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

Thank you, Madam Deputy President. I will address these matters once we go into committee, but I'm making the point that the sooner this legislation goes through the parliament—which it now will, thanks to the Labor Party—the higher the risk that teenage people in Australia will be sentenced to four, five, six or, in some cases, seven years imprisonment for engaging in what through human history has been relatively normal teenage behaviour. The only rebuttal that the government has to this allegation is that we can all relax because there is prosecutorial discretion and prosecutors will not prosecute if it is not in the public interest to do so. I say to the government and to the Labor Party: tell that to Mr Bernard Collaery, tell that to Witness K and tell that to the innumerable whistleblowers that have been prosecuted in this place.