Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The committee is considering the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015. The question is that the bill stand as printed.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the debate adjourned earlier in the day, Senator McKim had just asked me a question in relation to the operation of section 33AA, and I hope, Senator McKim, I do justice in paraphrasing your question. I am sure that, if you do not think I do, you will pull me up. The point of your question, as I understood it, is: how can this provision operate effectively, given that it depends upon the renunciation of citizenship by conduct, when it may well be that the minister who has to give the notice as a result of which certain consequential events will happen, for example, removal from the electoral roll, which is the best example, may not become aware of the fact that the person concerned has in fact engaged in defined conduct whereby they have renounced their citizenship.

Senator McKim, the answer to your question is that it is not uncommon at all in the law for an act of parliament to deem that certain conduct carries with it certain legal consequences, irrespective of whether or not that conduct immediately comes to the notice of government. One analogy that my attention has been drawn to is in the revenue law, where, for example, the Income Tax Assessment Act deems certain transactions to have a particular effect in creating a tax liability, and that liability is immediate upon the transactions being entered into or given effect to, whether or not the Commissioner of Taxation is aware of them. Often that is in the context of tax fraud, of course, so ordinarily the Commissioner of Taxation would not become aware of them, but when he does then he will issue a notice of assessment, and certain other legal consequences will follow from an administrative point of view. But the liability which the act attracts is a liability which, from a legal point of view, is complete upon the happening of the events which the act describes. It does not depend upon an awareness of or notice being taken of those acts by a responsible minister.

That is an analogy with this provision. In the case of the provision before us we would say that, when a person engages in conduct which the statute deems to be the renunciation of allegiance to Australia and therefore of Australian citizenship, that is the end of the matter. That is the end of the matter from a legal or a juridical point of view. It does not depend upon the minister becoming aware of it, but it may well be that nothing happens administratively as a consequence of that, just as nothing happens administratively as a consequence of entering into a proscribed, unlawful transaction from a taxation law point of view. But when the minister does become aware of those matters, then he issues a notice which sets in train a series of administrative consequences. So this is not, from the point of view of the way this legislation works, a legal problem for it. It may be an administrative problem, but it is not a legal problem.

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

I thank the Attorney for that explanation. As I understand your answer, you have indicated to the Senate that those administrative consequences which arise from the conduct that breaches the criteria established in this statute will flow from the issuing of the notice by the minister. I accept your argument that legally the conduct is what engages this statute and renounces the citizenship. I certainly accept and understand that, but I want to ask you: is my understanding correct that it is the issuing of the notice that will commence those administrative machinery actions around things like removal from the electoral roll and cancellation of passport? If that is right, what is the test that the minister would apply before signing that notice?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is in a practical sense the issuance of the notice which will entail certain other administrative consequences. The test the minister will apply is he will need to be satisfied that the conduct has occurred. In our discussion earlier in the day, you raised, if I recall correctly, the question of the standard of proof. I think I said to you that that is an inapt expression, because 'standard of proof' is the expression we use to determine whether or not a court is satisfied as to whether or not either an element of a cause of action in a civil court or an element of a crime in a criminal court has been established.

We do not use the term 'standard of proof', ordinarily, when it comes to administrative decision-making. An administrative decision maker is satisfied that certain statutory criteria have been met. There is no inter partes process, as it were. There is no accuser and opposer. The minister is made aware of certain facts and circumstances on the basis of which he arrives at a view. Because there is no onus of proof, as it were, in this case, the language 'standard of proof' is not apt. So, it is no different from any decision of an administrative character made by an executive decision maker.

