Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I suppose a different example that has been brought to my attention would be for us to perhaps imagine an elderly couple, who have been living in Australia for a long time, who return to see family, perhaps for the last time before they die. While they are there making a bona fide visit to a family member, because they are returning to an area where they have perhaps grown up, they are invited to go to a wedding of people who are not family members but who are in another town and they travel there for that. Again, I do not want to be accused of raising hypothetical examples, because these are the very live examples and fears that people have who need to take account of this legislation. My concern is that, even if in the end you say that a court will interpret this, a court will give people the benefit of the doubt and so on, the real concern here is that this restriction will have a chilling effect. Those people will not even potentially take the risk of going or will not take up an opportunity like that, of attending a wedding of a friend in a different village, which would seem to be perfectly legitimate, perfectly harmless, perfectly reasonable and perfectly understandable