Page 5243 - Week 12 - Thursday, 28 October 2010
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The act also creates an offence to prevent registered child sex offenders from working in child-related employment. Other offences include a registered child sex offender failing to report to police, failing to report on entering the ACT and failing to report annually to police.
The ACT scheme complements the schemes across Australian jurisdictions, which are designed to track the movements of registered sex offenders across borders and allows for the multijurisdictional management of sex offenders.
Operationally, for a person to be required to be registered in the ACT, the offender will either be convicted of a registrable offence, or the court will make a child sex offender registration order. Registrable offences include offences committed in the ACT and interstate and child sex offences that are committed internationally.
The act also requires the registration of offenders who commit a commonwealth child sex offence. The commonwealth child sex offences criminalise sexual assault and exploitation of children that occurs across Australian jurisdictions and internationally.
The act lists the offences that require registration, including commonwealth offences. If a person convicted of a listed commonwealth offence resides in, or moves to, the ACT, then that person must be registered under the ACT’s child sex offender scheme.
The commonwealth government recently amended the commonwealth Criminal Code in relation to sexual offences committed against children internationally. These amendments include strengthening the child sex tourism offences, the introduction of new offences for dealing in child pornography and child abuse material overseas and new offences for using a postal service for a child sex related activity. These new and reformed commonwealth offences ensure that sexual offences committed against children by Australians overseas are criminalised.
As a result of the commonwealth amendments the ACT must now amend our act to ensure that the new and amended commonwealth offences are correctly and consistently included in our lists of registrable offence. This will ensure that the objectives of the scheme can continue to be met in the event that a person convicted of a commonwealth offence chooses to live in the ACT.
The bill proposes amendments to the class 1 and 2 schedules of registrable offences in the ACT’s act. The amendments include the revision and introduction of seven class 1 offences. Class 1 offences are serious child sex offences that include sexual intercourse offences with a child or the persistent sexual abuse or murder of a child, where the murder involves an express sexual element.
The bill also proposes the inclusion and revision of 28 class 2 offences. These offences include sexual activity with a child outside Australia, procuring a child to engage in sexual activity outside Australia and preparing to engage in child sex tourism.
This bill supports the government’s ongoing commitment to protect our most valuable residents—and our most vulnerable—our children, from the most evil of crimes. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
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