Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

Yes, understood, Minister. I do understand that. Thank you for your clarification. Either you or one of your colleagues, in casting aspersions on the Australian Greens earlier, posed the question of whether any of us have ever worked on a farm. Well, I can tell you yes, I've worked on a farm, and I want to tell you a quick story, because it's very relevant to the discussion we're having now.

I worked as a shepherd in Scotland on a farm that had probably 2½ thousand ewes, and I was responsible, under the owner of the farm, for the welfare of those sheep. It was during lambing season, which is very cold in the Scottish Highlands, I can assure you. I learnt a really good lesson from the farmer one day. I wasn't brought up on a farm; I was brought up in suburban Hobart. I used to have this habit of climbing farm gates rather than opening them. I remember the farmer giving me a well-deserved lecture—I was quite young at the time, probably 19 or 20 years old—about not climbing farm gates, because it damages the hinges that the gates are hung on. He only had to tell me once. From then on, and ever since, I've opened farm gates instead of climbing over them. That's relevant, Minister, because it is possible that climbing a farm gate could—to use the words of your bill—'cause detriment to a primary production business', because it would damage the hinge and the farmer would have to fork out for a new hinge.

What I'm saying to you, Minister, is: doesn't the Pokemon GO company at least potentially fall foul of this act? Firstly, it has transmitted information on a carriage service with the intention of inciting another person to trespass—I think we've agreed that those provisions, without (d), would catch the company—but then it's also reckless as to whether the person who is committing the trespass could cause detriment to a primary production business, even as simply as by climbing a farm gate on their way onto the property. So when you say Pikachu is safe, Minister, I think the more correct analysis here is: Pikachu is in danger.