Kristi McVee (00:00)
Welcome back to Conversations with Kristi.
I am Kristi McVee former to WA police detective specialist child interviewer and child safety educator. And today I have a guest I have genuinely wanted to sit down with for years. Andrew Carpenter is a South Australian solicitor who has spent over a decade doing what most people won't, fighting for victims survivors of child sexual abuse through the courts and relentlessly advocating for the legislative changes that would actually protect children before harm occurs. He didn't come to this work through personal experience. He came to it through the file sitting at the bottom of the pile.
at his law firm that no one else wanted to touch. He looked at them, decided those people deserve someone in their corner and he's never looked back. Since then, Andrew has become one of the most persistent voices in Australia calling out the legal loopholes that allow offenders to hide assets and superannuation, avoid prosecution and in some cases continue working with children.
His superannuation reform campaign alone took six years of rejection before it gained traction and he kept going. This is not a comfortable conversation, but it is a necessary one and I'll hope you'll stay with us.
Let's go listen to what Andrew has to say. And I'm so glad we finally made this happen.
Kristi McVee (01:08)
Hello, Andrew. Thank you so much for being with me. I gotta say, we have been, I don't know, circling in our each other's, you know, like.
ecosystem for a long time. And I can't wait to the day that I can actually give you a hug. You're probably like super taller than me. it'll be everyone points out that I'm super short when they meet me. yeah, I just think that when did we start talking? I think it was around the time that we were trying to get the was it the register?
Andrew Carpenter (01:39)
Yeah, I think it was before then, was a long, long time ago, I think we came across each other's radar and...
Kristi McVee (01:44)
Yeah, yeah, and I think, ⁓ I know what it was. Was it around the time that we were both on with Gary Jubelin on the? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's been a while that we've been in.
Andrew Carpenter (01:51)
That's it on Predatory.
It's 2022,
2023.
Kristi McVee (01:59)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was only in my infancy when talking about this stuff and you've been around for a long time, you know, advocating for better systems and things in place. I'd love to know because I'm actually not sure how you began, you know, fighting for survivors and for victim survivors of child sexual abuse. Like, where did your journey start?
Andrew Carpenter (02:19)
Um, people think it happened to me. Um, it never happened to be as a child. When I first got my Finnish union, I started a law firm and they were the files that no one wanted to touch. Um, so these poor victims of survivors that have been, you know, thought they go to a law firm. Their files are getting handballed to everyone and no one wanted to actually do it because of the subject matter. And I thought, you know what? Well, these are my first few files. I'm going to do my best to make sure these people get justice that I actually saw it.
how much the odds are stacked against them, you know, how, how impossible it is to get security conviction, how, this was 2011, 12, so before Royal commission times, but how it was a very dark subject to talk about. was stigma associated with it. People didn't want to hear about it. You know, back then people still didn't want to talk about mental health in, you know, 2010, 11, 12. So, um, yeah, I just started doing all those matters and then
my mom worked in superannuation and she told me in 2018 about, did you know that the liberal governments are actually going to look at opening the super loop holes? And I thought, great. Every time she had like a quarterly meeting, kept asking about it and nothing. And then having children of mine in 2019, I put them in childcare for the first time in 2020 and thought, hang on, this is, you know, I have to trust other people with my kids. What can I do to make sure that
my kids and their friends will be safe. And that's when I took on the super campaign all by myself to basically say, people won't get convicted, but if you abuse a child, you stand to lose everything that you've ever worked for. And hopefully that advocacy back in that year saved a life. And hopefully the more I kick up a stink and the more, I guess, loopholes I find and ask that they be closed, it hopefully leads to saving more and more children from having to go through this horrific form of abuse.
Kristi McVee (04:09)
Yeah, yeah. ⁓ look, I just take my hat off to you because, you know, like the legislation and the legal, like the law changing part of this work is possibly the hardest part of it. And, you know, to put your
energy and effort into it. And also I think like the way you describe how you fell into the the work that you're doing kind of thing, you know, I'll just let let's have a look and let's do it. It's similar to me. I was just like, I just want to help people. I wasn't abused myself. But I just wanted to help people more. And you know, that that job seems like the best one to do. So you it sounds so much like how I got into it.
Andrew Carpenter (04:45)
Yeah, well, it's the law change,
the law change stuff that people just say, you know, what you talk about, literally it was over six years of rejection, six years of people not responding. It was six years of people not wanting to talk about this. And like to me from day one, I use this tagline years and years ago. I said, this, this super change is a no brainer. And for the people that don't know about it, it's basically there were loopholes where offenders would actually dump all of their money in super.
sell their assets until victim survivors, I've got nothing, you can't touch me. If you try to sue me, I'll declare bankruptcy. And they had millions of dollars in the superannuation, some of the old defined benefits scheme where their government employees earning 80 % of their wage per year. And the burden of that fell to the taxpayer and the victim survivors couldn't get justice and seeing their perpetrators driving around in brand new cars and living in multi-million dollar houses, which were bought through self-moneyed super funds.
Kristi McVee (05:19)
Yep.
Andrew Carpenter (05:40)
It was disgusting and there's no deterrent. the reason I believe it was Dr. Judy Curtin did a study in the Victorian law reform institute took it up where it's three out of a thousand people get convicted. And when you look at that, you think, you know, well, the conviction rate is appalling, but the civil success rate is way higher. I mean, in 15, 16 years, I haven't lost a big matter like this.
When you see people getting settlements against institutions for something where the criminal charters don't come to fruition, that's the only form of justice that they get. And when you're suing the offender, it's actually the deterrent factor. I the reason why I'm not going 110 Ks an hour down the side street on my way to work is I don't want the fine. You look at anyone using their phone in the car speeding.
