Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (No. 1) Bill 2016 on behalf of the opposition. The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (No. 1) Bill is the latest in a series of national security bills. Previous reforms have included new and expanded offences, additional and broader powers for law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and new grounds on which dual nationals may lose their Australian citizenship. The bill implements a number of recommendations from the Council of Australian Governments' review of counter-terrorism legislation. The measures in this bill ensure that our police forces are equipped with a useful tool for preventing terrorist attacks—the control order regime.

Australia's national terror threat level is currently at 'probable', meaning that there is credible intelligence indicating individuals or groups have both the intent and the capability to conduct an attack. At the time of the bill's introduction to the Senate earlier this year, estimates indicated there were around 110 Australians fighting or engaged with terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria and 200 providing support or facilitation from Australia. This increase has meant that agencies are gaining experience with powers that have been available since 2005, but were rarely used or not used at all until recently.

Control orders are a useful tool for our police forces. They are reserved for serious cases and have been used very sparingly since first introduced into Australian law in 2005. As of February this year, just six had been issued. A court can issue a control order only if it will substantially help prevent a terrorist attack, or if the person against whom an order is being made has trained or participated in training with a listed terrorist organisation, engaged in a hostile activity in a foreign country or been convicted of a terrorism related offence. Labor believes that our security agencies and national institutions should have the powers and resources they need to keep Australians safe from the threat of terrorism. Labor's commitment to our security agencies and institutions extends to ensuring that resources are available to combat the threat of terrorism, and we will continue to support legislative updates to make sure we can meet future demands.

However, our bipartisan assistance to the government on matters of national security is never a blank cheque. Bipartisanship on national security means that we will support necessary and effective measures to address threats to our nation, but our commitment to bipartisanship does not mean we will support every measure the government proposes. We will advocate for improvements to those measures that we support in line with Labor's values to ensure safety of the community. It is this approach of constructive bipartisanship that we have brought to bear in the debate on this bill. I want to be clear about this: much of the bill is uncontroversial, and we have supported those measures with which we agree. But we have also been critical about some aspects of the bill and have argued hard for improvements.

Labor has worked to improve this bill to get the balance right between giving our security agencies the tools that they need to respond to evolving threats and ensuring the rights of minors are safeguarded. That includes ensuring any young person subject to a control order has the right to be provided with a lawyer to advise and represent them. Accordingly, we will support the government amendment that has been circulated on sheet ZA417. We pursued improvements in the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, where Labor members and senators closely scrutinised the bill and heard evidence from security agencies and a range of experts and community groups. We achieved 20 substantial recommendations for improvements to the bill. In negotiations with the government we pursued these improvements on which we have achieved agreement.

To give context to the improvements to this bill achieved by Labor, it is useful to consider the scope of the bill and the original form in which the bill was first introduced into the Senate. The bill was first introduced into the 44th Parliament on 12 November 2015, and it lapsed on prorogation of the parliament before being debated in either house. It updates Australia's counterterrorism legislation in a number of respects, including the extension of the control order scheme to cover minors as young as 14; improves protections for all minors subject to control order applications; introduces a new class of warrants to facilitate the monitoring of compliance with control order conditions; allows national security information not to be fully disclosed to a person who is the subject of a control order where necessary; and allows preventative detention orders to be issued to prevent not only a terrorist attack expected to take place within 14 days but also a terrorist attack that is capable of being carried out and could occur within 14 days. It also removes the ability of retired Family Court judges, as opposed to retired judges of the other federal courts, to issue preventative detention orders; and, finally, introduces a new offence of advocating genocide.

Upon introduction, it was immediately referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security for inquiry and report. The committee received submissions and held a public hearing in December 2015, tabling its report on 15 February 2016. The committee made a number of recommendations to change the bill, subject to which the bill should be passed. The key recommendations included: mandating that a young person subject to a control order proceeding be provided with a lawyer; making clear that the best interests of a young person are a primary consideration in any control order proceeding; mandatory reporting to the parliament on the use of national security information in control order proceedings; and legislation for a scheme of special advocates to be introduced by the end of 2016 to ensure that the lawyers are able to advocate for the interests of a person in control order proceedings from which they have been excluded on national security grounds.

