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

Democrat amendment (7) standing in my name is identical to the Australian Labor Party amendment we are debating, so I will not move it. As senators would be aware from the running sheet before us, both the amendment that I withdrew prior to this and, indeed, the amendment that was lost, amendment (5), dealt with the issue of praise of terrorist acts. In amendments (6) and (7) we were putting forward some alternatives to try and deal with some of the issues that have been raised today.

Obviously, the Labor amendment is entirely acceptable to us, for reasons that I have outlined. It deals with the inclusion of the phrase ‘regardless of his or her age or any mental impairment’. Again, I put on record that this suggests that material must be assessed according to how it may be understood by any person and not necessarily an ordinary or reasonable member of the intended audience. Senator Ludwig has outlined the details. The Democrats believe that this is a departure from usual practice. We again have concerns about how the classifiers will judge some of this material in that context—how they will be able to put themselves into the shoes of someone with a mental impairment, for example. This is of grave concern to us; hence the discussion during the committee process and at present. The Democrats will support the amendment moved by Labor. Indeed, had we not been debating their amendment we would have been debating our identical amendment.