Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

The government opposes these two amendments on the basis that this would broaden the application, if you like, of the written notice to the extent that we are confusing a controlled area with a place, ‘a place’ being defined in a more general sense. The provision would be exceptionally wide-ranging and would fail to address the core problem of people misusing their access to a section 234AA area, or ‘controlled area’ as I have referred to it earlier. Were we to accept these amendments, the provision would apply to any place at which there was some Customs presence, and we believe that to be too broad. I can understand Senator Murray saying let us be consistent and refer to place as described in the legislation. That has a much broader application, and we prefer to address the controlled area only. That is where we have our issue, and the Wheeler report dealt with a controlled area as being one which is under the control and responsibility of Customs and one where you have those powers which I mentioned earlier. For that reason the government opposes these two amendments.

Question negatived.