The key recommendations also included: improving reporting of the exercise of monitoring powers, including telecommunications interception and surveillance device control order warrants; improving drafting of the threshold conditions for preventative detention orders; and introducing a requirement that, in order to meet the threshold to be convicted of the proposed 'advocating genocide' offence, a person must be reckless as to whether another person might engage in genocide on the basis of their advocacy.

The proposal to lower the minimum age for control orders to 14 years of age raised significant concern for the public when it was formally announced by the government in October 2015. Organisations including the Australian Human Rights Commission and the Law Council of Australia expressed their concern in written submissions to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security during the public hearings. Those concerns were shared by the National Children's Commissioner, who also considered control orders have the potential to disrupt children's education and participation in community life, and argued it was preferable to work with communities to divert children from antisocial pathways.

However, Professor Greg Barton argued that control orders could play a legitimate role in diverting young people from a violent extremist path, but they could only be effective if used alongside community based solutions. He said:

Control orders are a temporary measure not a permanent solution, and if not used widely can cause more harm than good. Working with family and community, however, they may just make a vital difference.

Labor believe early intervention and community engagement, working in combination with strong and bipartisan counterterrorism legislation, are all key to preventing vulnerable young Australians being groomed into extremist ideology.

As was noted by ASIO Director-General Duncan Lewis in mid-2015:

We understand we can't arrest our way to success.

If there is indeed a silver bullet to solving the issue of radicalisation, it is in the area of social cohesion.

In her submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Ms Rabea Khan, vice-president of the Muslim Network New South Wales, explained the need to understand the context in which these laws are coming into play and the effects of growing social divisiveness on young people and the reasons for radicalisation. Programs that counter violent extremism need appropriate funding and cohesive narratives, and they need to provide viable alternatives to disenfranchised young Australians, who may be vulnerable to terrorist recruiters. Our agencies must work with families and communities in a number of ways to resist the radicalisation of young people, and Labor accept that control orders are one tool which should be available to them where appropriate.

Obviously, these are very serious measures to impose on a person as young as 14, but, sadly, young people in our community are being targeted for recruitment by extremists. It is an unfortunate reality that people as young as 14 are being targeted for radicalisation by organisations like ISIS. The boy who killed New South Wales Police Force accountant Curtis Cheng in 2015, Farhad Jabar, was 15 years old. Another 15-year-old was charged with conspiracy to conduct an act in preparation for a terrorist act in 2015. The age of criminal responsibility under Australian federal law is generally set at 14 years of age. Labor recognise the need for our anti-terror laws to be periodically updated to keep up with evolving threats, but each change must be treated carefully, particularly where minors are impacted.

To ensure that the bill properly implements Australia's obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security recommended that the bill required the best interests of the child to be a primary consideration. The bill includes this requirement and also explicitly provides that a young person has the right to legal representation in control order proceedings. Labor pushed for these amendments to strike a better balance between protecting the rights of young people and keeping all Australians safe.

This bill inserts a new offence into the Criminal Code, carrying a maximum seven-year prison sentence targeting persons who advocate genocide. This would be consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; however, concerns were raised with the committee that this offence was drafted too broadly and could potentially limit discussion, debate and exploration of terrorism in the news and current affairs reported. Labor pushed for an amendment to insert the fault element of recklessness to the offence, and it is now in the bill.

The bill implements COAG's recommendation that the government give consideration to introducing a special advocate system for control order proceedings, reiterated by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in November 2014 but not implemented in the 2015 bill. This bill now includes amendments to establish such a system in response to recommendations of the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor in January 2016 and the committee in February 2016.

Labor has approached this legislation responsibly. We have offered the government our bipartisan support for measures to ensure the safety and security of Australians and have engaged in constructive processes to ensure that the right balance is struck between this and accountability safeguards. Labor did not offer the government a blank cheque on this or any piece of legislation and we will never do so. We want to make sure that the bill operates as intended and actually serves to protect our security.

