Child Exploitation

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:32): Insidious child exploitation material comes in many different forms, all of it disgusting and sickening to the core. In this place last year, I was extremely proud that my bill banning the sale, manufacture and/or possession of childlike sex dolls in South Australia was unanimously passed by parliament. Anyone now found guilty of producing, disseminating or in possession of childlike sex dolls will face a term of imprisonment of up to 10 years.

At the time, I made a commitment—reiterated an oath I made many years ago—that I would continue to do whatever I could to ensure children are protected from all forms of child exploitation, and I promise I will, as it is an extremely sensitive issue close to my heart. That commitment took me to Sydney earlier this year where shockingly I found sickening child pornography material being sold over the counter in one of that state's most popular bookstores; indeed, one of the biggest bookstore chains in the world, the Kinokuniya bookstore, in the heart of Sydney's CBD. What I discovered was a range of explicit animated movies and comics—and I use that term lightly—showing sexually explicit images of young girls, and connotations of incest and rape involving minors.

The disturbing child exploitation material is found in a Japanese form of animation called anime both on Blu-ray discs and in Japanese comic books, called manga. This sickening material can also be purchased online and I note that there are other sellers of the same material. The two forms of media share a unique visual style that is globally popular, especially among teens.

However, there is a sinister and sickening side to anime and manga, with a significant proportion of the two media featuring child abuse material containing depictions of wide-eyed children, usually in school uniforms, who are engaged in explicit sexual activities and poses, often being sexually abused. This is referred to as hentai anime and manga, which child abuse experts warn paedophiles use as a tool to groom children.

Disturbingly, some of this child exploitation material has been reviewed and classified by the Classification Board as legal despite falling within the meaning of child abuse material under the Commonwealth Criminal Code, which makes it illegal both to sell and buy some pornographic items while other graphic materials have not been reviewed and/or classified due to disturbing loopholes in current laws.

At the time, I wrote to all state attorneys-general alerting them to the issue and requesting they take immediate action to stop the material being sold. My federal colleague, Senator Stirling Griff, also wrote to the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Communications, Cyber Safety and the Arts, requesting the government take immediate action. I also wrote to the chairman of the Kinokuniya company in Japan, bringing his attention to the issue and requesting he remove the offending material from his stores.

To give this company some context, Kinokuniya is an influential and powerful business. It is the largest bookstore chain in Japan, has more than 100 stores in Japan and overseas and employs over 5,000 people. I was hopeful I would get some form of response, probably written by the company's in-house counsel, telling me to mind my own business. I was wrong. I recently received a letter from Kinokuniya's vice-president, Keijiro Mori, thanking me for drawing the company's attention to the matter and advising it had reviewed and removed several titles from its stores and online catalogue.

Further, Mr Mori advised that the company staff had been provided with 'updated special order guidelines to ensure that these titles are no longer available to order into the store'. I am not sure yet if those measures impact the company's operation in Australia or globally, and I have written back to Mr Mori seeking information in that regard, but by any measure that is a significant and, may I say, very pleasing outcome.

The proof is always in the pudding and, while I congratulate Kinokuniya for taking the steps they have taken, I will continue to keep a watchful eye. As a country, of course, we still have a lot more to do. My research has found that child pornography material is still freely available in Australia, despite clearly being in breach of the definition of child abuse and exploitation material under both commonwealth law and state law and, in particular, this state's law. Even if it is in cartoon or anime form, it is illegal.