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

When you say only monetary penalties, there are some very, very serious breaches of the law that attract only monetary penalties. In my own field of professional experience in trade practices law, until very recently, there were only monetary civil penalties available under the Trade Practices Act, as it then was, for the most egregious market fixing and cartelisation conduct. I think in anyone's language conduct like that is a very, very serious breach of the law, but the penalties were only monetary. So the fact that the penalties may only be monetary does not indicate at all that the conduct being investigated is not grave.