Sentencing Amendment (Publication of Criminal Activity) Bill 2026 (No 29)

Thursday 10 September 2026

[4.33 p.m.]

Ms ARMITAGE (Launceston) - Thank you, Mr President. I thank the previous speakers. It's been very informative and I've shortened my speech considerably. I thank the honourable Leader for bringing forward the bill and I rise just to make a few remarks.

As we've seen, posting and boasting is an issue which has accompanied the increased use of technology. These days, most people have a device in their pocket with which they have the potential to reach the entire world. This is powerful and significant. Where this intersects with the commission of crime, it becomes a serious problem. It has the potential to embolden others to commit criminal acts, re‑traumatise victims of those crimes, and add to humiliation or pain, and can provide a level of notoriety and infamy to the people who have committed an offence. In other words, for some offenders, it can create a perverse sort of incentive to commit and then post and boast about a crime.

Therefore, we need to do something about it. It's really hard to imagine because to post and boast, it's pretty hard to plead not guilty, I would imagine. But I'm not sure that incentive is there for many. It might come down to what the member for Hobart and the member for Murchison was saying about how long it takes for someone's brain to actually become a little bit more sensible and realise what their action has caused.

This bill creates a new statutory aggravation factor to be inserted into the Sentencing Act 1997, which requires the court to take into account this matter, where relevant, in sentencing proceedings.

The new section, 11BB, will require a court, when sentencing an offender, to take into account as an aggravating factor whether the offender electronically published or caused the electronic publication of statements, images or videos relating to the offence or victim of the offence. Whilst the honourable Leader has expanded somewhat on how this will operate in practice, I'd like to ask how wide the term 'published' could be defined. Would making an electronic publication of statements, images or videos count even if it's only to one person? Now, how public does publication have to be to meet the threshold?

I note the honourable Leader's comment that this new provision does not restrict judicial discretion, with the clause clarifying that the addition of this new statutory aggravating factor doesn't limit the court's ability to take into account other factors, either aggravating or mitigating, when considering an appropriate sentence. The full context of an offender's conduct can continue to be considered by the court. I also wonder ‑ as I think it might have been mentioned by the member for Murchison and possibly also the member for Elwick ‑ about other people posting, how that's actually affected. If the person offending is not posting but other people are posting about them, and also if someone posts after they've been sentenced. It's still just as traumatic, I would imagine, for the person that was involved.

I wonder as well about video camera footage, and I think of my own case, where I have video footage of the criminals that broke into my house. I was going to put it on Facebook to see if anyone identified them, but the police asked me to hold off for the time being just in case we didn't want to spook them. I wonder how that goes, if the criminals then actually decide to post themselves. It would be unlikely, you'd think.

Ms O'Connor - If the victims decide to post themselves, you mean?

Ms ARMITAGE - No, I'm the victim.

Ms O'Connor - That's what I'm saying, so if you, as the victim, wanted to post to get information, where does that sit in this provision?

Ms ARMITAGE - Well, I understand that I could do it, but then I wondered if the criminals then decided, this looks pretty cool, here we are breaking into a premises, whether they could actually film it without sharing it. I guess you could actually film something ‑

Ms O'Connor - Well, then they're not publishing it, are they?

Ms ARMITAGE - I just wondered how that would go. I haven't done that as yet. I'm taking advice from police, but it's a possibility.

Mr Gaffney - It might give too much information to others out there. 'This is where the key's kept.'

Ms ARMITAGE - Well, no, it was more about faces and how you can identify how someone walks and how someone looks and the way they dress. Often people will identify someone from that. As the police said, don't do it just yet, we don't want to spook people and maybe lose things we might get back. I just wondered how that would go, if they were to then use that and think, oh, look how cool we are. Just a question that came up, Leader, not really part of my speech normally.

I do hope this bill will have the intended effect. As we know, once we post something online, we do lose control of it. It can continue to be copied, reposted, saved by people offline onto their own personal devices and commented on forever. Once something is posted online, it will almost certainly continue to exist forever. I'm not sure if people who post and boast really think about this, but I also believe that doesn't mean we should not attempt to do anything about it. The reality is, victims of crime who are posted and boasted about themselves become the subject of commentary, derision, judgment, scrutiny, humiliation and ongoing trauma.

It never used to be like this, and a novel problem requires a novel solution, and I believe we should at least try. To this end, I note and support the review into the operation of this legislation after five years. Unfortunately, I expect there to be ample opportunity for this to be tested by the courts, and while I certainly hope there isn't, like the member for Elwick, success would be there's nothing to be tested and tried; that there wouldn't be any. But I assume that there will be a sample to be gathered to determine whether or not it's successful or not.

I'd like to finish up by asking the honourable Leader whether there are any examples of this provision being put into effect in other jurisdictions, and we know that there are a variety, but not perhaps quite the same, and how this has worked in practice. I do note the laws vary in other jurisdictions. I, too, like the member for Murchison, have looked up what they're actually doing in other areas and I noticed, while they're not the same, they do have some laws with regard to posting and boasting ‑ so having meaningful changes to sentencing occurring. Has anyone been successfully deterred from posting and boasting in the first place? Hard to know. Whether there's any information that we have maybe from the other jurisdictions, whether it has actually gone down, or if there's any evidence. I will support the legislation, member, and I thank you for bringing it forward.