Criminal Code Amendment (Using Technology to Generate Child Abuse Material) Bill 2025: new offences proposed for AI-generated abuse material

The short answer

Criminal Code Amendment (Using Technology to Generate Child Abuse Material) Bill 2025: new offences proposed for AI-generated abuse material

The Criminal Code Amendment (Using Technology to Generate Child Abuse Material) Bill 2025 is a private member's bill introduced by Kate Chaney MP that would amend the Criminal Code Act 1995 to create new criminal offences for generating child abuse material using a carriage service. The bill targets the use of technology — including artificial intelligence and deepfake generation tools — to produce child abuse material. It was introduced in the House of Representatives and is currently before the House.

This is a federal system guide. State constitutions, parliaments and local-government laws can allocate comparable functions differently.

The useful question is not only “what is the rule?” but also “who administers it, which document controls it, and when might it change?” That distinction prevents an accurate general explanation from becoming wrong advice in a particular election, chamber or policy setting.

Evidence review

What the bill proposes

The Criminal Code Amendment (Using Technology to Generate Child Abuse Material) Bill 2025 proposes to amend the Criminal Code Act 1995 to create new Commonwealth offences specifically targeting the generation of child abuse material using a carriage service. A 'carriage service' in Commonwealth law encompasses telecommunications networks, the internet, and other electronic communications services, giving the offences broad jurisdictional reach.

The existing Criminal Code already contains offences relating to the possession, distribution, production and accessing of child abuse material using a carriage service (found in Division 474, Subdivision D). However, these existing offences were drafted in an era before generative artificial intelligence and deepfake technologies became widely accessible. The bill seeks to close what its sponsor considers a gap: the generation of new child abuse material using AI tools, image generators, and similar technologies, where the material is entirely synthetic but depicts child sexual abuse.

The bill would create standalone offences for using a carriage service to generate child abuse material. This covers scenarios where a person uses an online AI image generator, a locally run model accessed via the internet, or other technology-enabled means to produce images, videos, or other depictions that constitute child abuse material as defined in the Criminal Code.

As a private member's bill introduced by Independent MP Kate Chaney, the bill reflects growing concern among parliamentarians and law enforcement agencies about the proliferation of AI-generated child abuse material. The eSafety Commissioner and the Australian Federal Police have both publicly identified AI-generated child sexual abuse material as a rapidly emerging threat.

Evidence review

The legal gap: existing offences and AI-generated material

Under the current Criminal Code, Division 474 creates offences for using a carriage service for child abuse material. Section 474.22 makes it an offence to use a carriage service to access child abuse material. Section 474.19 creates offences for transmitting or making available child abuse material. Section 474.20 creates offences for possessing or controlling child abuse material obtained using a carriage service. Section 474.23 creates offences for producing child abuse material.

The definition of 'child abuse material' in the Criminal Code is broad and includes material that depicts a person who is, or appears to be, under 18 in a way that reasonable persons would regard as offensive. Importantly, the definition does not require the person depicted to be a real person — it can include representations of fictional or computer-generated persons who appear to be children.

While the existing 'production' offence in section 474.23 may cover some scenarios involving AI generation, the bill's proponents argue that a specific 'generation' offence provides clearer legal coverage. The distinction matters because AI generation can occur without traditional 'production' in the sense of filming, photographing, or manually creating material — it can be as simple as entering a text prompt into an online service.

The bill addresses a legal ambiguity that has been noted internationally. Other jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom (via the Online Safety Act 2023) and several US states, have moved to specifically criminalise AI-generated child sexual abuse material in recent years.

Evidence review

How the proposed offences would work

The bill creates offences with fault elements consistent with the existing Criminal Code framework. The core offence is expected to require that a person intentionally uses a carriage service, and that by doing so, the person generates child abuse material. As with existing Part 10.6 offences, the fault element for the circumstance that the material is child abuse material would be recklessness — the person must be aware of a substantial risk that the generated material would constitute child abuse material and, having regard to the circumstances known to them, it is unjustifiable to take that risk.

The bill relies on the existing definition of 'child abuse material' in the Criminal Code dictionary (section 473.1). This definition covers material that depicts a person who is, or appears to be, under 18 years of age and which reasonable persons would regard in all the circumstances as offensive. The definition encompasses depictions of sexual activity, sexual posing, cruelty, or physical abuse.

Because the offences use a carriage service as the jurisdictional hook, they would be Commonwealth offences triable in federal courts. The existing maximum penalties for comparable child abuse material offences under the Criminal Code are severe — 15 years imprisonment for the most serious offences — reflecting the seriousness with which the Commonwealth treats child exploitation material.

Evidence review

Sponsor and parliamentary context

The bill was introduced by Kate Chaney MP, the Independent member for Curtin (Western Australia). Chaney was first elected in 2022 and sits on the crossbench. She has been an active voice on technology policy and online safety issues.

As a private member's bill, the proposed legislation does not represent government policy and its passage is not guaranteed. Private members' bills in the House of Representatives face significant procedural hurdles and are typically not debated unless the government agrees to provide time or a member uses their allocated private members' business time.

The bill is currently before the House of Representatives and has not yet been debated. The government's position on the bill has not been formally stated, though the Albanese Government has previously indicated support for stronger online safety laws.

Evidence review

Broader policy context: AI-generated child abuse material in Australia

The introduction of this bill occurs against a backdrop of growing international alarm about AI-generated child sexual abuse material. In 2024, the Australian Federal Police reported a significant increase in detected AI-generated child abuse material. The eSafety Commissioner has publicly called for legislative and regulatory responses.

At the Commonwealth level, the Criminal Code has been progressively amended over two decades to address emerging forms of technology-facilitated child exploitation. Early amendments addressed online grooming (introduced 2004), later amendments addressed accessing and transmitting material online (introduced 2010 via the Combating the Financing of People Smuggling and Other Measures Act 2011), and more recent amendments have addressed online harms more broadly.

The bill addresses a specific aspect of technology-facilitated child exploitation that existing legislation may not clearly cover: the generation of entirely new, synthetic abuse material that does not involve the direct abuse of an identifiable child at the point of creation, but which nonetheless contributes to the market for and normalisation of child sexual abuse material.

Common questions

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