Derryn Hinch has fulfilled his promise to "name names" in the Senate, using parliamentary privilege to identify up to five men he claims are paedophiles.
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The newly elected Victorian senator used his maiden speech on Monday to wield the legal immunity to name five names, which Fairfax Media has at this stage decided not to publish.
Senator Hinch, who was placed under house arrest in 2011 after he named sex offenders and was jailed in 2014 for contempt of court for publishing the criminal record of Melbourne woman Jill Meagher's killer Adrian Bayley, made no apologies for using the protection.
"But it will be a court of last resort, I will not be a cowboy – but if it is necessary to protect the child's wellbeing, then damned right I will name the human vermin," he said during his 45-minute address - 25 minutes longer than tradition usually allows.
Senator Hinch said he would continue to use the protection to name names because he believed "the public have a right to know, parents trying to protect their vulnerable kids have a right to know," who was living next door to them.
"You have the right to know who he is, what he looks like and more importantly, where he is," Senator Hinch said of one man he named.
Speaking at a press conference after his speech, Senator Hinch said he had no regrets and would continue to name those he believed posed an ongoing danger.
"There are times I will do it and I've got another case coming up….where I've found a shocking case of a convicted sex offender involving young boys working in fast food outlets around Sydney," he said.
The former journalist and broadcaster said he believed victims such as Ms Meagher and Queensland teenager Daniel Morcombe would still be alive if a national sex offender register was established.
But he refuted the suggestion that identifying convicted offenders with common names could potentially lead to someone sharing that name being tarred.
"If your name is Jim Smith, there may be a million Jim Smiths out there, but you would know very quickly this wasn't the Jim Smith that committed this crime," he said.
While he said he'd draw the line at naming someone if it could potentially identify the victim, he did not accept that courts had valid reasons for issuing suppression orders.
"Not in these cases, not for these serial sex offenders," he said.
"These are not first timers at all. These are serial sex offenders."
But Senator Hinch said he would not trade his vote in the Senate in exchange for support for his own agenda.
"Even though I feel so passionate about the register, I have to put it off for two years," he said. "I would rather do that than give the government or the Labor Party some support for something I don't agree with."
