STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator THORPE (Victoria—Independent VIC Whip) (13:56): Children's bodies don't belong to the state. Last month, I introduced a private senator's bill, the Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting the Strip Searching of Children) Bill 2026, to ban strip searching of children. Strip searching is child sexual assault perpetrated by the state.

I want to share some words from proud Yuin woman Aunty Vickie Roach. She said: When the state takes bodily autonomy from children, it can shape how you understand your body, intimacy, consent and control long afterwards. We cannot teach children about consent while maintaining laws that allow adults in authority to override it.

We cannot decide that some children deserve bodily autonomy while criminalised children do not. Kids must be protected from the system. A child's body belongs to that child.

Not to the police. Not to a prison. Not to an institution.

Not to the state. The inquiry into my bill is taking submissions until 14 September 2026—one more week—however, the Labor dominated committee, who decide on who gets to run an inquiry and have hearings, have shut it down. They shut it down.

The Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee shut down an inquiry on strip searching and sexual assault against children in this country. Shameful. The government are obviously trying to hide that we are strip searching ten-year-old children with disabilities in this country.

They don't want you to know. What child gets strip searched in this country at 10 years old and with a disability! How can you let this happen?

Why won't you let people with lived experience come and tell their story? It's because you are complicit. You are complicit in the sexual assault of children in prisons and in any place of detention.

When are you going to stand up for those babies?