Raids in every state and territory began yesterday. Police say the child pornography ring includes teachers, police and a childcare owner and is linked to organised crime groups in Europe.
Scott Thompson, the owner of three childcare centres in Melbourne's eastern and northeastern suburbs, was arrested during the investigation.
His lawyer Mark Yorston says Mr Thompson will defend the charges. He says his client has placed the centres into external administration.
"Mr Thompson voluntarily agreed not to visit the centres and that's been made one of the conditions of bail," he said.
The Victorian Opposition says there should be tougher laws regulating people working with children, but the Government says stringent checks already exist.
Gary Stacey, from the Victorian Private Childcare Association, says current laws are already far-reaching.
"The licensee implements the regulations by ensuring all the staff that are involved in child care require a police certificate and this even includes gardeners and handymen, or whatever it may be, who come near a childcare centre or are involved in a child care centre," he said.
"All those type of subsidiary staff also need police checks as well."
The Government says it will however consider broadening the range of occupations requiring checks.
By Sammy Sparrow 1 October 04
THE BIRD: If you're only looking outside for child molesters then you don't see what happens in the cracks in your own community, in your own home and the "people of the lie" - people in high places making the rules and setting the standards - supposedly leading by example. It's not the criminal or the monster or the demon.
Not even and evil person but it's people who otherwise wouldn't be asked questions. That's why we need people independent of the police or the headmaster of a school or a minister of a church or parliament - to investigate these matters. Of course we also have to worry about the collateral damage. Some people who may have been treading a very fine line between pleasure and pain.
The corporate media wouldn't see it that way because they're so "sensational" and they're not looking at pragmatic outcomes to this community problem. There also may be people caught up who have been experimenting with their sexual feelings. Sexual feelings they have not been able to control! They are not primarily producing material or directly offending. Call it sick but they download material off the net and don't necessarily get involved in producing such material or directly offending.
If there are people caught up in this that are not offending primarily but who have downloaded material off the Internet it should be seen in that light. Why? If that is what leads them to become a primary offender then that may be one solution to discourage primary offenders. Like the drug dealers opposed to the drug uses. Practical outcomes to control crime don't come out of making this rockspider bust "sensational" but by getting to the truth and finding practical outcomes and solutions to community problems and controlling crime.
Related:
Police, teachers charged in child porn bust
One-hundred-and-fifty people, including police officers and teachers, have been arrested in what the Federal Police (AFP) describe as Australia's biggest Internet child pornography bust.
Child sex offenders to be monitored in NSW
New South Wales Police Minister John Watkins says convicted child sex offenders in south-western Sydney will be monitored during a six-month trial.
NSW: Rapists more criminally versatile than Paedophiles
Parents to be given paedophile details? But rapists are more criminally versatile than Paedophiles! So who let the dogs out? Police Minister John Watkins! That's who.
NSW Prisons Inmate Development Committee speaks out
I am writing on behalf of the IDC Inmate Development Committee in area 3, MSPC at Long Bay. Area 3 is where, the Department is congregating minimum-security offenders within maximum-security walls whilst awaiting mandatory programs at Cubit (Sex Offenders Program).
Vic database to track sex offenders' movements
The Sex Offenders Registration Bill is due to be tabled in Parliament later this week. Sex offenders will have to tell police if they change their names, address or work and will not be allowed to work with children.
Today Sex offenders TOMMORROW YOU!
To suggest there is a need to restrict their movement is rubbish! This is a grab for civil liberties in NSW and it offends everyone else who is free to associate because soon it could be you who is restricted or someone you know.
Gang-rape, police, disparity and the law..
The young woman and her friend have told police they met the players in Coffs Harbour on the evening after the Bulldogs played a trial match there and went back to the team's hotel with them.
Govt stands by child sex offender program
The Western Australian Government is standing by a taxpayer-funded agency that offers conditional confidentiality to child sex offenders.
Therapy key for teen sex offenders
US: One girl allegedly was raped in the boys' bathroom at Folsom High School on a warm midday in March. Another told officials the same boy, a freshman at the school, had tried to rape her days earlier in a girls' bathroom. Two other girls told investigators the boy had committed lesser sex crimes against them at school within the previous week. If true, such a pattern of escalation is worrisome, according to experts who study and treat sex offenders.
Sexual Abuse: Testimony
I'm Debbie Ingraham, and I'm an activist for Restorative Justice. I'm also a former litigant who filed an unsuccessful civil suit against a family member for incest, and a former victim advocate. I bring a 30 year personal perspective of "real life" experiences that come from living with the effects of sexual abuse.
