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

I am sorry—I automatically sit down. I am a bit too polite, I think.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN: I appreciate that, Senator Wright. Please continue your remarks.

I just automatically did. The point that I make is that this is genuinely frustrating because, if that explanatory memorandum had been circulated before we were debating this issue, some of those questions that I asked may not have needed to be asked or, indeed, I may have other questions that arise from that when I see it. I was listening carefully to the reading that the Attorney-General gave, but I was trying to understand quickly what the implications of that kind of definition might be.

I will come back to the question—and, Attorney-General, you may want to now respond to that—but I will ask another question in the meantime so that you can respond to that too. I did ask not only how the term 'supports and facilitates' has been defined in the redrafted explanatory memorandum—because I understand now that we will see that tomorrow and, presumably, before we vote on the bill; I am hoping for obvious reasons—but also what that will mean in context. That is because the potential breadth of that phrase has caused concern, and some submission makers have even suggested that it could be used to prevent a person from, for instance, using social media or accessing online banking, if it were thought that it might be useful for a terrorist investigation. So what are the outer limits, in a sense, of that regime that is being proposed in the bill and the definition of that phrase?