Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

(5)    Schedule 1, item 3, page 3 (lines 23 to 28), omit paragraph 9A(2)(c).

This amendment deletes proposed section 9A(2)(c), which deals with the praise of terrorist acts. As senators may be aware, in my speech in the second reading debate I referred to some of our concerns relating to this provision and the use of ‘praise’ rather than ‘promotes’ or ‘incites’. The Democrats have put on the record a number of times now that we believe that ‘praise’ is a fairly nebulous, vague concept—especially if there is no requirement of intent. Left unamended, we believe this section of the bill has the potential to be misinterpreted by classifiers and, once again, to unduly restrict freedom of expression.

On that note, I acknowledge Senator Ludwig’s comments about the Labor Party’s view on ‘indirect’ as well as ‘direct’. I am starting to feel incredibly sorry for the classifiers in some of the interpretation of this legislation and indeed of some of the material before them. This amendment is to remove that notion of praise, and I commend it to the Senate.