Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That is all very well and good for 5F(1). The difficulty I face relates to 5F(2), which is a proviso. As I understand it, it goes on to say:

However, if a communication is sent from an address on a computer network operated by or on behalf of the Australian Federal Police, it is taken not to start passing over a telecommunications system, for the purposes of this Act, until it is no longer under the control of any of the following:

Then we have two paragraphs (a) and (b). We agree with what the minister said with regard to 5F(1). It is a matter that the committee report dealt with, and we think it needed to be clarified. This does that, and we are in a position to support it. With regard to 5F(2), I am not sure exactly how we do this but, if I cannot get the minister to do it, I will move to have 5F(2) split, because that is a separate issue which you have bound up in 5F(2) and 5F(3).

There seems to be a separate issue that is being dealt with in (2) and (3), because you have also then got the ‘period of 2 years starting at the commencement of this section’. So perhaps the minister could indicate firstly what the import of (2) and (3) is and then whether he is prepared to separate those out. The minister does not need to deal with (1) again, in the sense that we accept that (1) is from the committee report. But I cannot recognise (2) from the committee report. It might be one of those ones where you have again gone off on a frolic of your own, as I indicated earlier.