Kristi McVee (06:09)
Yep.
Andrew Carpenter (06:25)
red light cameras, notice people don't care about the demerit points, they care about the fines. And that's what's actually stopping people from committing traffic offenses. And so if we turn it around and say, if you harm a child, you stand to lose everything you have worked for, that might be the biggest deterrent that there is.
Kristi McVee (06:41)
Yeah, and I mean, you and I both know that in Australia, especially that the that you know, it's not there's not one person that does these offences. They are of every race, religion, culture. But a lot of them are in positions of power and authority and they have a lot to lose if it's financially they're losing. I mean, they don't even lose their credibility and they're standing in the community because people don't believe victims.
Andrew Carpenter (07:07)
Yeah, and we saw the mayor in, I think Victoria today that they're trying to make him resign because he did a character reference for a convicted child sex offender. And to have someone like that stand up and say, I know this guy is a great bloke. You don't want to be a person that's holding some form of public office celebrating and heralding a person that's convicted of abusing a child. I spend half my time on Instagram deleting comments on my page where people say, ⁓ the judge was a sex offender and it's like,
It's not the case. It's not the judge that makes the laws. It's the parliament. And until the parliament step up and start implementing significant mandatory minimum sentences, then this is a thing. And so the fact that I get hundreds, if not thousands of comments a month of people directing blame at a judge, I'm like, it's not the judge. It's the law as it's currently framed. And until people start seeing this area as a necessity to legislate,
we're not going to see any significant change. And the reason, in my view, we're not getting politicians enacting tougher laws is because it's not a subject that people want to hear about. It's not a vote getter. People will turn the channel if they hear someone talking about child sexual abuse. And it's anyone that has children or look at me. I, if I see anything on TV about a dog being harmed, I turn the channel and
Kristi McVee (08:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Most people don't want to see harm to children if they're a parent because it brings, you you put your child in that child's position and it's too close to home.
Andrew Carpenter (08:23)
I unfortunately lived the reality.
But most people actually think we have strong laws. I mean the South Australian government said they're going to have the toughest laws in the country for child sexual offenders. However, it was the 1st of July, 2025, when the South Australian government banned convicted child sex offenders from working in places frequented by children. And you think, what? Last year, and our governments, we've...
Kristi McVee (08:53)
First of July, do like less than a year ago.
Andrew Carpenter (08:57)
We've requested our group has been seeking a child sex offender registry for years and a lot of people that are speaking out about that, they're worried about vigilante behavior. Now I have not encountered anyone in my years of practice that has gone out and assaulted someone that abused their child. It just doesn't happen.
Kristi McVee (09:15)
No, there's
legislation in place to protect that anyway and in Western Australia we have that. In all states they have some sort form of legislation to protect the harm of someone who is, you know, it's just to protect you know that vigilante justice and we have that in Western Australia and we have a sort of similar to the Daniel
Andrew Carpenter (09:38)
Daniel's
Law.
Kristi McVee (09:39)
Daniel's law where you can look it up. Like I can put my address in, put my driver's license number in and see which sex offenders are in my area. I only get a photo. I don't get a name or a description or which house they're at. just get, now I know who they look, what they look like. That's what's in Western Australia. And it doesn't get, you know, if you do share that on Facebook, social media or any of those places, because it's got like that embedded driver's license number into the photo, you can't share it anywhere because it
you can be arrested for it.
Andrew Carpenter (10:09)
One thing that all the states except ACT in Victoria have failed since in November 2024, there was a High Court decision that came out and said that institutions are not liable for the acts of their volunteers. So for instance, a priest is not an employee, a priest is a volunteer. Scout leaders is not an employee, it's a volunteer. So what the High Court said is the current legislation protects these institutions.
Kristi McVee (10:25)
Thank you.
Andrew Carpenter (10:35)
And so anyone that was sexually abused by a priest, by a scout leader, by a person in a volunteer decision will not be able to sue the institution. But what the high court said was wink, wink. However, if every state and territory changes the civil liability act and extend it to volunteers, then this loophole will be closed. Now it's been almost 540 days since November 14, 2024 and only two states
have said they're closing this loophole. So what our states are effectively saying is we will take the sides of these billion dollar institutions rather than the sides of child, so victim survivors. And so unfortunately that falls onto the taxpayer where the taxpayer is basically picking up the tab for Centrelink Medicare, PBS, rent assistance, all Walses billion dollar institutions and wiping their hands. Now there's been no one jumping up and screaming as loudly as I am simply saying,
close this loophole, it is protecting these institutions that harbour offenders. And the people, the one thing that I saw online with this hack was people saying, oh, you know, the high court must be doing it. It's like, it's not the high court and judges can only rule based on what the law is. And if they're simply screaming out saying states change this legislation, so this doesn't happen. And we're talking tens of thousands of individuals that are now precluded.
Kristi McVee (11:44)
is
Andrew Carpenter (12:00)
From bringing action against these institutions. People don't realize the Royal Commission into institutional abuse wasn't just about child abuse. It was about the organizations, the hierarchies, the structures, the avoidance of paying judge, the protection of the churches. And if we're going through a Royal Commission and churches are still able to rely upon legal loopholes, mean, how in Victoria, they used to actually argue that
Kristi McVee (12:11)
neglect.
Andrew Carpenter (12:25)
the churches were not liable because they're not entities, they're property trusts. And so that was one thing that was closed.
Kristi McVee (12:32)
It's
wild to me. It's wild to me. like, we know, we know we've dealt with survivors who that these people were they were aware of their offending and they moved them from from, you know, place to place to get them out of the situation where they had to be accountable. So they are because they didn't take action. And that's why we have mandatory reporting laws that, you know,
as well as they are. You know we have managed our reporting because of people who didn't do the right thing.
