Senator Moodie: You have given me a challenge because there is, as you say, no clear research approaches that would lead to a definitive cause and effect.

I would say this: We do have surrogate models that do show us how children’s brains develop in response to various negative triggers. We know a lot about toxic environments and toxic recurrent exposure that children gain early in life and the long-term effects.

There are other surrogates that my colleague Senator Kutcher might be able to share as well, around the development of the brain and behaviour patterns of children who are exposed repeatedly to negative stimuli.

With that in mind, I would extrapolate it to say that although we cannot in any purposeful way expose children to noxious stimuli, such as recurrent exposure to pornography and to sexually explicit materials, in fact, we do have surrogates that suggest that they would behave in the same way and in a very similar way to the outcomes. That’s the best we can do. I know that we do have limitations in this area, but we also know that there are lots of examples where if we modify the exposure that we give children, we can change the outcomes that we see.

(On motion of Senator McCallum, debate adjourned.)