One of the most difficult aspects of being a parent is controlling what your children look at online. 

Equally as concerning is controlling who is looking at your children, and ensuring they have the skills to spot a predator if they come across one online. 

As a father of three, the Member for Toowoomba South David Janetzki is an advocate for the LNP’s plan to prosecute paedophiles who use the internet to groom children for sexual abuse.

The laws will be based on South Australia’s Carly’s Law – introduced after 15-year-old Carly Ryan was raped and murdered by a 50-year-old pedophile who had posed online as a teenage student.

“There’ll be no hiding place for vile online predators,” Mr Janetzki said.

“These laws will ensure police have the tools they need to protect kids from online predators.

“I fully understand the dangers involved with social media and I will do whatever it takes to keep kids safe.”

University of Southern Queensland criminologist Dr Suzanne Reich believes, “the online environment provides a space where people can commit old crimes in new ways, and this can also afford the offender some level of anonymity,” Dr Reich said.

“This creates a complex challenge for developing strategies to effectively address the factors that make children vulnerable to online abuse, but also emphasises the need to have specific responses to those who do engage in these online predatory behaviors,” Dr Reich said.

The LNP’s first proposed law will make it an offence for an adult to communicate with a child while claiming to be younger than they are, or another person altogether, in order to meet with a child. 

The second law will make it an offence for an adult to communicate with a child while claiming to be younger than they are, or another person altogether, with intent to commit an offence against the child.

The first offence will have a maximum penalty of five years’ prison and the second 10 years.