Andrew Carpenter (13:04)
I believe it was, there was a school in Western Australia, I think it's either the Anglican or Catholic Church. No, it was the Catholic because it was run by the Christian brothers, no, Christian brothers, sorry. was the Christian brothers in Adelaide. And so what happened, there was a priest in Western Australia that was abusing children throughout the 50s and 60s. He then moved to South Australia where he kept doing it. So the church knew what was happening. They moved him.
Kristi McVee (13:12)
I did a lot of investigating on Christian but
Andrew Carpenter (13:31)
Happened in South Australia, they moved to Sydney. Now when it came to the Royal Commission, one of the retired High Court judges that was running the Royal Commission, it was a Supreme Court judge, one of them, they actually said to ⁓ the rector of the Christian Brothers what was happening. And this is a quote that back then we thought that the sexual abuse of a child was a moral fault rather than any illegal conduct. And the judge said,
That's outrageous to suggest that. this was 2014. So this is 12 years ago that one of the heads of the Christian Brothers was saying that child sexual abuse was a moral fault, not an illegal activity. And this is what happened. There's been, I've dealt with schools in South Australia where they've, they had a teacher that was known to abusing children and there was,
unfound rumors that this teacher was actually in a relationship with another higher up of the school and they were abusing children or through it. When he was finally fired, he moved overseas to a typical country where people charged with certain acts go and there's photos online of this person teaching at schools over there.
Kristi McVee (14:40)
runaway.
Andrew Carpenter (14:45)
And this was a person that had decades of history of allegations and the school kept employing him. And then they moved him to the state. There's another one that was moved from a school here to remote communities in the Northern Territory where further disadvantaged youth. And again, allegations and what the schools were fearful of back then is they were worried about work covered claims and unfair dismissal claims instead of
the safety of their children.
Kristi McVee (15:10)
And reputation,
what I find at the moment is when I see or hear like schools at the moment is reputation. If they say like they don't take action or they take action, like they're literally doing the same things within what they can do, right? So they might just fire the teacher, but they don't actually let everyone know that, why they fired someone or.
That they're so scared of reputation and the reputation of the school. Whereas as a parent, as a person who respects.
honesty, integrity, authenticity, et cetera. I would rather to know that a school's taking action or early childhood centers taking action and protecting kids by doing the right things than hiding it from me. I would actually be more inclined to trust that person or trust that service. But what we're seeing is now because everyone's so scared of like having a worker or a teacher in their service that has that. And we know, you and I know that
people who they have that abuse children, they're going to put themselves in positions of power authority over children. That means they're at higher risk of going into early childhood education schools, anywhere that there's children. That's where they go. That's where they naturally go to. So yeah, I just don't think, I think that it's still going on. They're just doing it differently now.
Andrew Carpenter (16:26)
Yeah. And what used to happen in the seventies, eighties and nineties is that teachers right away wouldn't believe their students. They would just simply say, absolutely not. And if you talk about this, you'll be expelled. Or if you talk about this, you will go to detention with the same person that abused them. It was never, it was never spoken seriously. And it's only in recent times where schools have actually started acting. Like I had one,
It was a guy called Thomas Ackland where he was convicted in, think, 2022 or 2023. And he was messaging students. And it actually got to the point where someone reported him to the police. The police went out to the school and said, Hey, you know, you're you've been missing students on Snapchat. And he's like, No, I haven't. Oh, case closed. And then a person at the school actually called a crime stoppers and said, this teacher is continues.
message children on social media and all the school did was call a staff meeting say all right everyone just remember the social media guidelines don't communicate with students this guy was convicted with sexually abusing multiple children there was one of physical abuse and I think there's 13 or 14 counts of online exploitation and this could have been stopped it could have been stopped
the second that it started. There's also multiple schools. There's one guy in Adelaide called Stephen Hamra who he was, he was the head of a school and he was actually charged with abusing a child in the nineties. And all the school did was saying, don't do it again. The teachers didn't actually know that he was charged. There was an investigation and
remained at the school where he continued to abuse children and you think back then that this was the 90s nearly 2000s. You know if you've got police coming out and saying we believe we have enough to convict this person but we can't because the victim survivor doesn't want to go ahead. Why is this person still there? And this was 30 years ago, this wasn't the 1950s where this was right and the fact that the example about Ackland shows that not only five years ago
Kristi McVee (18:26)
my
Andrew Carpenter (18:35)
that this person was actively grooming and abusing children online, that the school knew about it. The school had two reports from police and he continued to do it until he was finally caught. It's insane that this is even a topic that we're broaching, that people in positions of power are doing this. I mean, we know that 80 % of child abuse is committed by a family member. We know it's about 92 % committed by someone known. And so the whole strange danger thing is
it's very rare that someone's going to be abused by a stranger. But when you start seeing this happen at schools, at churches, why wouldn't the government throw everything you can at these? I mean, look at the childcare center, for instance, how people want to take their kids out of childcare. Imagine how quickly there would have been change across the board if legislation was passed through parliament and it said, if any child is abused at a childcare center,
The childcare center is liable for the acts of their employees. You watch how quickly they start tearing down walls, how quickly they start making open plan areas, how they remove blind spots, how they take away phones and devices.
Kristi McVee (19:41)
how
they stop cramming kids in when they don't have enough staff.
Andrew Carpenter (19:45)
You watch how quickly places like that act when they realize that their balls are on the line if anything happens. That is the way that you clean up this industry is having financial penalties. Until then, these centers, they'll just rely upon profits over protection.
