Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

WATT (—) (): We certainly have no objection to Senator Lambie's request. The point I am making, Senator Waters, is that the legislation as currently drafted provides the entitlement to an employee who is experiencing family and domestic violence. I'm advised that the intent here is not to say that someone needs to be having violence inflicted upon them at that very moment in time. For instance, if it is violence that has been going on for some time—it might not be happening at the exact moment that the request is being made—and they are experiencing domestic violence because it has been happening in recent times, then they would be able to make a claim for that. I can't get into how long ago.

As you know, every piece of legislation is left to courts and tribunals to interpret, using a reasonable person test. We're not saying that someone has to have experienced domestic violence in the last five days, five weeks or five months. We will leave it to courts to interpret that, as they do with every other piece of legislation, but I would think a reasonable person would interpret that legislation to say that if someone is experiencing family and domestic violence, maybe not necessarily at that exact moment in time but in recent times, and it is having an effect upon that person in the form of trauma or something else then they can make a claim.