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

Thank you for that answer. Perhaps I will phrase my question a little differently so that I move us out of the legal framework, which I accept that we are not operating in here. We are operating, should this legislation pass, in an administrative framework. To what extent would the minister need to be satisfied that the relevant conduct has occurred? Is there any precedent around this in administrative law? Can the minister establish his or her own measure around whether or not they are satisfied that the relevant conduct occurred?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You say: is there any precedent in administrative law. It is a straightforward case of administrative law when an administrative decision maker is charged by a statute with the obligation to perform an administrative act—in this case, the issuance of a notice—according to being satisfied as to certain criteria. The language that section 33AA(10), which is the relevant provision, uses is:

If the Minister becomes aware of conduct because of which a person has, under this section, ceased to be an Australian citizen, the Minister must give written notice to that effect—

And so it goes on. What the statute requires of the minister is that he has become aware of conduct of the kind described in the statute. That is all.

This is elaborated upon by paragraph 38 of the supplementary explanatory memorandum, which I might read to you because it is germane. It is probably useful to have it on the record, although it is a little long:

Upon becoming aware of the relevant conduct, the Minister is obliged to give written notice of the cessation of citizenship to the person as soon as practicable. A question arises as to the level of satisfaction required of the Minister about the conduct which causes the cessation of citizenship, before a notice is issued.

That is your very point, Senator McKim, so you have, if I may say so, gone right to the heart of the matter.

The statutory requirement is the Minister is 'aware' that the individual has ceased to be an Australian citizen because of their conduct. The term aware is not defined in the provision, so it should be given its ordinary meaning. In the Macquarie dictionary, the ordinary meaning of 'aware' is 'cognisant or conscious'. In the context of other legislation, courts have found that to 'become aware' of something is to acquire subjective knowledge of it.

The precedent quoted in the supplementary explanatory memorandum is a case called Right to Life Association (NSW) Inc v Secretary of the Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health (1994) 36 ALD 264, 267.

Knowledge is more than suspicion or belief. To issue a notice under the provision in subsection 33AA(12), the Minister should have a degree of knowledge about the conduct which gives rise to a clear mental apprehension of the existence of the conduct. The Minister should have the same mental assurance that the person is a national or citizen of a country other than Australia—

in order to meet the dual citizenship element.

That is the test: 'a clear mental apprehension of the existence of the conduct.'

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

I thank the Attorney and appreciate him placing those matters on the record. In the circumstance that we are discussing here—the application of section 33AA—you have said that the minister would need to acquire subjective knowledge and that that would in reality mean the words that you have just placed on the record. I am trying to think through the ways that a minister can be advised of matters. As you know, I have had the honour to act as a minister in the Tasmanian government for just over 3½ years, though obviously not as the Attorney-General, so I have some experience in these matters.

I will phrase the question like this, Attorney: are you able to offer any further clarity around the ways in which the minister may be able to acquire that subjective knowledge and meet the test that you have just placed on the record in the specific circumstances of section 33A? As a supplementary, I presume the minister may receive advice from one of Australia's security agencies or perhaps Defence agencies that the conduct occurred. Could you, if you are able, explain whether that advice would normally come up through the department or would be provided directly to the minister by the security agency or the ADF?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To deal with the last question first, the minister would ordinarily be advised by his department rather than by the agencies. I am glad you have been a minister, Senator McKim, so you kind of know how this works. The minister would receive a brief from his department. The information in that brief would be assembled from all appropriate sources, but, given that we are speaking of terrorism related conduct, one would ordinarily expect that the source of that information could be from the police and from the security agencies, who will have established to their satisfaction that the relevant facts existed.

I should say, Senator McKim—I do not want to set up a straw man here, and I do not think you should either—that, in most cases, one would expect that this conduct would be so manifest that it would be publicly notorious. We have all been horrified in the last couple of years to see examples of Australian citizens engaged in the practice of beheading or holding aloft the severed heads of individuals, who are displayed in front of an ISIS flag, for example. Just the public notoriety of certain events and the indisputable identification of an individual with those events may well be enough. As you know, Senator, in legal proceedings courts can take judicial notice of notorious public facts, but in other cases it may be that they rely upon information put before them by the department, drawing upon information provided to the department by police and security agencies.

