Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Well, Minister! You can get up and say no as long as you like. And I'm not sure whether that's based on advice from your office or from the Attorney-General's Department or not. But I will step you through—in the minute or two left to me before two o'clock rolls around and we go into question time—the reasons that I believe that someone who engages in the actions I've just taken you through actually would be caught by the definitions in this act and subject to a potential charge and a potential term of imprisonment of 20 years, firstly the offence of sabotage involving a foreign principal that is reckless as to national security. I'll tell you what, Minister: perhaps, as I've got only 45 seconds left, we can return to this when the legislation comes along. I just want to repeat what I said earlier: your government, with the complicity of the Australian Labor Party—yes, the complicity of the Labor Party—is walking this country ever more rapidly down the road to an authoritarian police state—