Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, I just want to get some clarity on the finer details of this law and its implementation. If a person arranges a lawful, peaceful protest, so they put out a Facebook post or something that says they wish to arrange a protest at a particular place, and some of the participants splinter off and cause property damage or other ruckus, is the person who originally organised the peaceful protest likely to be held responsible?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill in no way impacts on Australians' lawful right to peaceful protest. What this bill does is ensure that those who would incite other Australians online onto farms or into saleyards, abattoirs, wood-processing facilities, aquaculture facilities et cetera to conduct criminal acts—harass, intimidate, steal, threaten farmers, damage livestock or cause biosecurity risks—will face up to five years jail as a result of this. It in no way impacts on Australians' right to peaceful protest. It deals with criminal activity.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry; I probably didn't articulate the proposition very well. I'm really just trying to get to a point where someone organises a peaceful protest and, at some stage during that peaceful protest, some people decide to go off and trespass and cause damage. Will the person who organised the peaceful protest be captured with an offence under this bill?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

No, there has to be an explicit intention to incite prior to the protest.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) | Link to this | Hansard source

That leads to my next question. The bill requires an intention of inciting others. That must be established. What's the threshold for that? How would that normally be established?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

The prosecution would actually have to prove that that was the case. That would be part of gathering evidence et cetera to present as part of the case.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to flesh that out a bit, does it require actual evidence in a Facebook post suggesting that the protest will in fact involve trespass? What's the threshold to get to the point where you consider that the person who's been charged actually has committed an offence?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

There would have to be evidence that they sought to incite. But I want to preface that by saying that every case will be different and it will be dealt with case by case. But there would have to be evidence that you sought to incite people to trespass—for instance, having a website where farming families' details were available publicly, talking about heading onto a poultry farm, a piggery, a beef feedlot et cetera at a given date and time et cetera to shut down this industry. That would be the sort of language and things that would have to be evidenced to prove inciting, but it would depend on each individual case.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) | Link to this | Hansard source

If a peaceful protest were organised and someone at that protest then decided to incite someone—noting it doesn't involve a telecommunications service—I presume in that circumstance the act doesn't apply. But, if they were to text a few people on the scene, that would? I'm just trying to understand the difference.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you raise a good point. It would depend on the circumstances. Obviously, as the federal government, we're looking at the carriage service as being the point of intersection with the behaviour because, as you know, trespass law per se is a state issue. It would depend on the circumstance, but that could possibly be the case when the text for illegal action is sent once the peaceful protest had been called. That could be considered.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

Following on from those sorts of questions about whether or not an action is a criminal act, with the issue of trespass and other potential offences—such as forest protests—can you tell us in which states things like locking yourself to machinery or blocking trucks are considered criminal acts?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

Each state and territory has a different arrangement around trespass—how it relates to private property and the like. You'd have to look at the trespass legislation in each jurisdiction. What this piece of legislation deals with is not how trespass law is enacted or dealt with at a jurisdictional level; that is way outside our constitutional remit. What it deals with is using a carriage service to incite people to criminal activity on farms, abattoirs and other agriculture facilities such as saleyards and the like.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

That goes to the point. If you aren't able to tell us what is a criminal act in each state and whether the use of a carriage service is then going to come under the auspices of their specific legislation, then you actually can't tell us how this law is going to apply in different states. For example, if you have people protesting at a woodchip mill, what I want to know is whether it is an offence to then send somebody a text to say, 'Come and join this protest at the woodchip mill.'

That woodchip mill is processing—to use a polite term—part of the destruction of our precious forest that is on public land. These are forests that we need to be protecting for their wildlife, their water, their tourism value and their carbon stores and for the natural heritage of Australia. They are our public forests on our public land. What you are saying, Minister, is that this law would then impose outrageous penalties, if somebody is protesting about that at the woodchip mill where these logs are being sent off to.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

I can't be clearer, and I've said it 100 times—actually, that's not true; I'm misleading the committee. I've probably said it 15 times this morning. Trespass is a state issue. The Attorney-General has already met with state and territory counterparts to start discussing how they can strengthen their trespass regimes to make sure that farmers, fishers and foresters can go about their lawful business without harassment, intimidation, theft, property damage et cetera, as we've discussed and as was laid out ad nauseam throughout the inquiry into this bill. What this piece of legislation before the committee goes to is incitement using a carriage service.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that. Can you answer a simple question—let's go through it state-by-state. Given that there has been consultation with the state ministers, you must be able to tell us: is trespass a criminal act in Victoria?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. And I hope the state Labor government in that jurisdiction acts on the inquiry they're conducting right now to examine how they can strengthen trespass laws in my home state of Victoria because—as you know, and as I hope you'd be equally concerned about—the Gippy Goat Cafe incident highlighted the deficiencies within the system in Victoria. It was a lawful business. Activists targeted it over and over again. They went out of business. And the young person concerned—for wrecking a family's business and putting them out of business, as they were unable to go on, and they had a lot of mental health stress along the way—got fined a dollar. So I hope that the Victorian state government act on the inquiry they're conducting at the moment so that our home state of Victoria has strong trespass laws.

Progress reported.