Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, you are to be disappointed, Senator Stott Despoja. The Labor Party will not be supporting the amendment. One of the difficulties with your amendment is that it requires, for material to be considered to be advocating the doing of a terrorist act, that that must have been, or could be reasonably regarded as, the intention of the creator of the material. A piece of material should be looked at in a complete context, not just at that point. You are trying to look at only the point at which it was created. It is far better to have a more functional approach and to look at its actual likely impact rather than its intended one. You could certainly get into a range of debates about what the intention was at the time of creation. Putting that aside, the legislation will allow a functional approach. It will ask questions about the impact rather than what the intention of the creator may or may not have been at the time of creation, which would tie up a lot of legal experts for some time.