Kristi McVee (20:01)
I wonder also what goes through my mind as well is like, and this is a question that I've been thinking a lot about the last year is, know, like the parents are literally the ones, especially when it's a child in early childhood education and schools, they're the ones who have to now front up the costs for.
rehab, like for their child to get help to get healed, like to have the support to counseling services, you know, all of these things where it shouldn't be their responsibility when it was happening in a center that was meant to in, you know, ensure that they were protected and they were safe. also, parents are left holding the bag basically.
Andrew Carpenter (20:36)
and
Yeah, it's centers like this continue to operate. And that's why the easiest way to protect children is make sure that these centers are liable for everything. Like people don't realize that parents with a child that's been abused, they have to take time off of work once a week to take their child to counseling. They have to pay for the upfront costs of treatment, of medication, of you know, it's not like someone just goes, right, you go to a psychologist.
every week for a year. have to go back to the GP every few months and get a new plan. It's the toll on that and relationships break down because of what happens to children and the offenders, if they are acquitted, which is more likely than not, they sit down and they're happy to continue work.
Kristi McVee (21:17)
Yeah.
moment there.
Yeah.
And also I think the working with children's checks, like, I don't think people realize how many loopholes there are. Like there's literally, what these flash fast reviews have been happening around the country about early childhood education. the Royal commission called all of this stuff out 10, 15 years ago and said, you needed to have a nationalized system. You needed to have a register. You needed to have all of these things and they haven't happened, right?
We're all commissioned with recommendations that were meant to happen, haven't happened. We've got these flash reviews of all of this stuff. And yet they're still talking about they can't make it work. And so people are constantly, these perpetrators are constantly finding the gaps and exposing, like we're exposing our children, the government, not just the government, but all of these businesses, these organizations.
are exposing our children to harm because personally if it was me and I was running an in like a child-based business, child safety should be the number one priority over everything.
Andrew Carpenter (22:26)
Yeah. And you look at, um, so it's, it's a bit off topic, but it's kind of the same thing. It was a guy from the UK that I think it was two or three weeks ago that, um, when he was arrested, so he was, went to trial and found not guilty a few years ago, sexual abuse of a child, and then was found guilty again last year of it. And as part of that finding of guilt, he had an automatic revocation of his, um, his visa and he actually appealed that. And the court ruled that he.
He wasn't a danger to children. he faced two charges and he's on a visa and he's living in Australia. All his family were born overseas and it was same because of his ill health. He couldn't be deported. Now when you see things like that where it's like the government has the power to deport any convicted child sex offender and they don't, the same thing deals with child sex offenders that have worked with children's certificate. How many times have you seen people go to tribunals?
to try and argue that, I shouldn't be on this list. I'm going to suffer because, know, I won't be able to work. I won't be able to do X, Y, and Z. My family will be at a loss if I'm not working in this industry. It's, there's a famous quote from an old FBI director that said, I look forward to the day where victims survivors get a first chance before offenders get a second chance. And anyone that offends against a child, should be, no, you're out. You you are.
You're out of the industry, you're out of this country, you're out of this role. It should be right. Well, you you've been a teacher for 30 years, you've abused a child. Well, guess what? Too bad. You're not working with children anymore. Yeah.
Kristi McVee (23:51)
Go and read, read, it. Go and find another
industry. Go be a chipper or a like. Go somewhere where you're supposed to children every day.
Andrew Carpenter (23:59)
Yeah, but you see over and over again is that convicted child sex offenders like the City Chips Cafe in in Queensland, a convicted child sex offender was working at a play farm and then the the owner of the cafe said that he's been fired and he's not going there anymore. A month later, a current affair went back there and he's still working there. And you think how are these people getting access to children? How are they getting second chances?
Kristi McVee (24:24)
Yeah.
Andrew Carpenter (24:24)
You
see it across the board that they're continuously popping up in areas that have children around and it's almost like, well you look at America for instance, you look at some of the American sentences compared to Australian sentences for child sexual abuse. You have some people that might get suspended sentences here, but they'd be getting 20 years in America. There was a guy yesterday that I did video on, he was caught with 324 videos of recording women
in bathrooms, which occurred over a year period. And then when he when the police searched his house, they found explosive and weapons, he got a six month suspended sentence. And you think with that is the difficulty with that, they probably couldn't identify the 324 women which led to it. But in America, you see all these like say murders, for instance, you see someone getting 300 life sentences plus 20 years.
Kristi McVee (25:08)
Yes.
Andrew Carpenter (25:18)
where in Australia, you're never seeing people getting arrested with two images, with 10 images, with 100 images. It's hundreds of thousands of images of child exploitation material. And we're not seeing life sentences. There was a guy in Mount Gambier that was sentenced last week for 24 years, non-parole with 30 years full sentence. And that was for horrific abuse and creation of images and videos. I think that's six or seven children.
And that's when you think, yes, you know, our government is strengthening these laws in this contact defending. But when it comes to these images, they're not. I've always been a big proponent of there should be a sliding scale of sentences. If you have a hundred images, it's minimum X sentence. If you have a thousand, it's minimum Y. If you have 10,000, it's minimum X.
Kristi McVee (26:03)
The fact is we don't have any minimum sentencing for any of this stuff, even for contact offending. don't, you know, like they've got a maximum offending, maximum penalty, but.
you know, we know that it goes off of case law of like previous cases of the how we're had, they have to look at it. So it's not inherently, you know, over the top or in just or what's the word that I'm looking for? There's a word specific word that they go and appeal on because they say it's like excessive, excessive sentencing. you know, if a, if a manager and a lot of people don't understand this, a lot of people look to the police, look to the justice system or look to the legal system.
and go they're going to keep us safe they're going to protect us and it's not the case that it's not it's just got so many limitations to what it can do and it doesn't when it comes to child sexual abuse it does not it there's too many loopholes and you're you've
Andrew Carpenter (26:56)
And that's why it's
so frustrating. I see all these viral comments online directing at judges and magistrates. It's like, it's not them. If our government enacts strong laws regarding minimum sentencing of people engaged in child sexual abuse, then that is going to be the win for everyone, at least. the fact that I see comments about people saying that judges and magistrates are on this, it's...
