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Speaker 1: Hello, Katie Wolf and three point sixty online at Mix

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Speaker 1: one O four nine dot com.

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Speaker 2: Well as parents and carers, we all want to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we keep our kids safe and while that

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Speaker 2: can be challenging in the physical sense, it's even more

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Speaker 2: daunting when you talk about the online space. Ninety five

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Speaker 2: percent of kids aged eight to seventeen years are now

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Speaker 2: accessing the Internet now. At the same time, Australia is

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Speaker 2: on track to reach twenty one thousand reports of online

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Speaker 2: child sexual exploitation in the last twelve months alone. It's

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Speaker 2: a staggering figure and yet only fifty percent of parents

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Speaker 2: admit to knowing how to keep their kids safe online.

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Speaker 2: So Closing the Net is a new podcast series and

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Speaker 2: it's been developed by the Australian Center to Counter Child

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Speaker 2: Exploitation to try and raise awareness among Australian parents around

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Speaker 2: the importance of online safety for kids. The series is

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Speaker 2: also highlighting the work of Australian Federal Police and their

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Speaker 2: partners to bring child sex offenders to just and remove

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Speaker 2: children from harm. Released today, this series features fifty five

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Speaker 2: interviews with leading child protection experts from Australia and overseas

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Speaker 2: and offers invaluable tips and advice to parents on how

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Speaker 2: to keep their kids safe in the online space. Now,

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Speaker 2: I've got kids that are in this very age group,

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Speaker 2: so to me, this is something that's incredibly important. And

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Speaker 2: joining us on the line to talk more about this

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Speaker 2: the first well for the AFP, joined by Child Protection

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Speaker 2: Operations Detective Superintendent Paula Hudson. Good morning to you, Paula.

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Speaker 1: Good morning Katie. Thank you having me on the show.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for joining us. How big

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Speaker 2: an issue is online child sexual exploitation in Australia.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, just as you touched on earlier, last financial year,

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Speaker 1: we received the Australian Center to count a Child exploitation

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Speaker 1: twenty one thousand reports of tip off of Australia based

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Speaker 1: users potentially accessing and distributing child exploitation materials. That was

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Speaker 1: twenty one thousand reports last year and as you say,

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Speaker 1: this year we're sitting at nineteen and a half thousand

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Speaker 1: well and truly on track to have a similar amount.

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Speaker 1: So that's a huge extent of reports that we're receiving

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Speaker 1: and triaging alone, and this year alone already we've arrested

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Speaker 1: two hundred and eighteen people wow, and laid over two

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Speaker 1: thousand charges, So it is a significant issue.

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Speaker 2: It's astronomical and I think, like you know, for someone

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Speaker 2: like me who's a parent of kids that are in

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Speaker 2: that age group, it's pretty worrying. What type of thing

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Speaker 2: are we talking about here? I guess not to go

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Speaker 2: into too much explicit detail, but what type of thing

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Speaker 2: are we talking about? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Well, online child exploitation has a reasonably broad range of

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Speaker 1: people using the Internet to access, look up, down load

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Speaker 1: child exploitation material that there. Then going into the more

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Speaker 1: serious things, people that actually make child exploitation themselves and

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Speaker 1: uploaded onto the Internet to make it available for others.

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Speaker 1: Then there's also grooming. Now, grooming is something that obviously

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Speaker 1: most parents are very concerned about. Grooming as offenders and

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Speaker 1: predators who lurk in gaming social media platform apps that

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Speaker 1: try to engage directly young people engage them online and

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Speaker 1: they're grooming them to either self produced exploitation material from

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Speaker 1: themselves and send it to that person and worst case scenaria,

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Speaker 1: grooming them to meet them in person somewhere and physicality

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Speaker 1: to abuse. So it ranges from quite a broad range,

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Speaker 1: but all very serious crimes.

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Speaker 2: And Paul, you know, quite often I guess we as

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Speaker 2: parents think, go, you know, you know, but they're playing

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Speaker 2: a game or something, everything's okay. But the reality is,

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Speaker 2: as you've just pointed out there, sometimes that's where predators

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Speaker 2: will go to these different apps to see whether they

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Speaker 2: can engage with kids. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and we have our evidence based from ourselves and

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Speaker 1: our partners and law enforcement partners around the world continue

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Speaker 1: to see strong evidence that predators do actively seek out

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Speaker 1: gaming applications and other social media platforms for explicit purpose

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Speaker 1: to meet and groom children. So those gaming apps, what

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Speaker 1: I guess the most important thing to know is that

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Speaker 1: they have direct messaging applications that people can start engaging

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Speaker 1: children on.

