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

The Australian Greens will also not be supporting these amendments, although perhaps I will make that conditional on further remarks from Senator Brandis, if he cares to make them. I just apologised to him for circulating amendments which we had not had time to discuss, but now he has done exactly the same to the crossbenches. I am therefore not entirely clear about the effect of these amendments and I would greatly appreciate Senator Brandis going into a little bit more detail. My reading of these amendments—and they were not necessarily reflected in the comments Senator Brandis just made—is that they would have quite far-reaching impacts. This is not merely a technical amendment. I believe that it goes to, in some measure at least, the objectives that Senator Brandis was pursuing with an entirely separate bill—to expand the matters that we are referring to. I reserve my judgment on the opposition amendments pending any further explanation Senator Brandis might give us about what these amendments will actually do.