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

That is not going to happen in relation to citizens, because in the example you have posited you are talking about citizens engaging in a download. That is something which the government yesterday introduced other legislation to deal with by way of the remedy of an injunction—a civil claim. So the example that you have posited is dealt with by the civil law. In particular, I invite you to inspect—no doubt we will be debating it in this chamber when we come back for the budget sittings—the government's copyright and online piracy reforms, which are modelled on the British copyright act and the copyright laws of other European jurisdictions. That is the way in which those matters will be dealt with. Breach of copyright, as I say, is primarily a civil wrong, and a civil action is not what this legislation is concerned with. There is this explicit prohibition, in the section to which I have directed your attention, on accessing metadata retained solely for the purpose of compliance with this act by way of a subpoena or a notice for third party discovery.