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representatives vote 2019-09-12#2
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2019-09-27 14:25:44
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Title
Bills — Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019; Consideration of Senate Message- Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019 - Consideration of Senate Message - Put the question
Description
<p class="speaker">Scott Buchholz</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the amendments be agreed to.</p>- The majority voted in favour of *putting the question*, which is another way of saying that they voted to stop debate and instead vote on the question straight away. In this case, the question was whether the amendments should be agreed to.
<p class="speaker">Adam Bandt</p><p>Can I just confirm and perhaps ask the minister for assistance to outline what the amendments are and the effect of the amendments, given that this has moved very, very quickly, and why it is they ought to be agreed to.</p> <p class="speaker">Kevin Hogan</p><p>The question is that the amendments be agreed to. It's not question time; I'm just going to put the question. If no one rises, I'm not going to call them. The member for Melbourne?</p> <p class="speaker">Adam Bandt</p><p>Perhaps the minister can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware that a copy of the amendments has been circulated. Perhaps copies of those amendments can be made available? My understanding is that we're asked to consider amendments that have not yet been circulated and have not been made available, and I'm not sure that's an appropriate way for the House to proceed. I'm seeking clarification that these in fact are the amendments to the laws that have passed this place and have been debated previously, which impose new penalties for people who engage in some form of protest. They have been previously called the ag-gag laws. If I've misunderstood the nature of the message from the Senate then perhaps that can be explained to me. But at the moment the amendments have not been, as far as I'm aware, made available at the table or available to anyone else. That's not the way in which the House should proceed. I'm happy to be told, having come down here quickly and not having seen any amendments—and the minister not having given us the courtesy of even explaining anything about them or why we should agree to them—why we should be supporting them.</p><p>I've just been handed a copy of them. These amendments should not be agreed to. These amendments, as I understand it, are a last-minute addition to a bad piece of legislation. They are about ensuring that some basic rights to protest in this society are further infringed. When the bill came through this House, we were told that it was all about farmers and that it was all about people who were protesting. Can I say that I was absolutely gutted to hear the member for Grayndler use the term 'vegan terrorists', during the course of the subsequent debate about this bill. Vegans are not terrorists, and that should not be used as a justification for trying to pass these amendments or this bill. That is an insult to people who are taking steps in their own lives to reduce the suffering imposed on animals. If people want to choose to become vegan or vegetarian then they are entitled to do that. They are not entitled to be called terrorists. That is something that the member for Grayndler should come back in here and apologise for, for using that term. I expect it from the government but I didn't expect it from the opposition. It's an insult—an absolute insult and a disgrace.</p><p>But now we have these amendments that we have not debated or discussed here in this House at all—not once. These amendments suggest that it is going to go far beyond that, that this bill, which we were told was about protecting farmers, is now going to be extended to the business of operating a wood-processing facility or a wood-fibre-processing facility. This is no longer anything to do with protecting farmers; it is absolutely clear as day now that this bill is about restricting the right to protest and to shine a light on practices if you do something that the government disagrees with. Nothing that was said by the minister in the speech when this was first here related to wood-processing facilities or wood-fibre-processing facilities.</p><p>The minister at the table had the opportunity to get up and say, 'Oh well, here are the reasons that we should vote for it,' and he chose not to. So I invited him to stand up and give us an explanation as to why we should support these amendments, and he didn't. Instead, it appears that we're just being asked now to accept, 'Let's expand the whole bill,' and it was a bad bill in the first place, 'to include a new set of areas that have nothing to do, apparently, with what the original bill was about at all'—wood-processing facilities or wood-fibre-processing facilities. What this is about, it seems, is targeting people who might be engaged in forest protests and who are saying, 'We don't accept the way in which trees are being cut down and logging is taking place, so we want to engage in some form of protest about it or advertise some form of protest about it.' <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Mark Dreyfus</p><p>On the question of the amendments, I want to speak about one of the two amendments which have now returned to the House—amendments that have been made in the Senate. The amendment I wish to speak to is that which increases the protection of journalists and media in this country. This is an important amendment. It's one that's been made at the urging of Labor. It's one that was identified by Labor senators in their additional comments made in the Senate committee report on this bill, and it is important. It marks, I hope, a beginning of a greater awareness by the government that it is important to protect press freedom in this country. It marks, I hope, an awareness that when new laws are passed that have the potential to impact on the media and on journalists going about their work that they should not be exposed to criminal offences and, if they are, there needs to be consideration given and legislative reference made to the fact of their work being in the public interest and the fact that they may be working in a professional capacity.</p><p>The change that has been made is one which will ensure that it won't fall to journalists or their employers to prove that they were working in the public interest or that they were working in a professional capacity. Rather, if there is a potential for investigation, or a suggestion that some offence might have been committed arising from these laws because of something published by the media, the onus is going to fall completely on the prosecution to show—by contrast to the original form of the bill—that the journalist was not acting in the public interest and that the journalist was not a person working in a professional capacity as a journalist. It's an appropriate reversal of the position that had been put in the bill as first produced to this House. It's an appropriate amendment that's been made by the Senate. It will improve protection for journalists and media reporting on matters such as the subject matter of this bill.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Buchholz</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the question be now put.</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Smith</p><p>The question is that the question be put.</p>
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