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

Again, thanks to the Attorney for that response. I guess the genesis of this line of questioning is that, in my view and the view of the Australian Greens—and I should add parenthetically here that we do not support the principle of this legislation; that is, removing citizenship from dual nationals in the circumstances proposed in this legislation, for the reasons I outlined in my second reading contribution—if you were going to remove citizenship from those people who meet the criteria, this ought to be a matter for the courts, not for the machinery of government. If it were a matter for the courts, we would then be able to discuss things like the standard of proof, as you were mentioning earlier.

However, given that that is not the case and that the effect given to the renunciation of citizenship that occurs by conduct in this proposed statute takes place on the issuing of the notice by the minister, what I am attempting to understand here is: what tests will be applied right through the process? You have been—and I thank you—very up front about administrative law precedent around the satisfaction, if I can put it that way, that the minister would need to arrive at, but what I am now trying to explore is: what level of satisfaction would the agencies that are the genesis of that advice need to arrive at before they put that advice up to the department and potentially then from the department on to the minister? It is our view that, if this matter were run through the judicial system—as we think it should be if someone wanted to introduce a mechanism to remove someone's citizenship—we could have a lot more confidence in what the burden of proof or the level of satisfaction would need to be before the effects flowed in terms of the machinery of government around things like electoral rolls and passports.

I ask you, Attorney: are you able to offer any further information to the Senate around the level of satisfaction it would be reasonable to expect or you would expect as the minister with carriage of this legislation through this place? What level of satisfaction would the agencies need to arrive at before they would put that information up through the chain that ultimately would culminate in advice from the department to the minister? By the way, I accept your previous statement—and I will paraphrase you here—that many, or at least some, of the actions might be of public notoriety. I do accept that. But I would submit to you that others may not be of that level of public notoriety. Therefore, the question I have asked is: what internal level of satisfaction, if you like, would the police or the ADF or any of our security agencies need to arrive at before they put the advice up to the department?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, I understand perfectly your point, and we have a philosophical difference, which I respect, about whether or not a provision of this kind should be in the law. In relation to the way in which this provision works, though, I think you came—perhaps not meaning to do so—close to saying that it is the minister's issuance of a notice that has the effect of loss of citizenship. But I think you acknowledged in an earlier contribution that that is not so, that it is the conduct—subject to the statutory deeming of certain conduct to constitute a renunciation of citizenship—that is that which effects a loss of citizenship. So the minister's act is, as I keep saying, of a purely administrative character, and certain other administrative consequences may follow from it.

Senator McKim, in a sense what you are contending is really the very thing we are trying to avoid. What we are trying to avoid is the chapter III problem—and we think we have done so, by the way. Informed by very good legal advice, we consider we have done so. The minister is not acting in judicial or quasi-judicial or judge-like fashion, which is why we avoid terms like 'the standard of proof' and other terms that are akin to the manner in which judicial proceedings are conducted. All the minister does is issue a notice, and that notice is issued upon, as the provision says, him becoming aware of certain facts. As I have said to you, he would ordinarily become aware of those facts from a departmental brief, which one would expect to be based upon reports from policing and security agencies. Those reports would not be conclusions about criminality. It is important to say that. The same conduct that might constitute renunciation may also constitute a crime. In fact, you would expect it would. But they are not conclusions about criminality; they are reports of events—events that answer the statutory description. The test that the minister applies is, as I have explained to you, becoming aware, which has been decided in the administrative law jurisdiction by the courts, in a case where that term was used, is: 'acquire subjective knowledge of, or give rise to a clear mental apprehension of, the existence of conduct answering the statutory words'.

