Release date: 01/06/23

Legislation relating to child sex abuse laws will be retitled to better reflect the exploitative nature of the offending following a campaign led by abuse survivor and former Australian of the Year, Grace Tame.

The change is part of the Grace Tame Foundation’s Harmony Campaign which aims to harmonise child abuse laws across Australia, particularly where child sexual abuse laws are termed as an ‘unlawful relationship’.

Ms Tame has rightly raised concerns the word ‘relationship’ implies mutual responsibility and consent, and therefore diminishes the gravity of the insidious crime.

In effect, section 50 of the Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 will now be titled “sexual abuse of a child”.

The Bill, progressed by the Malinauskas Government, has now passed both houses of Parliament.

The change is consistent with similar offences in Queensland, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

A broader review of sexual consent and abuse laws, which includes other issues raised by the Harmony Campaign, is also being undertaken by both the South Australian Government and the Commonwealth.

The Bill does not change any of elements of the offence.


Quotes

Attributable to Kyam Maher

This is a small, but important measure that ensures the law better reflects the nature of this particularly vile offence.

It is part of broader reforms we are pursuing in relation to sexual abuse that have included the criminalisation of stealthing, and measures to reclassify the possession of child pornography as a serious indictable offence.

A child cannot give consent and can in no way be part of a sexual relationship, lawful or otherwise. It is exploitation and abuse, plain and simple.

Words matter, and the term ‘relationship’ carries a certain connotation that, quite frankly, should not be associated with the exploitative nature of child sexual abuse.

Attributable to Katrine Hildyard

I am incredibly grateful to Grace Tame for her steadfast, tireless advocacy to prevent and eradicate child sexual abuse.

Her leadership has been instrumental in driving this crucial legislative change across the country and her leadership has shone a light onto horrific child abuse and the role we must all play to advance change.

The abuse of children is utterly abhorrent and tackling it through a range of measures is of the utmost importance.  

Our Government is committed to doing so and this legislative change is a clear step forward.

Attributable to Grace Tame, CEO, The Grace Tame Foundation

This change takes significant steps towards eliminating salacious debate and confusion. Words hold immense weight.

The previous terminology also gave scope for the sexualisation and adultification of boys and girls in a particularly dark, twisted context.

Our legislation must reflect the unequivocal seriousness of this crime, which is never a child's desire, but instead a perverted fantasy projected onto and into them through a process of grooming which involves a stratagem of calculated - often invisible - offences designed to gradually increase a pre-existing stark power imbalance.

This change may appear small, but it is not. Action like this and the official seal of approval it signals, is not to be taken lightly.

It guarantees our legislation and in turn our community can correctly identify what deliberate, repeated child sexual abuse by older adults is. The tide is turning. Children are being heard.