Derryn Hinch: Passport ban is just the start of a war on grubs who abuse kids
THE passport ban stopping paedophiles going on sex holidays is a start but there’s lots more work to be done to protect kids from these grubs, writes Derryn Hinch.
Opinion
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IT WAS a surprisingly nervous moment last year that I’ll never forget. I was about to give a speech and take questions at a Melbourne Press Club lunch at Crown.
It wasn’t exactly a new experience for me. But it was my first as “senator-elect Hinch” just after the July election.
CONVICTED PAEDOPHILES TO HAVE PASSPORTS CANCELLED
As I walked to the podium, past tables of journo mates and former colleagues, the MC, Michael Rowland of ABC TV, handed me a note.
“Rachel Griffiths says she knows you. She knew I was coming here and asked me to give you this.”
It was a hastily scrawled epistle from the acclaimed actor of such passion and compelling logic that it launched me on a campaign that culminated this week in the federal government’s announcement of new laws to stop convicted criminals, on child sex offender registers across Australia, from travelling overseas on what I brutally, deliberately, call child-rape holidays.
This is the note from Rachel:
Dear Derryn, I want to reach out to you regarding a child trafficking & human rights issue.
I have talked to Julie Bishop who is setting me up with Brandis (Attorney-General Senator George) to discuss, but you would be our key advocate.
We want to take passports permanently from convicted sex offenders. Child sex tourism is on the rise as local opportunities (schools, etc) are shrinking.
We are constantly dealing with victims of AUSTRALIAN offenders. If we can take a passport off a BANKRUPT why can’t we stop our paedophiles travelling to Myanmar?
I’d love to discuss with you how we can get this done.
Rachel.
I had recently been to Cambodia and was aware of the child sex trade in other countries like Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. I had seen middle-aged caucasian men with local children in places like Phnom Penh and especially in Siem Reap.
You just knew what those adult tourists were there for, the same way you look askance at pot-bellied German and Australian “tourists” in Bali.
But until I got to Canberra, and talked to federal police, I had no idea how huge this putrid industry had become.
In 2015, more than 800 sex criminals on state and territory registers had travelled overseas and nearly 400 of them went on child exploitation vacations in Southeast Asia.
By November last year, I had the support of Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop, Justice Minister Michael Keenan and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. I had also been briefed by Southeast Asian specialists in the AFP.
When we announced the planned changes to the passport laws, the Prime Minister described the sex tourists as “some of the worst grubs you can imagine” and “a disgrace to Australia”.
He said: “We don’t want Australians travelling to Southeast Asia for these sexually criminal activities.”
And now a law removing passports from men (and some women) on the child sex offenders register will be introduced into parliament next month.
That will be the most satisfying day of my short time here in Canberra. Especially when it has been achieved within six months of my lobbying for it. I’m told that’s an unusually speedy result.
It is hard to describe the feeling of achieving something tangible to help protect children. I’m not deluding myself. This is just a start, involving kids overseas.
THE challenge at home is still huge. It’s been 30 years since I first went to jail for naming paedophile priest Michael Glennon. We still haven’t got Daniel’s Law — the national public register of convicted sex offenders. That was the issue that triggered the formation last year of the Justice Party.
I believe we will get there, but getting state and territory attorneys-general together to agree on a project is like herding cats. In fact, since I arrived in Canberra I’ve started to wonder how we ever got a standard gauge railway system.
And on the subject of registers: it came as a shock that there are 20,000 names on the child sex offenders register. More than 3000 people are on it for life. And their passport bans will apply for life.
The good news is the ban will be mandatory and not appealable to the AAT, which has brought down some shocking reversals of deportation orders instigated by Immigration Minister Dutton.
There will be exemptions to the passport ban for teenagers caught sexting and a provision for offenders to apply for a passport on compassionate grounds to, say, visit a dying mother in a foreign country.
Otherwise, the passport ban will be mandatory.
And to those civil libertarians who will, inevitably, complain, I say: “When you rape a child you forfeit some of your civil rights.”
Derryn Hinch is an Australian Senator for Victoria
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