Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

(9) Schedule 1, item 1, page 5 (after line 7), after paragraph 115A(8)(a), insert:

  (aa) any other person with an interest in whether or not the injunction should be rescinded or varied; or

This is the final Greens amendment to this bill—number (9) on the same sheet. We propose to give a third party the ability to seek a review of a website block. To date, we have been talking about the process of injunction—the process whereby the courts would allow a foreign rights-holder to take a site offline, as far as being visible from within Australia is concerned. With this amendment, we concern ourselves with the consequences once that is done—if an injunction has been granted in error; if legitimate uses have been disrupted; if others come along and discover that the site should not have been knocked out.

It appears, on my reading of the bill, that even if your company has been directly affected by having a website knocked over, you cannot order any kind of review; you cannot order any kind of revocation. Melbourne Free University, for example, was accidentally wiped out by ASIC's clumsy blocking of 250,000 sites under a separate power—section 313 of the Telecommunications Act. They had no rights of review either; I think they actually had to come through us. They ended up having to raise a bit of a fuss in public. They contacted us, and I presume they contacted MPs from other parties as well. That is an appalling process, if your legitimate website has been knocked over by an act of casual incompetence. What are we to do if a rights-holder comes through, seeks an injunction, and it is uncontested; the court lets it get up, and then other legitimate interests have been disrupted or trespassed upon, or people go out of business? Why should they not be able to seek review? And firstly, could the minister confirm that my reading is correct, in that it would not be possible for anybody—a third party—to seek a review if their site has been knocked over?