On the one hand, Australia is a free society and it must remain this way. We have worked hard to achieve this balance through the committee process and we have kept the need for appropriate safeguards in mind throughout negotiations. We will continue to work together with the government to ensure that our security agencies and national institutions have the powers and resources they need to keep Australians safe from the threat of terrorism.

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

The Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2016 is the latest in a long line of counterterrorism legislation that has been presented to the previous parliament and no doubt will continue to be presented to this parliament. This legislation replaces the 2015 bill that was tabled in November 2015 and lapsed on the prorogation of previous parliament on 17 April 2016. I will go into detail about a number of provisions in this bill, but it is worth noting that the government has circulated an amendment that implements a recommendation of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security relating to a young person's right to legal representation. Given that this bill will pass the Senate and given the unsurprising speech that we have just heard from Labor, I am comfortable placing on the record that we will support the amendment as it strengthens the protections afforded to young people subject to control orders. However, we will not be supporting this legislation through the Senate today.

It is also worth pointing out that the 2016 version of the bill is updated with recommendations from the PJCIS as well as recommendations from the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. The most significant amendment contained in this bill relates to control orders. Control orders first appeared in 2005 when the Criminal Code Act 1995 was amended to give federal courts the power to make control orders in response to a request from the Australian Federal Police. The 2005 amendments were subject to a sunset clause after 10 years, but that was extended to 2018 by the Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Act 2014.

The Australian control order regime is in broad terms based on the United Kingdom model, but, of course, one of the big differences between Australia and the United Kingdom in this context is that the UK must take into account their human rights act. There is, of course, disappointingly, no similar human rights act or bill of rights in Australia that would, potentially at least, depending on how it was framed, provide some fundamental protections against the ongoing and continual erosion of civil liberties in this country. It is worth pointing out that tens of thousands of Australians have fought, and in many cases died, to protect civil liberties in this country. Yet we, on a regular basis in this parliament, pass legislation that on any reasonable argument curtails civil liberties in this country without an adequate case being made by the government for that curtailment.

I want to be very clear: the fact that a 15-year-old person attacked Curtis Cheng is not of itself an argument to lower the age of people to which control orders can apply. That is no argument whatsoever. You should not, and never should, make laws based on the circumstances of an individual case. If we were going to do that, plenty of people senior in churches in this country would have had laws made based on things that have happened in churches in this country. I just offer that as one example of why you should never make laws based on individual circumstances.

The government has consistently failed to make the case for the ongoing erosion of civil liberties and human rights in Australia that we have seen particularly in the last 15 years, post those terrible attacks on America on 11 September 2001. That is why the Greens have consistently argued for a counterterrorism white paper—or a blue paper, if you want to call it that—to be prepared so that we can actually assess on a strategic and holistic basis whether or not this ongoing erosion of civil and human rights in this country in the name of counterterrorism is proportional, whether it is warranted and whether the government has made the case. But the government will not do that. We have been calling for this for a while now, and the government will not do it, despite the fact that there has been a counterterrorism white paper in Australia in the past.

I make the point that no coalition or Labor government would move significantly in the area of defence without a white paper. But, because it suits both of the establishment parties in this place politically to be seen to be strong against terrorism, they are happy to move in the counterterrorism space without a holistic and strategic approach. There must be a white paper on counterterrorism. It ought to be prepared as a matter of urgency. It is essential that that white paper be a living document because it is true that the terrorism landscape in the world and therefore the counterterrorism landscape are very rapidly changing situations. So any white paper would need to be something that could evolve quickly to respond to changes in the global terrorism environment. My view, and the view of my party, is that the reason the government will not do a white paper on counterterrorism is that it knows that it cannot justify rationally and reasonably the massive erosion of human and civil liberties in this country that has occurred in the name of counterterrorism in the last 15 years.

