Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have been listening to this debate tonight and I want to follow on from what Senator Cory Bernardi said and ask about the word 'harass'. I have looked at the dictionary and it says that 'harass' means 'to make repeated small-scale attacks', 'to annoy with repeated attacks' or 'to disturb persistently'. That is from the Macquarie dictionary. Item (2B)(a) of the bill refers to a 'single isolated act'. Senator Brandis, regarding 'a single isolated act', I know you referred to material on the internet and tweets. I am not a legal mind—I do not come from that background—but, if a court makes a decision, it is based on what is actually in law. That means, if it is based on the law of (2B)(a), it must come down to a single isolated act. If there is nothing in the law, then the judge would have to go back to the definition of the word 'harass', which would go back to the definition in the dictionary, which refers to multiple acts. So is it feasible to say, if we legislate it, that the courts will determine it from the point of view of a single act? Is that how the courts will interpret it?