Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019, having thoroughly considered the matters as deputy chair of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. The substantive report that we have provided contains a very, I think, comprehensive response to this very flawed bill. On behalf of the Labor Party, Senator Chisholm and I have produced that document, which I might say is much more substantive than the government's report.

The reason we've had to do this is the bill is so basically flawed. This is a bill that may well have set out to have an intent to deal with questions that the minister has just outlined, but it was, in fact, a response to an election announcement, as the public servants made very clear. It was, in fact, in response to a very thin legislative program by this government in the context of an election campaign where they had very little to say. As the various departments and agencies that presented to the committee demonstrated with their meagre submissions of only one page, the departments had clearly not consulted widely, had not provided an exposure draft of the legislation and had demonstrated just how grossly underprepared they were to deal with this legislation. We see here that the government has put forward a proposal in search of, essentially, a response to a problem that has yet to be demonstrated can be dealt with in the way the government claims.

There is a real risk in this bill that the government will actually fail to achieve its stated aims. The bill has been hyped as a necessary response to farm invasion by animal rights activists, but it's put in a context where there are, at the moment, 31 separate statutes across this country to deal with matters which the Attorney-General's Department has identified. We publish in our report, which goes for page after page of detail, what the actual legislative response is across the Commonwealth in identifying those issues and where the states are currently strengthening their legislative response to the claims that are being made by the groups that have recently published the addresses of farms and abattoirs in this country.

We know that trespass is normally and properly prosecuted by state and territory jurisdictions—so are theft, property damage and incitement. Like trespass, this is a crime that has been covered in common law throughout the history of this nation. All the legal armoury needed to crack down on farm invaders already exists. But, you see, this is not a bill that deals with the question of trespass. This is not a bill about trespass; this is a bill about incitement. It's about incitement, and it goes far beyond farms and far beyond agricultural premises. It goes to food production premises in cities. It goes to aquaculture facilities. It goes to some research facilities. It goes to some facilities on private land but not on public land. It's inconsistent in its approach. It deals with fish processing plants. It deals with vegetable processing plants that deal with fish processing. It deals with a series of measures which clearly have not been thought through, because it's been drafted in such a hasty manner. This is legislation that has been brought forward with little thought to the consequence of its broader implications.

The bill creates two new offences under the Criminal Code: the use of a carriage service, such as the internet, to incite others to trespass or to damage, destroy or steal property on agricultural land and in relation to agricultural related activity. And, of course, it was promoted because of the publication of certain facilities by animal rights activists. The Labor Party, as has been made very, very clear, strongly opposes farm invasions, and I personally have strongly opposed people who move on to the killing floors of abattoirs, seek to close down abattoirs or seek to undermine the work of our meat industry in this country. I have long been associated with the meat industry in this country. So to suggest that somehow or other we're implicated, with—what do you call it?—'vegan terrorism' is a complete nonsense.

Senator McKim interjecting—

The whole question here, we've said and made it very, very clear—

Senator McKim interjecting—

We are very, very clear about the nature—