The other point I am at pains to make to you, Senator McKim, is: although the minister's issuance of a notice is not a judicial act—it is not an act with any juridical effect—that does not mean that the circumstances in which a person may renounce their citizenship by conduct are free of the capacity for judicial review. Senator McKim, you would be aware, I dare say, of the provisions of section 75 of the Constitution, which says:

75. In all matters--

…   …   …

(iii.) In which the Commonwealth, or a person suing or being sued on behalf of the Commonwealth, is a party:

…   …   …

(v.) In which a writ of Mandamus or prohibition or an injunction is sought against an officer of the Commonwealth:

the High Court shall have original jurisdiction.

If a person were to receive a notice from the minister saying, 'I have become aware that, by reason of the following conduct engaged in by you on or about such and such a date, you have, in accordance with section 33AA of the Citizenship Act, renounced your Australian citizenship,' it would be open to that person to seek judicial review of the minister's issuance of the notice. There is a constitutional right to do that in the original jurisdiction of the High Court, under section 75. They could also do it in another court as well, presumably in the Federal Court. The sort of relief they would seek would be a declaration that the circumstances recited in the minister's notice were not circumstances that pertained to them or that they had not engaged in conduct of the kind described in the notice, and they would probably seek an injunction against the minister and any other Commonwealth agency from giving effect to the minister's notice. I pointed that out in my letter last Friday to Mr Marles and Mr Dreyfus. So we do not exclude judicial review here. We do not exclude judicial review of the issuance of the notice, but the scheme, the mechanism, the method, of this provision is that it is not the issuance of the notice that determines the question of the loss of citizenship.

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

Again, thanks, Attorney. You referenced the chapter III problem that you are trying to avoid here in the way that you have crafted this legislation. I do understand that that is your intent here—to avoid a chapter III problem—but I would submit to the Senate that, in your desire to avoid a chapter III problem, you have created a massive uncertainty around what level of certainty an agency would need to arrive at before they would start providing advice up the chain that would ultimately culminate in advice from the department to a minister to issue a notice under the provisions of this statute.

Can I follow on from the last part of your answer, Attorney, by asking you: in the event of a judicial review of—actually, first, can I ask: is the judicial review into the issuing of a notice or would it be a judicial review of the conduct itself that then triggered the renunciation of the citizenship? Do you see the question I am asking? Would the judicial review be a merits based review into whether or not the conduct occurred or would it simply be a review into the issuing of a notice? Secondly, what would the standard of proof be in that judicial review? Of course, the citizenship is already gone, so it is not the government applying to the courts to have the citizenship removed; it is the claimant applying to the courts to have the citizenship restored. So what would the standard of proof be in any judicial review?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, in answering your previous question I should have also referred you to the note to subsection 10 in the bill, which is the relevant subsection. The note reads:

A person may seek review of the basis on which a notice under this subsection was given in the High Court of Australia under section 75 of the Constitution, or in the Federal Court of Australia under section 39B of the Judiciary Act 1903.

That of which a person seeks review is the basis on which the notice was given. In relation to the question of the standard of proof, the kind of relief that would be sought would be a declaration and/or an injunction—probably both. Those, as you know, Senator McKim, are equitable remedies, so it would be strictly characterised a suit in equity, and in suits in equity the standard of proof is on the balance of probabilities.

