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

What I would put to you—and Senator Brandis, if he would care to offer a view—is the case that I put earlier of a vessel attempting to leave Sydney Harbour that was stopped for quite a period of time by antiwar campaigners. We know that they did not intend violence. You could also probably argue that they certainly did not intend to materially assist a foreign power in which we were about to engage in an occupation and invasion. But the fact is that the departure of a warship or an asset such as that, an aircraft leaving an airbase or troops leaving an Australian base could quite coherently have an argument put that delaying or hindering the departure of such assets into a war zone could be considered as material support for an enemy. Somebody please correct me if I am wrong, but I do not believe it is the view of anyone in this parliament that that act should be construed as an act of terrorism, but with my reading of the way that the act stands at the moment—and the government has done nothing to clarify this matter in the bill apart from a slight narrowing of the definition of ‘material support’—I still do not understand why the government or the opposition would not support these amendments. Could I get a view either from the minister or from Senator Brandis as to whether delaying the departure of, for example, military equipment or troops to a war zone could be construed as material support. This is not something that we have invented; this is something that has been made in submission after submission. The definition is indeed too broad.