The Family First Party says it will fight for single sex prisons to be maintained after a court decision to hand a lenient sentence to a trans paedophile in a women’s jail.
The prison inmate is a 26-year-old biological male who now identifies as a woman by the name of Autumn Tulip Harper.
She persistently sexually abused her five-year-old daughter and also produced and transmitted 77 files of child-abuse material over a one-month period.
Harper was sentenced to four years and nine months’ imprisonment, with eligibility for release after 2.5 years. Harper is incarcerated in a women’s prison, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Victoria.
The Family First’s recently announced Victorian upper house candidate, Jane Foreman, said it was “unbelievable” that a biological man could be housed in a women’s prison.
“Whether it’s sexual assault or abuse offences, no man should be in a women’s prison,” she told The Epoch Times.
“That’s just the bottom line. They’re biological men, and they need to be in a man’s prison.”
The case revealed the transgender offender had been “instructed” to complete gruesome sexual assault “tasks” and send the recordings to her U.S.-based paedophile “master,” known in court documents as Samuel Booth.
Foreman said Family First would advocate for keeping prisons single-sex ahead of the November 2026 state election, and said child sex crimes should warrant serious jail time.
“Men in women’s prisons don’t affect the average person, but that’s a symptom of what’s occurring in our society,” Foreman said.
“And parents and grandparents want their children and grandchildren protected. So that’s what we’re about.
Allan Government: ‘Inappropriate to Comment’
Addressing the issue, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said governments should not interfere in the directing of prisoners across the corrections system.“Let’s be clear, there are strict and clear guidelines within which Corrections Victoria operates. And that includes the safety and wellbeing of all prisoners when it comes to the placement of individual prisoners,” she said.
“That is the operational decisions Corrections Victoria make every single day ... I respect and support the work of Corrections Victoria to consider the placement of prisoners as appropriate across the prison system.”
Meanwhile, Victorian Opposition Leader Brad Battin said he did not oppose transgender people identifying as women generally being housed in women’s prisons.
He added those convicted of sex offences would not be allowed in women’s prisons under a government he leads.
Women’s Group Warns Inmates Could be Harmed
CEO of Women’s Forum Australia Rachel Wong said the case against the child sex offender had been dealt with “appallingly.”“We know that during the trial, this man’s crimes were framed as a pattern of sexual abuse against ‘women,’ where women are coerced by men to sexually abuse their own children,” she told Sky News Australia.
“And of course this is not a woman–this is a man we’re talking about. And the fact that his crimes were even framed as a woman’s crimes at all is disgusting.
“They’ve been forced to be housed with this male sex offender,” she said.
Wong added she has written to Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, Minister for Corrections Enver Erdogan and the Minister for Women, Natalie Hutchins, asking for the child sex offender to be removed from the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre.
