Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that to be the case. Are you aware of the state of Queensland?

The CHAIR: Senator Steele-John, I will make—

This is going somewhere, Chair.

The CHAIR: Senator Steele-John, don't interrupt me, please. It is the minister's prerogative to answer or not answer questions. I'm just making you aware of that.

I presume he would be aware of the state of Queensland and of the digests. So I can't quite understand—and maybe the minister can elaborate for the chamber—why he continues to assert that there are criminal penalties which protect Australians when 4.6 million Australians are currently without criminal recourse due to the fact that the state of Queensland—which is a state of Australia, as noted in the digest—is without a criminal regime. I would like to ask the minister, given his understanding of the underlying issues, why he does not believe that we should take this opportunity to extend a criminal source of redress to the people of Queensland.