George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I know Senator Fawcett has another point to make. We have exchanged our views, but let me simply make the point to you, Senator Ludwig, that all that proposed subsection 2(c)—that is, the words:

(c) the person is not a victim of the forced marriage.

could possibly mean is that they were not the person coerced; they were not the person who was the victim of the unlawful conduct. But one would still have to prove, as is clear from subsection (a), that there was a victim—that coercive conduct or constituting a forced marriage occurred. So it is not as if this issue, on which the prosecution of course bears the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt, is not going to have to be dealt with by the court in any event.

Anyway, I will not prolong it, Senator Ludwig. I simply restate the opposition's very clear view that none of the circumstances that you have posited, where there is any form of moral culpability on behalf of the nonvictim, would not be caught by subsection 1, and in the unusual theoretical circumstances in which they would be missed by subsection 1, then under no circumstances would the other party to the marriage have done anything wrong.