Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It is one thing to talk to a bill in this Senate. It is another thing to properly scrutinise what the contents of the bill will do as opposed to the arguments that may be put forward by the person who is putting forward the bill. That is what the coalition has done. We have looked at the bill. We have analysed each section of the bill, and the reason we are not supporting it is because of what it does. As I said, put simply, the bill that we have before us—in other words, the legislation as drafted and the effect of the legislation, should it pass through this place—is, quite frankly, an attempt to further open up our courts to abuse by activists who engage in lawfare to pursue a political agenda.

Senator Thorpe and the Greens want to allow activists to use our courts to commence private prosecutions for some of the most serious crimes on our statute book. Those crimes include genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. This is what this bill actually does. Senator Thorpe and the Greens want to allow activists to use our courts to commence private prosecutions for some of the most serious crimes on our statute book, and they want this to occur without oversight. This is what the legislation does. They want to remove the important safeguard and the longstanding feature of our common law that allows the national security and foreign relation interests of all Australians—not just a few Australians—to be taken into account.

Instead, what this bill would do, if passed on behalf of Senator Thorpe and the Australian Greens, is put Australians' interests second. They want to give primacy to the narrow, sectional interests of their political supporters and, in particular, given the nature of the serious crimes that we are referring to—