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

Your defence here relates to the establishment of fault, and you've just advised this committee—and please correct me if I've got this wrong—that there are two elements to that: one is that the person is aware that there is a substantial risk that their actions may impact on national security. Remember, we're talking about economic relationships here, within the very broad definition of national security in section 90.4. The first bar that needs to be cleared, if you like, is that the person needs to be aware that there's substantial risk that their activities might damage Australia's economic relationship with another country. I submit to you that, in the hypothetical I've given you, that bar is comfortably cleared, because the person is well aware that their protest may delay or entirely prevent the loading of the sheep for live export, and that therefore they have cleared that bar because they have an awareness that their actions constitute a substantial risk to Australia's economic relationship with the country to which the boat is being loaded to travel to. Am I not correct in that categorisation of the first bar that needs to be cleared?