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

In fact, I have not put a proposition that there is a change in definition as you've just asserted, Minister, so I'll just place that on the record. Look, we could probably debate this all day. Unfortunately, your refusal to engage fully—although I acknowledge you've attempted to engage partially—on this issue has reinforced our concerns about the chilling effect of this legislation on political participation, freedom of speech and freedom of political expression in our country, and you've abjectly failed to convince me that I was wrong in any way with the arguments I was putting in my speech in the second reading, which you've rejected but failed to rebut. You've denied them, but you've failed to fully explain, in a reasonable way, why you think I was wrong. Talking about freedom of speech and freedom of political communication, has the government taken advice from the Solicitor-General on whether these laws breach the implied right of freedom of political expression in Australia enshrined in our Constitution?