Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Lundy for her contribution to this bill. The purpose of the bill is to protect major sporting event sponsorship and licensing revenue from being undermined by unauthorised commercial use of event indicia and images for the following events: Asian Football Confederation Asian Cup 2015, International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup 2015 and Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Major events have long been targets of those who would seek to create an impression of association with the event in order to achieve commercial gain without having purchased the rights to claim that association. This bill protects against such activities and is consistent with the legislative approach taken for previous major events including the Sydney Olympics and Melbourne Commonwealth Games in the protection of indicia and images. The bill will protect the use of a range of words and expressions associated with each event from ambush marketing and unlicensed commercial use in the lead-up to and during each major sporting event. The proposed legislation is also intended to be complementary to existing or proposed legislation in states and territories that may be put in place in relation to these events.

While it is important to protect sponsors from ambush marketing, the right of the community to freedom of expression and for businesses to use their own intellectual property rights must also be respected. The bill contains a number of pragmatic exceptions and fully protects the rights of the existing holders to use indicia to carry out their business functions. Each schedule of the bill will cease to have effect within one year after the completion of each major sporting event as prescribed in the bill. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.