Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 3, page 3 (lines 25 and 26), omit “excusing, justifying, authorising, requiring or rendering less serious”, substitute “mitigating or enhancing the seriousness of”.

(3)    Schedule 1, item 5, page 4 (lines 22 and 23), omit “excusing, justifying, authorising, requiring or rendering less serious”, substitute “mitigating or enhancing the seriousness of”.

These amendments go to roughly the same area and the same clauses as the government amendments. It would be fairly obvious to senators following the debate that they mirror recommendation 1 of the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. I should say that, in moving these amendments, I do not resile from my previous comments that the legislation as a whole is unacceptable, but I think the least we can do is adopt the recommendations of the Senate committee report. I think the second recommendation is more important than the first, and I will speak to that one next. But these amendments go to and mirror recommendation 1.