Final Report Handed Down by VIC Parliamentary Law Reform Committee on Sexting

Monday 3 June 2013 @ 10.24 a.m. | IP & Media

The Victorian Parliamentary Law Reform Commission handed down a new report into the effect and legal ramifications of sexting on 29 May 2013.

The report contains 14 recommendations that the Committee believes will protect people from the harms caused by non-consensual sexting. The Committee’s key recommendations are for the Victorian Government to introduce legislation to create an offence for the distribution of intimate images or video of a person without consent, and to introduce legislation so that minors who make or possess sexually explicit images or video of themselves or their peers cannot be charged with child pornography offences.

The terms of reference of the Parliamentary Committee included:

  • the incidence, prevalence and nature of sexting in Victoria;

  • the extent and effectiveness of existing awareness and education about the social and legal effect and ramifications of sexting;

  • the appropriateness and adequacy of existing laws, especially criminal offences and the application of the sex offenders register, that may apply to the practice of sexting, particularly with regard to the creation, possession and transmission of sexually suggestive or explicit messages and images in circumstances where a person:

  • creates, or consents to the creation of, the message or image for his or her own private use and/or the use of one or more other specific persons; or

  • creates, or consents to the creation of, the message or image and without their knowledge and/or their consent the message or image is disseminated more broadly than the person intended.

One of the key recommendation to affect current Victorian legislation is that the Victorian Government introduce legislation to amend each of the child pornography offences in the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic) and the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) (Enforcement) Act 1995 (Vic) to provide defences to child pornography and its relationship to sexting.

As stated in an article in The Conversation, the current debate surrounding sexting is good for 3 reasons:

  • There is a focus on consent;

  • It emphasises shared responsibility by both victim and perpetrator; and

  • It discusses the inherent connection to gender and sexual based violence in Australian society.

Sources of information:

TimeBase’s LawOne Service,  provides Australian Legislation in a consistent and reliable format. Contact us for a free trial.

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