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Speaker 2: What are some of those ways that kids are being

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Speaker 2: targeted when they are online?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's simply exactly that they So if it's

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Speaker 1: through gaming applications, obviously they are using that game as

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Speaker 1: a way to introduce themselves and come up with a

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Speaker 1: you know, a mutually common experience social media platform and

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Speaker 1: often provoking young young kids into sending photos, through offering

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Speaker 1: them likes even just likes on their account, or through

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Speaker 1: offering them further access to modeling type of agencies online modeling.

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Speaker 1: So it's about the predators trying to connect with the

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Speaker 1: child through whatever that commonality, whether it's the game they're playing,

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Speaker 1: whether it's a football club or type of sport, or

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Speaker 1: just simply liking their things and then engaging them in conversation.

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Speaker 2: It's pretty frightening, you know, when you think about it,

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Speaker 2: it's frightening to think that there are people out there

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Speaker 2: just trying to you know, trying to engage with our kids,

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Speaker 2: and that if we're not keeping a really close eye

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Speaker 2: on it, sometimes you're not even aware.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And what I would say is that our

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Speaker 1: we have covert online investigators at the ACE and what

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Speaker 1: they are seeing networks and platforms, particularly on the Darknet,

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Speaker 1: of predators who gather to that press platform to explicitly

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Speaker 1: share with each other images that they have blackmailed or

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Speaker 1: groomed out of children online. So there's actually dedicated forums

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Speaker 1: to boasting about how they can who's got what out

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Speaker 1: of you know, children off these online platforms. So it's

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Speaker 1: a very real threat and whilst we're not here to

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Speaker 1: be really scary, but we need people to listen and

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Speaker 1: actually take notice that this is happening and what you

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Speaker 1: can do to help protect the children.

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Speaker 2: It is bloody disgraceful that there are people like that,

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Speaker 2: you know, praying upon our youngsters. Can is there a

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Speaker 2: I mean, is there sort of a case study that

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Speaker 2: you can share with us to give us a bit

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Speaker 2: of an idea of exactly what is happening? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So as I said with the dedicated forums,

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Speaker 1: I guess the case a recent case study that was

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Speaker 1: one in South Australia where a nineteen year old was

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Speaker 1: actually posing and unfortunate he's quite young himself, but he

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Speaker 1: was posing as a fourteen year old and was engaging

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Speaker 1: in conversation with a young girl and it was actually

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Speaker 1: our covert online operators, and he convinced her to meet

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Speaker 1: him at the train station and we were able to

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Speaker 1: be there waiting to arrest him. So these kinds of operations, sadly,

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Speaker 1: are happening quite frequently around Australia. I would say, you know,

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Speaker 1: not only daily are our investigator's executing search for aren't

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Speaker 1: near on a mere daily basis, but you know, fortnite

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Speaker 1: livery three weeks there is somebody that we are going

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Speaker 1: out to rest because they think they're going to meet

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Speaker 1: a young person. And that's happening frequently. So those are

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Speaker 1: very real and present dangers. So Kent's why you know,

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Speaker 1: we've released this podcast to start that conversation, and that's

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Speaker 1: what it's all about.

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Speaker 2: I think it's really about making sure us parents are

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Speaker 2: educated and then we know what discussions to be having

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Speaker 2: with our kids so that we can ensure that we're

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Speaker 2: keeping them as safe as possible when they're online. What

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Speaker 2: can parents do to try our best to keep our

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Speaker 2: kids safe when they're online?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, thank you fast that question. And as you

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Speaker 1: alluded to the beginning, a study, a research that we've commissioned,

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Speaker 1: saw that only fifty percent of their parents really know

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Speaker 1: either a what to do about keeping their kids safe online,

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Speaker 1: but also that what their kids are even doing online.

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Speaker 1: So it's about raising that fifty percent, and that's the

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Speaker 1: parents and caregive a cohort that we're targeting and through

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we want people to listen to it. But

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Speaker 1: what I would just say now for any listeners out there,

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Speaker 1: we have five main tips for you. The first tip

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Speaker 1: is a really as a basic one is about open

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Speaker 1: conversations and honest conversations and connecting with your kid about

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Speaker 1: what they're doing online and try and connect with them

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Speaker 1: to understand what they do online and if you talk

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Speaker 1: to them about that. It's about opening up that conversation.

