Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

No; the Commonwealth has the ability to legislate on these matters and on unlawful matters relating to computers held by anybody. There are two components here. There are the things that are clearly unlawful and contravene a law of the Commonwealth, state or territory, but then there is a list of things that do not do that, such as being defamatory, offensive, abusive or harassing, and these are matters for which the legislation gives us no guide as to limits. It is fair and proper that we ask the minister, whose legislation this is, what the limits are outside the law to which this section is intended to apply. Why not apply those same limits to the use of all computers within the Territory? I think the reason the minister has given is that the Commonwealth cannot legislate to prevent legal material being disseminated by a computer. But the Commonwealth is legislating here to prevent legal material being disseminated by computers that are funded by the Commonwealth, if that material is considered defamatory or offensive. So here we are outside sexual matters, presumably, and into matters which are political. The Senate ought to hear exactly what the limits of those definitions are and who is going to be the judge when these matters are not breaches of law but are matters of government policy.