Pedophile arrested at Sydney Airport under sex offender laws

theaustralian.com.au - A pedophile has been arrested at Sydney Airport as he attempted to fly out of Australia, under new laws preventing registered child sex offenders from travelling overseas to abuse children which come into effect today.

The laws will prevent up to 20,000 registered child sex offenders who have served their sentences but are subject to reporting obligations from leaving Australia without approval from law enforcement agencies.

Almost 800 registered child sex offenders travelled overseas last year, about 40 per cent of whom did so without informing authorities of their travel.

Visiting Sydney Airport this morning, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the laws gave her the authority to deny a passport to a child sex offender, cancel existing passports, or order the surrender of a foreign passport.

“Registered child sex offenders have reporting obligations in Australia because of the ongoing risk that they present to children in Australia, but we are aware that they have a high propensity to reoffend if they are in the country where they not monitored and where child sex exploitation is rampant,” Ms Bishop said.

“These laws are designed to protect children at home and abroad.”

Ms Bishop would not say where the man who was arrested this morning was attempting to travel to.

“The man is currently being interviewed by the federal police, so I don’t want to go into any more details,” she said.

“I don’t wish to prejudice the interview, but he was stopped here at the smart gate, because of these laws, because his name appeared on the watch list.”

The new laws were spearheaded by Senate crossbencher Derryn Hinch,

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said they were the most comprehensive crackdown on child sex tourism that has ever occurred anywhere in the world.

“This is world first legislation, and the rest of the world is looking to Australia to see how this is going to progress,” he said.

“We know that in our region, there is different levels of law enforcement capability, there is different approaches to the abuse of children, there’s different community attitudes, and we are making sure that Australians will not be able to leave this country to abuse vulnerable children, particularly in Southeast Asia.”

Mr Keenan said the new laws were party of the government’s “comprehensive approach” to tackling pedophiles abroad and in Australia.

“In September I introduced comprehensive new legislation that will make the offender cycle for pedophiles more difficult in every facet,” he said.

“We will ensure that we will have a presumption against bail, we will have a presumption against parole, we will ensure that the most serious child sex offenders serve a minimum period of time in prison.

“Now that legislation is before the parliament, but it has been opposed by the Labor Party, and I call on them to rethink their attitude towards this, because what we’re doing here today, in cancelling the passports of pedophiles and making it an offence for them to travel overseas, and what we’re doing about making sure that they spend serious time in prison here in Australia keep, is part of a comprehensive package to keep children safe in our region and to keep children safe here in Australia, and I would ask the Labor Party to rethink their attitude and to make sure that they join with us in this crackdown on pedophiles.”

In October, Labor justice spokeswoman Clare O’Neil defended her party’s stance on mandatory minimum sentences, saying Labor was pushing for life sentences for the worst child sex offenders and was only opposed to mandatory minimums because they lessened the likelihood of juries convicting offenders and meant criminals were less likely to co-operate in bringing down child porn ringleaders.