Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I will speak briefly on the bill; it is pretty self-explanatory. It is called the 'gladiator bill'. I will not take up a lot of the House's time. It is pretty simple, I think. There are a lot of people in this place who would like the protection of this bill. I think a lot of people would, at one time or another, have had their families dragged into things that it is very unfair that they be dragged into, even if it is only by way of a photograph in a newspaper. As my chief of staff rather aptly put it, we take the decision of going into the public arena. Whether it is Russell Crowe or Nicole Kidman in the movies or people who come into this place, we put ourselves in the public arena. We are prepared to get into the arena and do battle, but that does not require our families to put themselves in the same position. In fact, it is highly undesirable that they are put in the same position of prominence as that can be, particularly in the case of children, very harmful.

I do not like using extremist examples, but one can never come to this issue—and I remember the Americans moved this bill. It is a duplicate of what was done in the United States. Their most favourite son, the aviator, and his family came into great prominence and his child came into great prominence and the child was kidnapped. It is one of the more appalling cases in recent American history, but there would be numerous other cases—nowhere near as dramatic as that, but unpleasantness has been foisted upon families and no-one should have the right to do that.

I do not like moving legislation. In my years in state parliament, the legislation we moved was very small indeed. The actual acts themselves and the number of acts that we passed was very small indeed. Although we are not calling for throwing people in jail or anything of that nature—we have removed the clause to throw people in jail—we have provided for very hefty fines. If people want to make money out of that sort of appalling behaviour, then they will be punished for that sort of appalling behaviour. It behoves this place to make that situation very clear to people who are out there greedily placing people that they have no right to place in a most unpleasant position.

Debate adjourned.