Australia will cancel the passports of convicted paedophiles as part of a world-first plan to prevent child sex offenders from travelling abroad to commit offences.

In a move aimed at ending child sex tourism – a practice described by an MP as “child rape holidays” – the government will make it illegal for the nation’s 20,000 registered child sex offenders to travel abroad.

Last year, almost 800 offenders left the country, including about half who travelled to less developed countries across south-east Asia.

Derryn Hinch, an independent MP who campaigned for the crackdown, said convicted paedophiles were “not going there [to south-east Asia] for the sun”.

“You go to Bali, you go to Phnom Penh, you go to Siem Reap, and you see these middle-aged Australian men there, Caucasian men, with a young local kid – they are not there to get a suntan,” he said.

“These depraved criminals preyed on vulnerable kids, and statistically, we know, many of them will do it again given the opportunity.”

Horrific accounts have emerged in recent years of foreigners – including numerous Australians – travelling to countries such as Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines to prey on young children.

In a case in Indonesia last year, Robert Andrew Fiddes Ellis, a 71-year-old Australian, was jailed for 15 years for sexually assaulting 11 girls aged between seven and 17.