It's not and they say that, you know, politicians and yeah.
Kristi McVee (27:25)
Well, say it about the police too. They say it about the
police and they say it about every part of it. It's like, well, that's...
And they say it about the government and stuff like that. And it's really frustrating because I'm not saying that there isn't people in those positions that haven't got some form of like, you know, there's going to be because statistically speaking, as you know, and I know, they're everywhere. So there is people in those positions that have got that predilection. But then it's not the way it's just what we've the loop.
Andrew Carpenter (27:57)
I
think in South Australia, there's only been one convicted politician. was a called Bernard Finnegan and that was 2007, 2008 and that was possession of images. I haven't seen or heard of any sitting politician in South Australia or sitting judge or magistrate or attorney general, anything like that. I've never heard any one of them even being suspected or alleged to have committed anything because it's not a
People think there's people walk around in cloaks and drinking children's bloods things like that. It's not people don't realize that the most dangerous place for a child is at the family home. It's not a magistrate or a police officer or a politician doing something nefarious outside of ours. It's mixed families. It's the weird uncle. It's the step grandfather, step uncle. And that's why it's just so unfair that people are actually blaming
Kristi McVee (28:34)
Yeah.
Andrew Carpenter (28:51)
police officers and judges and magistrates for these sentences when they are simply bound by precedent.
Kristi McVee (28:58)
So yeah,
precedent is the word because it's what has happened in the past. Therefore, that's all they're bound to be able to do now. So I guess that's the question really, like as an individual, as someone listening.
it's signing ⁓ petitions and it's being vocal about this stuff and letting your local government know that you want them to be harder on these legislation. You want them to vote for better legislation. you agree?
Andrew Carpenter (29:27)
Yeah, that's why
everyone that talks in my videos, you know, what can we do to help? I say, just tag LocMP and talk about it. The most important thing we could do is have these uncomfortable conversations. You think 20 years ago, no one spoke about mental health. 10 years ago, no one spoke about suicide. Five years ago, no one spoke about domestic violence. And once people start speaking about these things, that's when you realize that this is an uncomfortable, but it's a conversation we need to have. It was 2020.
for the Australian maltreatment study that showed that one in three girls and one in five boys will be sexually abused on their 18th birthday. Yet that's not something that is actively spoken about. And for anyone watching, next time you drop your kids at school in a 30 student classroom, statistically three boys and five girls, so eight out of that 30 student classroom will be sexually abused. And when you look at it that way, you think, right, this is something we need to do.
So tag your local member of parliament, sign petitions that you see about child sexual offenses and actually start saying, this is a real problem that we need to actually discuss and try to legislate around. Because if we don't protect our children, then what are we doing as a country? We're failing as a country if our most vulnerable people are not protected. And there was a post I put up a while ago and it was
It took my breath away. I can't remember the exact words, but it was speaking about how, you know, she was asking for it said the short skirt, you know, she was begging for it said the drink. And then there was, said, hang on, had a, you had, you knew what was wrong, said the child. Cause most children don't know what's happening to them. They don't know what has happened. They don't know what is happening. They are worried that, you know, if you tell anyone,
Kristi McVee (31:04)
No.
have no power in that situation.
Andrew Carpenter (31:10)
Like I was walking with my one year old last night at the shopping center and we're walking across the road holding my hand. I let go of my hand to answer my phone for a second and he had no idea what was going on. He didn't know what to work, what to look. So which way to walk, where to go. And that's because children are vulnerable and reliant upon us. And that's why these sickos expose them. We're seeing it now within the NDIS. We're seeing people start to offend against people that have intellectual disabilities.
that are silent, are young, that are completely vulnerable and I've heard in the past that police can't investigate these because the victim survivor can't talk.
Kristi McVee (31:46)
Yeah, and I can talk to this if there's no way to report that and if they're if a victim so this is why they don't investigate children under the age of three unless there's video evidence of the abuse they can't investigate anything they don't even interview children under the age of three because of the fact that they don't believe that a child's memory is you know effective enough or or okay enough to be able to because around three there's a lot of developmental stuff that happened that basically they prune all of those memories and
then
they move on. a lot of people who were abused before three and it doesn't continue, they can't remember it. Their body remembers they have the, you know, ongoing trauma from that, but they can't remember the actual incidents. So it's really interesting. any nonverbal, anyone who can't even verbalize what's happened to them, they've literally, police can't, won't.
Andrew Carpenter (32:35)
Yeah. And what's happening
now, offenders in order to prevent themselves having exploitation to on their phone, they're paying people overseas to live stream it. And you think what's the first thing you see on the news when a biker gets arrested? You see their cars getting towed. You see them walking out with, you know, nice bottles of scotch and jewelry and motorbikes. the...
Kristi McVee (32:43)
I know.
Everything's getting seized by the, you know, like,
what are they, proceeds of crime. Everything's getting...
Andrew Carpenter (33:01)
Yeah, but you
see a person that's got 100,000 images that doesn't work, that's driving a brand new car, has a nice house. They're using these images as currency and you never seeing these individuals getting their assets frozen. had back when I started the super campaign, I think it was maybe 21 or 22. I had a, I think it was the department of home affairs or someone. They actually said, we've heard about your work. Can we talk to you about something? I'm like, had a chat.
