The Victorian Napthine government will introduce Australia’s first sexting laws into Parliament today which will make it illegal for people to share or threaten to share explicit images without consent.
At the same time, the new laws will also ensure that people under 18 who sext another minor who is less than two years younger than them, in a non-exploitative way, will no longer be found guilty of child pornography offences. Only adults who send or threaten to distribute explicit images without the consent of the other person would face charges.
The new laws aim to eliminate the risk of young people wrongly ending up on the sex offenders’ register, as is the procedure under current legislation. The proposed new laws follow a parliamentary inquiry into sexting, which found many young people were in fact unaware they were committing child porn offences.
“It is important that the law keeps up with rapid changes in the use of technology, and that we ensure young persons aged under 18 are not inappropriately prosecuted or added to the sex offenders register for consensual, non-exploitative sexting,” Attorney-General Robert Clark said as reported by Fairfax Media.
These exceptions do not apply to adults nor to images that are deemed to depict a criminal offence such as sexual assault. The new laws would be the first “sexting” legislation in Australia and some experts are calling on other states to make similar changes.
“It’s not about making it open slather for young people to share naked images, which can have catastrophic consequences,” cyber safety expert and former police officer Susan McLean told the ABC. “It’s about making sure that when this happens the results and penalties are aligned to the harm that’s done.”
