Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting the Strip Searching of Children) Bill 2026, Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting Shackling During Childbirth) Bill 2026

Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (10:30): I rise to speak in support of both of these bills, the Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting the Strip Searching of Children) Bill 2026 and the Crimes Amendment (Prohibiting Shackling During Childbirth) Bill 2026. I thank Senator Thorpe for putting these important issues before parliament, for her work in bringing these bills to the Senate.

These bills are about our values as a country. Simply put, they say that we shouldn't stripsearch children in Australia and we shouldn't shackle women giving birth in this country. Clearly, those two things are not radical propositions.

In fact, I think if you spoke to most Australians about that, they would be shocked that those two things are happening in our country and they would be urging the parliament to ensure that they don't. And here we have an opportunity to do exactly that. Yes, there is a lack of comprehensive public data about how many Australian children are stripsearched each year, but we know that it happens.

And it shouldn't happen. We know it's happened to children as young as 10 years old. Think about that: a ten-year-old being stripsearched in this country.

We know that at one point it was happening as regularly as one child every four days—one Australian child every four days being stripsearched. We also know that, unfortunately and unsurprisingly, First Nations children are disproportionately affected. New South Wales police data for 2023-24 shows that 29 per cent of stripsearches were done on Aboriginal children—almost one in three.

That is beyond tragic when you look at the percentage of Aboriginal children in the population. Here in the ACT we have stronger protections than many other jurisdictions, but we need children to be better protected right across this country. And sadly, on a number of other indicators, the ACT falls well behind.

Our youth detention rate in the ACT is, shockingly, approximately double the national rate and the highest of any jurisdiction. Our youngest First Nations children are too far behind, across all five indicators, when starting school, and the number of First Nations children in out-of-home care remains far too high. These are all things that we must work harder to change.

It seems that even here in the ACT, where there supposedly is political will—there's certainly will from the public to address these things—we haven't been able to do that. I think that points to something far deeper and to some big challenges that we need to face up to as a country, to actually do what is necessary. In talking about the safety of our children in this country, the other thing I'd like to touch on is the hugely distressing research released yesterday from the University of Sydney about the rates of child sexual assault.

Research has found that over the last decade there has been a 51 per cent increase in sexual assault on girls aged 10 to 17 and a 60 per cent increase in sexual assault on boys. This should concern all of us and be a call to action for all of us. This is nothing short of devastating and something that we don't talk about enough in parliament.

Protecting our children and future generations surely must be one of our top priorities in this place. This data is hard to digest. It's confronting, but that's not a reason for staying silent.

Researchers and advocates are calling for the government to urgently implement in full the recommendations handed down in the August 2024 rapid review of prevention approaches. There is much work to do in this space. Unfortunately, it seems, when a bill is brought forward in good faith by crossbenchers, the government has a policy of not supporting any bill other than their own bills.

I don't think it speaks to a healthy democracy. It doesn't speak to a democracy where there is a true contest of ideas, where ideas can be put forward in good faith that address challenges that clearly need to be dealt with in this country. We have a government that say either 'don't worry, it's the states' responsibility; someone else will fix that,' or 'because that's not our bill, we will not support it'.

I urge the government to rethink this approach, to embrace a more collaborative approach to our democracy and to actually do the sorts of things that protect women, that protect children and that rebuild trust in our democracy and make Australia a better country.