And they said, we're actually setting up a special compensation fund for individuals who have been abused online overseas by Australian nationals. And we want to set up this fund. It was 90 something million dollars back in 2021, 2022. They were dedicated into this. they said that there's been individuals that have been identified in these images that we want to actually set up a fund for. And I said, all right, two questions. Who's funding this? Oh, well, the taxpayer.
Second question, why?
Kristi McVee (33:53)
Why aren't you funding Australian victims?
Andrew Carpenter (33:55)
Why wouldn't a person who's been arrested and convicted of sexually abusing children online in foreign countries, why aren't their assets being sold to satisfy any sums to the survivors? Why is it the Australian taxpayer that again has to meet the costs of these crimes? mean, there was a study from Bravehearts in 2016 where at that time they said that the average cost
So the annual cost to the Australian taxpayer could be as high as $30.1 billion in 2016. And you think by the amount of counseling, medical treatment, Centrelink, PBS, housing assistance, all that kind of stuff that add up, you think how many billions a year this costs the Australian taxpayer and how much is going back into that? Probably none. When these offenders get arrested and charged, they're not losing their assets.
They're using loopholes to hide assets in either themselves or their spouse or declaring bankruptcy. Or look at Barry Cable, for instance, who was acquitted last week. When it came to his trial, he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to prevent the civil trial from ever going ahead. And then the night before the trial, he declared bankruptcy. And so those people will never see, yeah, will never see a cent of that. But that's part of the Super campaign. We said that
Kristi McVee (34:50)
other things.
Andrew Carpenter (35:11)
If you're a fraudster, for instance, you could declare bankruptcy in three years time, you could have your house again. Victims of fraud, there's like, bankruptcy does not extinguish the debts in fraud. shouldn't be, a victim survivor shouldn't be excluded from having a second crack at someone if they declare bankruptcy because they're using bankruptcy as a further level of control over the victim survivors.
Kristi McVee (35:32)
Yes, so true. I look, I love that you expose all of this and you're, you know, pointing a light on it because I think people like yourself who do it so like, because you're not coming from that trauma background, sometimes trauma makes it really easy for it to be really emotive. You're just so direct and you're just so like, you're just given the facts and spitting facts. So it's hard to ignore, right?
Andrew Carpenter (35:56)
It's
just facts and simply saying that this is a government issue, not a court issue. And these are the things that should be creating outrage amongst Australians. We do not want to see people harming children be our neighbors. We don't want to see men that go into that illegally record, or men and women, but the guy from the other day that was recording women in toilets. We don't want to see that person out in the streets because if he's been dealing with a lifelong
Paralytic disorder? Yeah, if he's been doing that his whole life, they're not going to stop right away if that's his...
Kristi McVee (36:24)
Paraphilia, yeah, paraphilic disorder.
I need
psychotherapy to be able to, you know, first of all, come to grips with what he's done. And then second of all, take accountability and third of all, stop it because, know, a lot of these offenders, don't actually like, they're not taking accountability. Therefore, how can you say I'm doing, if you don't say I'm doing something wrong, then you can't stop what you're doing.
Andrew Carpenter (36:53)
How many offenders, the first thing they do is they blame either work or relationship issues for their offending. I've seen that many times of people that say that because of stresses of their work, they turn to downloading exploitation material or because of stresses at work or break down relationship, they deal with children. It's because they lose control over a woman. So then they go and say, well, hang on, I don't have anyone to bully or assault anymore.
Kristi McVee (37:16)
Yes.
Andrew Carpenter (37:20)
who's going to put up with my shit. I know I'll go find my neighbor's child. I'll groom the neighbors for years. And they'll say, no, go have a night out with your friends. I'll watch your kids. And that's when they do it. And that's when they say, if you tell anyone, I know where you live. And people don't listen to their children. If your child, and I've seen it with with victims, survivors of mine where they have a favorite, one example had a favorite godfather. This person lived in the state.
Kristi McVee (37:34)
Yeah. ⁓
Andrew Carpenter (37:48)
this child loved the Godfather. All they wanted to do is, when's he coming? When's he gonna come visit us? And then we're going to stay for holidays, come back by themselves. And after one holiday, I never want to go back there again. Parents are like, no, you have to go back. You love him. Never want to go back. No, you have to. We've already paid the flight. Not, why don't you want to go there? And abuse happened again. And years after the fact when it was, so after it was discovered, the parents go, my God, we wish we didn't send her back there. It's like,
Kristi McVee (38:03)
It's a new sign, wasn't it?
Andrew Carpenter (38:15)
Well, you didn't ask why, just said, no, you paid for the fights. That's one thing I always tell people, have discussions with your children. If there's a reason why they don't want to go, ask. And you're not going to be in trouble if you tell the truth. I don't care if anyone says you're going to be in trouble, we're your parents, we'll protect you. Tell us what happened.
Kristi McVee (38:33)
Yeah. I mean, look, how much damage has been done by the...
parents who just didn't think to ask that question because and they did and kids were scared like they're scared by their offenders their offenders have control and power over them but one of the points that you made about you know they they lose their job or their marriage or whatever and then they start offending against I saw that time and time again people who seem to be normal and have families and have relationships and everything like everything falls to hell like they're in their own little you know bubble of like
I've lost my job, I've lost my marriage, I've lost this, I've lost that, because effectively that's what's happened to them. And then they go and offend against their children, or their grandchildren, or their neighbor's child, or whoever, and that.
There's so much more to this. I'm not a psychologist, but I saw it time and time again. So you know, when we see these, like there's no explanation, but if people don't take responsibility, they're not going to be rehabilitated. I was going to ask you the question because it gets asked to me all the time. Do you think offenders can be rehabilitated?