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

Thank you again, Attorney. So the standard of proof would be balance of probabilities but I think you have just said—and I know you will correct me if I have misapprehended you—that the remedy sought would be an injunction against the issuing of the notice. But would that then constitute a restoration of the citizenship—because of course it is not the issuing of the notice that removes the citizenship; it is the conduct itself that removes the citizenship.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Senator McKim, and that is provided for by subsection (24)(a) of section 33AA, which provides that the citizenship is deemed never to have been lost if there is a successful review. So if there is a successful review, the status quo ante is entirely restored. One other small technical point: it would not be an injunction against the issuance of the notice because the notice in these circumstances, on your hypothesis, would already have issued. It would be a declaration as to the nonexistence of the basis for the issue of the notice and an injunction to restrain other Commonwealth authorities—for example, the Australian Electoral Commissioner—from giving effect to the notice.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Attorney, I wonder if you could please describe how the proscribed list of Australia's terrorist groups is created. Who decides who are Australia's terrorist groups?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are provisions in the Commonwealth Criminal Code for the listing of declared terrorist organisations, and that is done by the Attorney-General. It is done by the Attorney-General following a statutory process on the basis of advice in particular from ASIO against certain statutory criteria.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So let me get that clear. That is ASIO and yourself—nobody else? No national security coalition or anything like that? It is just the two of you involved in the decision making of who is a terrorist organisation?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is the way this works. ASIO is the national security agency, so its job is to protect Australia from, among other things, terrorism. So ASIO is the very agency within the Commonwealth government which makes judgements about whether or not an individual or, in the case you have put to me, an organisation is a terrorist organisation. Acting on the advice of ASIO, the Attorney-General may and, routinely, would declare an organisation to be a terrorist organisation for the purposes of the Criminal Code. I cannot imagine that any Attorney-General who was doing his job responsibly would ignore the advice of ASIO and say, 'Even though you say the statutory criteria are met, on the basis of your intelligence judgement I am going to refuse to declare this organisation to be a terrorist organisation.'

I should have said, Senator Lambie, since we are dealing particularly with the Citizenship Act—and we mentioned this last night—there is a double criterion, because although it is the Attorney-General who declares terrorist organisations under provisions of the Criminal Code, it is the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection who, under this act, declares certain organisations from within the pre-existing list of declared terrorist organisations to be organisations to which the provisions of this bill apply. So it may be that the list for the purposes of this bill are narrower than the entire list of declared terrorist organisations declared by the Attorney-General under the Criminal Code.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So is it fair to say that the list is created by politicians and government employees rather than judges and judicial process?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is certainly fair to say, Senator Lambie, that the list is created by government employees because all the officers of ASIO are government employees and, I suppose, politicians in the sense that the Attorney-General as the designated minister has to declare an organisation to be a declared terrorist organisation, and he is a politician, and the declaration does not take effect until the Attorney-General does make such a declaration. And I do this from time to time on the advice of ASIO.

So they are certainly not declared by judges and judicial officers. That is not the function of judges. The function of judges is to resolve disputes—either civil disputes between parties or criminal prosecutions between the Crown and an accused person. The essence of the judicial function is to resolve disputes, and the kinds of decisions that judges and courts make are decisions about the just resolution of disputes. Decisions of this character are not about the resolution of a dispute between citizens; they are about whether or not certain statutory criteria are satisfied by the conduct of a particular organisation so that they should be assessed to be and then declared to be a terrorist organisation.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So, just to clarify again: is the PKK, or the Kurdistan Workers Party, on that list of proscribed terrorist groups?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, it is.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you then admit that, because a judicial process was not used to create that list, there has been a breach of the separation of powers in, for example, labelling the PKK as an official terrorist organisation?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect, Senator Lambie, I absolutely do not; in fact, I say the very opposite. I say that the power to declare an organisation to be a terrorist organisation is classically an exercise of executive power, not an exercise of judicial power—for the reason I just explained in answer to your last question. It is not the kind of decision which courts make. It is not an exercise of judicial power; it is classically an exercise of executive power.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Kurdish community, as you know, is rather large in Australia, and many in the Kurdish community support the PKK or are possible informal or formal members. Will members of the PKK be subjected to the same penalties as members of Australia's other proscribed terrorist organisations?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Membership of a declared terrorist organisation is a crime in Australia. You speak generally about members of the Kurdish community. I know members of the Kurdish community. My friend, former Senator Ross Lightfoot, in fact used to be the chair of the Parliamentary Kurdish Friendship Group in this parliament and, through former Senator Lightfoot, I met many leaders of the Australian Kurdish community whom I hold in very, very high regard. I do not think for a moment you should assume that members of the Kurdish community are members or sympathisers of the PKK. There may be some who are sympathisers of the PKK, but that does not mean that they are members of that organisation—and I doubt there are.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not where I am going. What I am saying is that, as the law stands or will stand, we treat a PKK member in the same way as we treat a member of Islamic State. That is effectively what you will be doing.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, we discussed this last night. There are certain objective criteria about whether or not an organisation is a terrorist organisation that is declared under the Criminal Code. Basically, to put it as simply as I can, it has to engage in terrorist conduct. The advice to the Australian government from ASIO is that the PKK in some aspects of its operations does so. The fact that the PKK is an enemy of ISIL—which it is—and the fact that we and the PKK may be, to put it crudely, on the same side in fighting ISIL in the Middle East, as we are, is not a complete description of the PKK's activities.

