Child Exploitation

The Hon. C. BONAROS (15:52): Just yesterday, this parliament passed historic laws safeguarding child workers, reaffirming our commitment to protecting the most vulnerable among us. In this digital age, our vigilance must extend beyond physical boundaries to the virtual realm, where unseen threats lurk behind screens and keystrokes. The 24/7 presence of technology has opened new avenues for predators to infiltrate our homes, our lounge rooms and our children's bedrooms at any hour, posing an imminent danger to our children.

A recent study conducted by the Australian Institute of Criminology sheds light on the alarming reality that confronts us. Shockingly, 12.4 per cent of a pool of 10,000 people who were active on dating apps received solicitations to facilitate child exploitation or abuse—that is one in eight Australians accessing dating apps. These requests ranged from soliciting photographs of children to pressuring for explicit imagery or even attempting to arrange inappropriate meetings with those individuals and children.

Predators are offering to pay for photographs or videos of children known to the app user, including their own kids and others known to them. Disturbingly, they are asking for information like breast size or whether a child had their period. We can only assume the proliferation of requests means it is working at least some of the time.

It seems both men and women are equally being targeted, as perpetrators exploit the anonymity afforded by online platforms. You would ordinarily expect men would be making these requests of women in most cases, but it is also the case that men are posing as women and making these disturbing requests of men. It is a stark reminder that in a digital landscape identities are easily obscured.

While I am told that efforts have been made to improve the security of dating apps through the optional ID verifications, the onus of course lies on parents and caregivers to remain vigilant. Cyber safety experts caution against sharing images of children online, emphasising the inherent dangers posed by the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools that can manipulate innocent images into something more sinister in mere seconds.

Even the seemingly innocent act of sharing a child's photo can unwittingly expose them to untold risks. I have spoken in this place at length previously about childlike sex dolls, which we as a parliament have banned, and the fact that anyone can download a photo of one of our children that we have innocently uploaded to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or wherever else it may be, only to learn that predators can take those photos and make childlike sex dolls that resemble one of our children. That should be enough to spark fear in all of us, knowing that if we were to upload a photo of our child online it could be used for those sadistic purposes.

We are leading the way in terms of our child exploitation laws here, and by adding childlike sex dolls into our definitions of child exploitation material we are certainly leading the nation. I will end by flagging that I will also be introducing a further bill into this parliament in the coming weeks to ensure that our laws are evolving with the ever-changing landscape of innovation, specifically the proliferation of deep fake technology—yet another issue that we are now having to confront.

These sophisticated manipulations of video and audio are capable of deceiving even the most discerning eye and ear. Our legal frameworks must adapt swiftly to address the profound implications of deep fakes, particularly when it comes to our kids and our most vulnerable, and I look forward to speaking again on this very important issue in due course.