Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will now backtrack to Greens amendment (16) on sheet 6181, which relates to materials that are refused classification. I move:

(16)  Schedule 2, item 1, page 15 (lines 5 and 6), omit the item, substitute:

1  Section 9A

Repeal the section.

We support the proposed amendment to section 9A(2)(c), the inclusion of the word ‘substantial’ before ‘risk’ for the purposes of the definition of ‘advocates’, as we have just been discussing in relation to the proscription of a terrorist organisation. However, the provision remains flawed as it does not rely on the reasonable adult test on which Australia’s classification regime has traditionally been based. I put this question to the minister: why, with these categories of offences, have we taken on such a different test? The provision that we are discussing here relies on the test of ‘a person of any age or mental impairment who may be led to engage in a terrorist act’. If you move upstream from that, it looks to me as though a vastly broader range of material could be caught, some of it probably clearly fictional, if the person who is viewing that material can be of any age or suffer a mental impairment. I think, therefore, there is a risk that the provision will catch a much broader array of material.

It is not clear—and I am hoping that the minister and the opposition can clarify why they are voting against this, I think, very sensible amendment—why section 9A is required, given the previously existing prohibition on material that will ‘promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence’. We are not seeking to amend that in any way. The decision to move away from the reasonable adult test, on the other hand, does not seem to have been justified anywhere by the government, or by the opposition in the comments that were offered up by Senator Brandis earlier. I invite the minister, and Senator Parry, if he wishes, to make a comment.