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Speaker 1: If you find it hard to don't know how to

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Speaker 1: have that conversation or how to initiate it. We've got

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Speaker 1: a great seven day online Safety challenge for families and

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Speaker 1: that's a seven day challenge that you can get from

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Speaker 1: the website which every day just gives you, as a parent,

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Speaker 1: one activity that you can sit down with you with

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Speaker 1: your kids and go through such as it's developed a

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Speaker 1: social contract in the family. Check your privacy setting. So

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Speaker 1: the next top tip is supervision is really essential, okay,

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Speaker 1: and it's not just about oh, let's reduce screen time.

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Speaker 1: Nothing beats actual supervision of the screen time. So that

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Speaker 1: is really that is key to know what they're doing

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Speaker 1: and able to be there and in open areas, being

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Speaker 1: approachable if your child does come to you and say, look,

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Speaker 1: something's happened, be approachable. It's not about punishing and taking

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Speaker 1: devices of them, because we live in a social world

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Speaker 1: and we never that we need to live safely in

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Speaker 1: that social world. So it's about saying that's okay, nothing

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Speaker 1: is so bad that we can't get out of this.

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Speaker 1: We can't get you out of it. So when you

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Speaker 1: do that, knowing how to report, knowing how to go

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Speaker 1: online to the eighth website and click report of crime,

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Speaker 1: or if you need to call the hotline ring because

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Speaker 1: our investigators are there and we talk to members of

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Speaker 1: the public daily, often getting called from parents that you know,

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Speaker 1: a child. Example, literally just last week, fifteen year old daughter,

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Speaker 1: they're taking a selfie of herself, send it to her

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Speaker 1: boyfriend and then is now boyfriend send it on? So

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Speaker 1: what do I do? How do I get out of this?

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Speaker 1: We can help with that, there is a way out.

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Speaker 1: We don't want people kids getting into a situation where

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Speaker 1: they feel that they've just got to keep sending more

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Speaker 1: and more images because they're going to get in trouble,

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Speaker 1: they're going to be blackmailed. So that is that openness

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Speaker 1: parents knowing how to report, knowing that we're here to help.

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Speaker 2: That is such good advice and I think so good

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Speaker 2: advice for parents to know as well, that you know

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Speaker 2: that if your child does wind up in a situation

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Speaker 2: where they're not quite sure what to do, that they

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Speaker 2: are able to seek that help. And you know, our

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Speaker 2: hats off to you guys for the wonderful work that

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Speaker 2: you do in making sure that you know that some

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Speaker 2: of these disgraceful people are being caught. And I think

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Speaker 2: it's such important work that you're doing there, Child Protection

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Speaker 2: Operations Detective Superintendent Paula Hudson, we really appreciate you speaking

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Speaker 2: with us this morning.

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Speaker 1: No, that's no problems at all, Katie. Anything we can

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Speaker 1: do to raise people's awareness, as a said, knowledge's power,

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Speaker 1: so we're happy to impart everything we can.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, Well, thank you so much for your time

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Speaker 2: this morning, and we will give everybody a reminder of

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Speaker 2: those websites. Thank you, Paula. I appreciate it, thank you,

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Speaker 2: And well that one of those websites that you can

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Speaker 2: head to is is a c C so that's a

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Speaker 2: triple ce dot gov dot au to report online child

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Speaker 2: sexual exploitation and for information about those support services. Then

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Speaker 2: for more information about online safety, you can head to

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Speaker 2: all the w's dot think, youno, dot org, dot AU.

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Speaker 2: And I think that for all of us as parents,

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Speaker 2: you know we have we're growing up in a different generator.

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Speaker 2: We grew up in a different generation to what our

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Speaker 2: children are growing up in right now when it comes

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Speaker 2: to social media and to those devices and what Paula

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Speaker 2: had said there about making sure that kids know that

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Speaker 2: there is a way to help them get out of

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Speaker 2: some of these situations that they can wind up in

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Speaker 2: somehow at different times. It's such good advice and knowing

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Speaker 2: that there are different ways and different bits of information

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Speaker 2: that you can actually access as well to know what

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Speaker 2: to do and really try to follow some of those

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Speaker 2: simple steps in order to keep our kids safe online.

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Speaker 2: And again that website is think you knowo dot org

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Speaker 2: dot au and they've also a seven day challenge as

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Speaker 2: you mentioned there, and a few different sort of support

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Speaker 2: mechanisms or different ways that we can try to make

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Speaker 2: sure that we are keeping our kids safe online