Andrew Carpenter (39:35)
I don't think so. don't think like the severity of people. When you have someone that's possesses one image and they've done it, they say, look, I downloaded a trench then I didn't know the person. Yes, they can. But when you have people that they've set up hidden cameras and like there was one chiropractor in Adelaide, he set up hidden cameras and he had hundreds of thousands of images, but he's actually saved everything in separate files.
and descriptions and ages, people like that can't be rehabilitated. If you've been doing stuff like that over a period of years, look at smokers for instance. You can't tell a person that's been smoking for 20 years, I'll just quit today. How often will they say, I could go with cigarette right now? The worse the worse, there's no way that they can be rehabilitated. But you think this is...
Kristi McVee (40:09)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, think it takes
ultimate accountability, ultimate accountability. Like you have to take real accountability of yourself to change anything really.
Andrew Carpenter (40:34)
Well, how many people do
you see in sentencing remarks where the judges say that they haven't shown any contritional remorse and they still deny the offending, even though that they've been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt? How often do you see that? It's very rare that an offender puts their hand up and says, yeah, I've done everything. I've done it all. Yeah, I've got a problem. The only time they do that is when they try to save their ass, not because they're truly sorry for what they've done. They're sorry they've been caught, not sorry for what they've done.
Kristi McVee (40:55)
Yeah.
Because in the, because in the
when I've had to sit across the table from child sex offenders, convicted sex offenders who had to do their reporting. And, you know, one of the questions is, you know, like you go through like this checklist and I would say what caused you to offend and they were still denying it in, you know, as a convicted offender. And, you know, the only way that they can actually get support in prison is to admit that they're an offender in prison to be able to get any type of counseling or support. So most of them don't even get support in
prison and they don't get any, you know, like they don't go through any type of rehabilitation unless they have to sit there and say, I'm a sex offender. so.
Andrew Carpenter (41:36)
They won't.
There's always an excuse as to why they did that. It's never, you know, I'm a disgusting human being, I just did this, or I'm a narcissist, I want to control people. There's always an excuse they use. Look at drink driving, for instance. know, someone goes to court, you I had two drinks at the bar I thought it was a limit, and I'm an idiot, I'll never do it again, I'm so sorry.
or a young kid that got in a punch on at a pub, someone was mean to me and threw a swing so I hit him once and punched him on the floor. It's out of character for me. I'll never do it again. How often do you see convicted sex offenders say, I just wanted to control this child? It just doesn't happen.
Kristi McVee (42:16)
No, it's because there's so much stigma and taboo around it. mean, the Australian government's investing all this money into prevention education or prevention services with the Jesuit.
you know, with Stop It Now Australia and Just Do It all of that, they've got like so many millions, you know, put aside for that. So it's just interesting to me. I wish that we it was put I wish that we could just say yes. I think one of the things you keep bringing up is like the images and stuff like that. And you recently gave a did a video on Instagram about where the second largest consumers of
child sexual exploitation material live streamed, think, it? ⁓
Andrew Carpenter (42:54)
Yeah, was from the Internet Watch Foundation. saw
a reel on that where it's a few years ago, Australia was number three and now we've overtaken the UK. And you think, how is this happening? But it's the close proximity to the Philippines and Southeast Asian countries where these sickos that go over on their sex tours and they meet people and they can stream things online and people that are addicts, they're doing it multiple times a day. It's not.
Kristi McVee (43:18)
Yeah, doing
their work, they're doing it when they're with their families, like it's extreme. And I think a lot of people aren't aware of it. then, you know, as a parent, as a wife or a partner or whoever, you're not realizing that your partner's going off to watch live sex rape, like live abuse of children.
Andrew Carpenter (43:36)
And it's, yeah,
it's the fact that they're paying for it as well and they're using crypto and you think that they're using all these weird apps, do it. Why aren't these governments shutting down these apps right away? and you look at, there's a lot of people that they, you know, they dress up and they pretend to be people, they're not police officers and they try and catch people and punish them that way. It's like, it's, to me, it's the opposite effect of time. There's some people that do it out of a genuine concern.
but there's a lot of people overseas that are actually doing it for clout and views where they're actually getting sponsored ads to do it.
Kristi McVee (44:08)
My perspective, like there's a (SOSA) SOSA in America that do they work together with law enforcement to catfish basically predators and catch them out. So they're a female run not for profit. And so I followed they had their own TV show that they were like helping explain how they talk to them. Like, we have those police officers, Task Force Argos and in West Australia, South Australian police. But I just think law enforcement are over
run the online child exploitation has exploded especially around COVID. I think COVID really changed the game for online child exploitation and AI.
Andrew Carpenter (44:44)
and AI, but the law
is not even close to catching up with technology yet.
Kristi McVee (44:50)
No, no, we will. can see that because, you know, we've got a notify apps that can notify an image in five seconds. And, you know, like the thing is, that anyone can use that and we still haven't blocked them from being used in Australia. So.
Andrew Carpenter (45:03)
And there was
a kid in South Australia last week, he pled guilty to generating a naked image of, I don't know if it's another student or a former, I think he was 19. So not sure if he did it for an underage person or not, that's the first that I believe, the first conviction that has been of generated AI abuse material in South Australia. I don't know about the other states, but I think this kid was 18 and 19 and.
I don't know if it's a girl from his school or if she was under 18 or not, but I mean, the fact AI has been out for what, two or three years now?
Kristi McVee (45:38)
⁓ look, 2020, they were
already using AI to try and create child abuse material. just was used to take a lot of programming. Now it's literally an app and you can do it. And we've got...
Andrew Carpenter (45:51)
Well,
one thing I like asking the people is I don't know any normal human being that knows how to get on the dark web. And I've seen, so like my mom about probably a year or two ago got an iPhone. She, when they turned off all the 3G networks, she had to get an iPhone. She has no idea how to use it. She grew up in the, you never had computers at school. Yeah. But you're seeing guys that are in their seventies and eighties that are being busted with hundreds of thousands of images that they got off the dark web. And you think,
Kristi McVee (46:06)
Yeah.