As I said—I think last night—Senator Lambie, I think we should trust the judgement of the intelligence specialists in making these judgements. Let me repeat again the point I also made last night: that fighting in a foreign civil war—for example, a person engaged as an irregular with the PKK in the region known as Kurdistan, which the Kurdish people of course regard as a state—would be in breach of a provision which is now going to be section 35 of this bill but was originally introduced into Australian law in 1979 by an act called the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act.

Because of the very sorts of issues that you raise, Senator Lambie, a judgement was made to include in that legislation an unusual provision which says that no prosecution under this law can be made without the consent of the Attorney-General. So it is not merely the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions who has to form a view about whether a prosecution should be brought because the elements of the offence are satisfied to the criminal standard, but also the Attorney-General, as the publicly answerable minister of government, who must also assume personal responsibility for allowing that prosecution to go ahead. In other words, the Attorney-General has a veto over whether that prosecution should proceed. Such provisions are not unique to our law, but they are very unusual, and their unusualness reflects the fact that there are the sorts of judgements that have to be made—moral judgements as well as legal judgements—in a case like the one you have drawn my attention to.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But you have criminalised members of the PKK and bypassed the court process. You and ASIO have decided they are criminals—not a judge or a court—and therefore you have breached the separation of powers.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should make the obvious point, Senator Lambie, that although the PKK is declared under the Criminal Code it is not yet declared under this bill, because the bill has not been passed. Assuming the bill were to be passed, it would be a matter for the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to decide whether, from the list of declared terrorist organisations in the Criminal Code, that particular organisation should be an organisation for the purposes of these provisions of the Citizenship Act. So there is no automaticity about that. There have to be, as it were, two ministerial minds applied to two different acts of parliament—mine under the Criminal Code and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection under this act. But, Senator Lambie, I do not resile for a moment—not for a moment—from saying that it is appropriate that the declaration of an organisation as a terrorist organisation should depend upon the advice of intelligence specialists and should be made by a minister. It is not a judicial process. It is not the thing that courts do. It is, as I said before, classically an executive government act.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you agree that the Australian and US governments are supplying food and goods, and probably weapons, to the PKK?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not going to comment on the military situation in northern Iraq. Certainly, the Australian government has provided some supplies to Kurdish people and other minority groups who are under attack and, indeed, in peril of slaughter at the hands of ISIL. I do not think you should equate providing supplies to ethnic and religious minorities in peril of slaughter with supplying weapons to the PKK.

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to continue with my questioning tomorrow.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a motion, but we will need to move out of committee, I think, to move it. It will only take a second.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That progress be reported.

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

I seek leave to seek clarification.

Leave granted.

The clarification I seek is this. If progress is reported now, are we able to come back into a committee to continue questioning at a later hour or a later day?

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My understanding is that we will come back to this tomorrow. This does not complete the process. It is a shift from being in committee.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, this debate adjourns at 7.20. Ordinarily we would go to 7.20 and resume tomorrow. Senator Leyonhjelm wants to do something, so he has asked for the debate to come to an end tonight about two minutes early. That is all.

Question agreed to.

Progress reported.

Ordered that the committee have leave to sit again on the next day of sitting.