Rape Imprisonment for life. 
Attempted rape Imprisonment for 10 years. 
Carnal knowledge of girl under 10 Imprisonment for life. 
Carnal knowledge of girl 10 to 11 years Imprisonment for 10 years. 
Attempted carnal knowledge of girl
  under 12 years Imprisonment for 7 years. 
Carnal knowledge of girl 12 to 16 years Imprisonment for 5 years. 
Indecent assault on female Imprisonment for 7 years.

The above are the maximum penalties.  The modern tendency is to inflict much lesser punishment upon an offender, to grade the punishment having regard to such matters as the damage done, the past history of the offender, and the prospect of reform.

=(3) Consent as a Defence=

The consent of a girl under 12 years of age cannot be raised as a defence to any defilement charge.

But where the girl is over 12 and under 16 her consent may be raised as a defence if: 

  (a) The girl is older than or of the same age as the person
  charged; or

  (b) It is made to appear to the jury that the accused is under
  the age of 21 and had reasonable cause to believe that the girl
  was of or over the age of 16 years.

The law on this point is not uniform throughout the Commonwealth.  In Victoria the defence of consent is available only when the girl is older than, or of the same age as, the accused (vide Crimes Act 1928, Vict. 3664, sec. 45).  The Committee has been officially informed that this law (most rigid when compared with the defence of consent available in this Dominion) has been working well since it was first enacted about fifty years ago.

In England the defence of consent is available to any accused under the age of 23 years, but only on the first occasion on which he is charged with the offence.

In an English case, R. v. Banks, (1916) 2 K.B. 621, this defence of consent was raised by a man who said that he had no idea that the girl was under the age of 16 and that he did not think about her age at all, but that she had the appearance of a girl of 16.  The Court of Criminal Appeal held that he was properly convicted.  On the other hand, the Court of Appeal in New Zealand in R. v. Perry and Pledger, (1920) N.Z.L.R. 21 (despite the argument of the Solicitor-General to the contrary), decided that, if in the eyes of the jury the girl might well be taken by an ordinary person to be of the age of 16, that would be evidence (not necessarily proof) of a reasonable cause for the belief that she was of that age.  Hence it comes about that under our law it is not necessary for an accused person to go into the witness box or to call any evidence to show that the girl appeared to him to be over the age of consent.  The nature of her clothing, red on her lips, the fact that she is said to smoke and drink, and evidence on other similar matters, enable a verdict of acquittal to be given.