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The Opposition has announced a national sex offenders disclosure scheme, telling sexual predators: “You have nowhere to hide”.
If elected, the Coalition would roll out a 12-month-long pilot program of the scheme, according to shadow attorney-general Michaelia Cash.
“What it’s saying to parents is you can make informed decisions about who has access to your child,” she told ABC Radio on Monday morning.
“But more than that, it sends a clear message to sexual predators: You have nowhere to hide.”
The pilot program has been costed at $21.3 million and makes up part of the .
How would it work?
Cash said the proposed scheme would enable parents and guardians to ask law enforcement if an adult poses a risk to their child based on any previous child sex offences.
It would be at the discretion of the police if any information is disclosed to a parent or guardian.
It would apply in situations where there was unsupervised contact for at least three days within 12 months between an adult and a child.
People who request information from the police would be obliged not to publish or share any details provided by law enforcement.
Policies about law and crime often fall within the remit of states and territories, and the Coalition would work with them to implement the policy, Cash confirmed.
A system already exists, PM says
When asked by reporters about the announcement on Monday morning, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said a system already exists but his side of politics was open to reforms if requested by law enforcement agencies.
“There is a national child offender system right now that my government has put in place, he [Opposition leader Peter Dutton] never put it in place, it’s in place now, that enables cooperation across the board between jurisdictions,” he said.
“My government will respond positively to any request from police or security agencies, as we have done.”
Police can record and share child offender information under the National Child Offender System.
There is also legislation in place that can require police to share mandatory information about registered child offenders.
Each state and territory has a child protection management system in place whose primary function is to register and case manage known child offenders.
PM ‘loose with the truth’, Dutton replies
Responding to Albanese’s comments, Dutton said the current federal scheme differs from his proposal.
“The scheme that is operating federally is the sharing of information between police agencies. That’s not disclosable. It’s not accessible from members of the public,” he told reporters on Monday afternoon.
“The prime minister is wrong, either deliberately, or he just doesn’t understand how it works.”
When asked about policing largely being a state responsibility, Dutton replied that efforts to protect children need to be coordinated with the Commonwealth.
He said that a child sex offender who may work in a trusted position could move between different towns and jurisdictions, posing a risk to the community.
“It requires national coordination. I want to make our country safer and particularly for children and for women,” he said.
Dutton pointed to the UK, saying their Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme, known as Sarah’s Law, had been successful.
“If you have a look at the experience in the UK, there are literally thousands of cases where there’s been a disclosure and children have been removed from potential harm, either real or perceived,” he said.
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