Senator the Hon Michaelia Cash
Shadow Attorney-General
Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Leader of the Opposition in the Senate
Senator for Western Australia
TRANSCRIPT
RN Breakfast with Sally Sara
Topics: Community safety, crime crackdown, drugs, child sex offenders
21 April 2025
Sally Sara
The Coalition has today made a number crime crackdown promises and funding commitments, including more resources for Federal Police and a trial of a national child sex offender disclosure scheme, as we’ve just heard, the measures are all grouped under what the Coalition has dubbed Operation Safer Communities, subtitled as a crackdown on crime from the border to the backyard. Michaelia Cash is the Shadow Attorney General, and joins me now very early from Perth. Michaelia Cash, welcome back to breakfast.
Senator Cash
Great to be with you, and good morning to your listeners.
Sally Sara
You’re accusing Anthony Albanese of being soft on crime, but the responsibility for administering the criminal justice system primarily rests with the states and territory. So how can the federal government be soft on crime when it’s not the main body that’s responsible?
Senator Cash
Well, let’s be very, very clear in terms of organized crime and serious crime in Australia, the cost since Mr. Albanese came into government, it’s now around $2,500 for every person in Australia. It’s around $68.7 billion per year. That is actually up from $60 billion in 2020, 2021, and a significant part of that cost comes from the drug trade. The drug trade is something that from a Federal level, we can do something about. This policy that Peter Dutton has announced is all about keeping drugs and thugs off our streets. This is what Peter Dutton is about, keeping Australians safe, and if you can empower our place with the national task force working across states and territories to tackle organized crime at its very heart, you can get some drugs off the street. You can get the thugs off the street, and this is all about keeping our communities safe. Have you been to Victoria lately Sally, because I tell you, when it comes to organized crime and crime gangs running riot in communities, you see it every day in Victoria, and that is just unacceptable.
Sally Sara
Let’s have a look at some of the specific details here. So tell me more about this proposal for a national child sex offender disclosure scheme. Will details about child sex offenders be made public in this scheme?
Senator Cash
No. So this is all about empowering parents to protect their children. So what the scheme will do is allow members of the public to request information from the police about whether an individual who interacts with their child is a convicted sex offender. So actually, in my state, in Western Australia, we actually have an existing scheme already operating successfully. You’d probably be aware there’s an existing scheme operating in the United Kingdom that’s been operating, I think, now, for over a decade, and what it’s done is unmasked 1000s of paedophiles to worried parents and guardians.
Sally Sara
So parents need to take the step to request this information. Is there any check or proof that needs to be provided that their child is directly in contact with this individual?
Senator Cash
Basically a person who has been spending time with your child on a weekly basis. But what would happen here is the disclosure scheme allows the public, let’s just say it’s mum or dad, easier to say it’s mum or dad, to request information from the police about whether an individual who interacts with their child is a convicted sex offender. Basically, what it’s saying to parents is you can make informed decisions about who has access to your child. But more than that, it sends a clear message to sexual predators. You have nowhere to hide. But it also sends, Sally a very clear message to the Australian people, on behalf of Peter Dutton, who, as you know this is Peter keeping the community safe given all of the time that he spent as a former police officer fighting for the protection of children from harm. It sends a clear message to Australia and Australians, we will not tolerate individuals preying on the most vulnerable members of our community, which, as you know, of course, is our children.
Sally Sara
So if parents get this information and they find out that someone is a convicted sex offender. Are they allowed to share that information publicly?
Senator Cash
Absolutely not. So our starting point is the WA model, So that allows a parent or guardian to request information about a person who has at least three days of unsupervised contact with the child in any 12 month period. We’ll obviously work through the specifics of access arrangements, etc, with the states and territories, but basically it then allows the parents to make a decision in terms of that person being with their child, so the police will only share information with the applicant if they are a parent or guardian of the child. And this is all about empowering the parents and allowing them to take steps to protect kids.
Sally Sara
If a number of kids are in contact with this individual, the parents can’t pass on the information to other parents about this convicted child sex offender?
Senator Cash
So similar to existing schemes, as I said, you have an incredibly successful scheme in the United Kingdom. You have a successful scheme in Western Australia, my home state where I am. Recipients are under obligations not to disseminate or publish the information. But what it does allow the parents to do, as I said, is to make an informed decision as to the safety of their child. But what it also does is send a very, very clear message to sexual predators. Under Peter Dutton, you will have nowhere to hide. It’s as simple as that, but it also sends a clear message to the Australian community, we will not tolerate individuals preying on the most vulnerable members of our community, which, as we know, are our children. And as I said, the good news in relation to this is you have existing schemes here in my home state and in the United Kingdom, that they’ll say they have unmasked paedophiles to worried parents and guardians.
Sally Sara
Okay, let’s look at a separate issue, and that is family and domestic violence. Why are we hearing not as much detail on that in your plans from Peter Dutton,
Senator Cash
This is a comprehensive package in relation to addressing community safety, and this is all about, in particular, drugsand thugs. We need to remove them from our streets.
Sally Sara
What about families and kids. What about women and kids in particular, but family and domestic violence?
Senator Cash
We’ve already made huge announcements in relation to that. But Sally, this one today, is specifically about crime. Crime is a huge issue. Sally, in many parts of our community.
Sally Sara
Domestic violence is also a crime, and we know that in places like Queensland. The Queensland police union says that its members are called out to a domestic family violence incident every three minutes. In Victoria police also and other states are dealing with that. Why is that not there, if we’re talking about safety, because women, for women in particular, mostdangerous places in the home, isn’t it?
Senator Cash
Absolutely and Sally this particular announcement is all about drugs and organized crime, and in particular, attacking that across Australia. Families and business owners are fed up. Break ins, burglaries, arson attacks, they drive up the costs of doing business. They mean that people feel less safe in their communities. If you actually look at just the last three years under Labor, I was talking to a family the other day in Victoria, their child is now a meth user. We have seen record highs of meth use in our capital cities in cocaine and ketamine use across the country.
Sally Sara
Domestic violence offenders? Are they not thugs as well?
Senator Cash
Of course they are Sally, but this is specifically in relation to drugs and organized crime. And what we’re saying here is Australia needs an integrated, truly national response, specifically targeting illicit drugs and the organized crime groups that profit from them. This is about crushing organized crime groups, outlaw motorcycle gangs, they are peddling Sally drugs to our children. Gangs who feed the cycle of dependence that drive people to break into homes to feed their habit. Gangs that buy the cars from the thieves in our suburbs. That is what this announcement is about, a coalition government under Peter Dutton cracking down on crime from the border to the backyard. This is a huge investment.
Sally Sara
We’re running out of time. We’ll need to leave it there. Thank you so much.
Senator Cash
Great to be with you
ENDS
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