I would certainly hope so.
These are all my questions and comments for now. I look forward to working further on this bill in the committee stages and working on a very serious issue.