Andrew Carpenter (46:19)
How on earth are people getting on that? I learned about the dark web probably in uni where there was like a website called Silk Road where people were using it to buy drugs online. And that's what I, I just thought, you know, the dark web was for that. It wasn't to actually start a work in this area that I use that the dark web is mainly about exploitation material, selling people's IDs or, you know, bank details online. And you think,
Kristi McVee (46:27)
road.
transit.
Andrew Carpenter (46:48)
what what normal person knows how to get on that, let alone someone that has not grown up in a computer age. There was a guy years ago, had 330,000 images saved on USBs around his house that he got from the dark web. And you think this guy, because I think I was in year, I think years five or six, when I remember the first time we had computing as a lesson at school, and that was late 90s.
And late 90s, that guy would have been in his 50s and 60s. And that guy wouldn't have known how to switch a computer, let alone going. And I've asked people, and apparently you have to buy all this different infrastructure to even get on the dark web. And you think, who would know how to do that?
Kristi McVee (47:28)
Yeah, well, you've got to, mean, if you really want to use it effectively, you've obviously got to hide yourself, cloak yourself. Otherwise law enforcement can find you. You know, you get flagged by certain, your IP gets flagged. you know, like law enforcement of ⁓ fighting a battle of like excess because there's so many people doing it. I think one of the warning signs that I really say is any person who has a partner who's really
⁓ really secretive over their devices you can't even look at them most people most people like most women would or partners would go ⁓ they're cheating but you know like if they're really secretive over their devices you're not allowed to look at part you're not allowed to the passwords you know that you can't look over their shoulder and see what they're doing they're not sharing that online life with you then there's something really you know fishy going on
Andrew Carpenter (48:17)
or they have hidden
hard drives somewhere or they have unexplained computer equipment. They couldn't tell you what it is or what it does. Yeah, there's warning signs, just people don't know it. that's a thing that, like I said, 20 years ago, we had no idea what a panic attack was. Or if someone was having it, you wouldn't even know what they were doing. Hell, five years ago, people didn't even know what the signs of endometriosis were. just think, and this is a thing that
Kristi McVee (48:20)
Yeah.
Yep, yep, yep.
Andrew Carpenter (48:43)
The more people talking about it, the more laws we can pass, more we talk about it, the more children we can save.
Kristi McVee (48:50)
Yeah and I think everyone needs to be following you because you're doing a really good job with you know not only bringing awareness but also the fact is is that you're pointing out where these loopholes are so people can jump on and sign that you know whether it be a petition or contact their local representative or put pressure because honestly the only way we get the governments to change this is to put pressure on them because
You know, we saw this with the just with the early childhood sectors, like because of the pressure from, four corners and every parent that was out there freaking out and still freaking out, sadly, you know, that's where the pressure came from. And so they had to go and act. And that's the only way we actually get anything changing in our in our current the way we do it. I mean, we're too Australians are too laid back when it comes to this stuff. It's not happening to my family. It's not happening to me. So therefore, I don't care.
Andrew Carpenter (49:42)
But what's not happened to their family
that they know of?
Kristi McVee (49:44)
That they know of. Yeah, I always say that. I'm like, you don't, like every family, every family has at least one person in their family that's been abused or could be abused. So it's not like it's not your family. It's just, you're not safe for them to tell.
Well, thank you, Andrew. I love speaking to you. I think you're just such a great person in this space. And I didn't realize that, you you started all of this through, you know, just being brave enough to look at some victim survivors files and they don't leave you do they? Like, I don't know about you, but you just you know the image.
Andrew Carpenter (50:14)
Now you remember
names and yeah, there's things that remind them. And that's one thing about my page is I just started it for advocacy. I'm not doing it to shit on court decisions or I'm just doing it to say, Hey, this is the legislative change that we need. I don't want people to follow me that believe in vigilantism. I don't want people to follow me if they're going to consistently trash judges and magistrates and police officers. I'm just saying these are the loopholes that are open.
We need to have these discussions that need to be closed because when the stronger laws, the stronger sentencing.
Kristi McVee (50:43)
Yeah, you're welcome. And if anyone wants to follow you, where are they going to see your work?
Andrew Carpenter (50:44)
Thank you for having me.
Just
Andrew Carpenter Solicitor on Facebook and Instagram. I don't have TikTok, I don't have Twitter, but I know a lot of my stuff gets shared on there. yeah, I just want to use a platform to try to inspire change and protect children.
Kristi McVee (50:59)
Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah. And you're doing it well. I really am grateful that we have you and that you keep highlighting it and you do a good job because you've actually had some changes. I mean, you had one campaign where they took the name off the building finally. So, you know, you do you're doing good work. You're welcome.
Andrew Carpenter (51:21)
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Kristi McVee (51:23)
If you've been listening to this episode and you're feeling that mix of rage and helplessness that I think is the appropriate response to what Andrew just shared, I want you to channel it into something useful. Follow Andrew, he's on Facebook and Instagram under Andrew Carpenter Solicitor.
His content will show you exactly which loopholes need closing, which petitions need signing and which politicians need to be hearing from you. Tag your local member, make some noise. That is how legislative change happens in this country. Uncomfortable, persistent public pressure.
And if this conversation has made you think about what's happening in your own community, whether it be in your child's school, their sporting club, their online world, that's what I'm here for. Head to (www.)kristimcvee.com for resources, education and tools to help you have those conversations with your kids. Because Andrew is right, every family has at least one person who has been affected by this. We just haven't made it safe enough to talk about yet. Thank you for being here. I'll see you in the next episode.
