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

The short answer is yes, assuming this amendment were to be agreed to. The most common meaning of the word 'harass' is, as you rightly say, 'a series of acts' or 'a multiplicity of acts', but there is some doubt about that because there is at least one sense in the Oxford dictionary's definition of the word and there is one judicial decision in Australia, a case called Sheiban, which suggest that a single act may constitute harassment. So there is a degree of ambiguity about whether or not a single act may in particular circumstances constitute harassment.

To avoid, or to clear up, that ambiguity, the purpose of this subsection would be to put it beyond doubt that harassment could be constituted by a single act or by a series of acts—either would do—and a court approaching a particular case in which harassment was alleged would interpret the word 'harassment' in the act according to this subsection so that it could have regard to an act which was a single isolated act or it could have regard to a series of acts. So this broadens to the broadest possible degree what the understanding of 'harassment' could be.