Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It seems that we are irreconcilable on this matter. I appreciate the minister’s answer. I guess the take-away message for system operators or network administrators is that, if they find their obligations under this legislation ambiguous, they are to give the Attorney-General’s office a call. I guess we will just have to take that advice and make sure that people know that that is their recourse. With no further comment, I commend the amendment to the Senate.

Question negatived.

by leave—I move Greens amendments (2) to (5) on sheet 6011 together:

(2)    Schedule 1, item 9 (line 19), before “For”, insert “(1)”.

(3)    Schedule 1, item 9 (line 25), after “conditions”, insert “relating to network security”.

(4)    Schedule 1, item 9 (after line 29), at the end of section 6AAA, add:

        (2)    The Minister may, by legislative instrument, determine guidelines to assist in the application of this section, including guidelines on the definition of network security.

(5)    Schedule 1, item 15, page 6 (line 27), after “authority”, insert “that is not an appropriate use of the network”.

These amendments relate to appropriate use of disciplinary actions authorised by the bill. Again, given that the stated objective of the bill is to protect network security and to protect computer networks from malicious access and given that ‘disciplinary action’ is not defined in the bill, our amendments seek to link the disciplinary action to the objectives of network security. You might argue these are technical amendments. The proposers of these, who put these ideas forward through the committee process, acknowledge that they are minor amendments. We believe they would improve the integrity of the drafting of the bill. I commend them to you.