This bill extends the existing control order regime to include young people over the age of 14. While the explanatory memorandum refers to 'young people', what we are really talking about here is children. Let us be clear about this: we are talking about imposing control orders on children. We are also talking about imposing control orders on children who have committed no crime. Once again we are seeing, in the context of this legislation and in the context of legislation to introduce postsentence detention regimes relating to people who have been convicted of certain terrorist offences, a quite frightening scenario in this country where the forces, or some of the forces, of our security agencies can be applied either to people who have committed no crime or, in the case of postsentence detention, on the basis that someone might commit a crime in the future.

The National Children's Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, Megan Mitchell, said this about the proposal to extend control orders to people over the age of 14:

The proposal to extend control orders to younger teens enlivens a raft of potential human and child rights issues that go to our basic beliefs and value systems. These include rights to liberty, freedom of association, speech and expression, movement, privacy, and to be treated with dignity and respect.

I go on to quote further from the National Children's Commissioner, Megan Mitchell. She said:

There is also a grave risk that a child's education will be disrupted at a critical time, along with their participation in prosocial aspects of community life. Fourteen is an age where it is easy to go off the rails, disengage, make bad associations and get in trouble. An early introduction of young people into the criminal justice system as a result of these measures would not be a good outcome for these young people or the community.

I dare say there are plenty of members of this chamber who can reflect on Megan Mitchell's view, that 14 is an age where it is easy to go off the rails and disengage, with an element of personal experience.

Control orders undoubtedly infringe rights to freedom of movement and freedom of association. They will subject a child to restrictions on their liberty without any charge or finding of criminal guilt by a court. It is also important to recognise that, while a control order of itself does not authorise detention, the penalty for contravening a control order is five years imprisonment regardless of the age of the person. A trial order can restrict a person's movement by requiring that person to remain at specified premises between specified times—effectively a curfew. In addition, a person may be required to wear a tracking device, to restrict communication with specified people and to restrict access to telecommunications and technology.

In relation to control orders, the former Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, Mr Bret Walker QC, described the powers as 'not effective, not appropriate and not necessary'. He further noted:

… police should instead rely on their established powers to take action against suspected criminals through the traditional law enforcement approach of arrest, charge and prosecution.

The Australian Greens take no comfort at all from the government's assertion that control orders will only be invoked in limited circumstances. History is replete with powers being created for a specific purpose that, down the track, become normalised and used for a range of other purposes. The danger here is that control orders could become a new normal—and that, particularly, is true when you fit this piece of legislation into the ongoing and continuing erosion of civil and human rights in this country.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has reported twice in relation to this legislation. It is worth pointing out that the 2016 version does differ slightly from the 2015 version of the legislation. I want to place on the record some of the matters reported by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights. I will quote from Report 7 of 2016, dated 11 October 2016. The report makes it clear. It says:

The control orders regime, and the amendments to that regime proposed by the bill ... limit a number of human rights, including:

The proposed expansion of the control orders regime to children aged 14 and 15 years of age is also found by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights to engage the obligation to consider the best interests of the child and a range of rights set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It is worth reading out some of the comments from the committee, because this committee has been established, at least in significant part, to allow parliaments to have an informed debate about legislation. Report No. 7 of this year, 2016, says:

1.280 The committee notes that proposed amendment to lower the age at which a person may be subject to a control order to 14 years engages and limits multiple human rights.

1.281 The committee observes that the previous human rights assessment of the 2015 bill considered that the proposed amendment was inconsistent with the obligation to consider the best interests of the child as a primary consideration and may enable the imposition of control orders in a manner incompatible with human rights.

1.282 Revised amendments address some of these concerns by providing that a court must, in determining whether each of the proposed obligations, prohibitions and restrictions under the control order are necessary and appropriate, consider the best interests of the child as a primary consideration and the safety and security of the community as a paramount consideration.

1.283 However, the preceding legal analysis states that this revision does not address all the concerns in relation to the human rights compatibility of the proposed amendments.

The compatibility of the measure around control orders and the right of the child to be heard in judicial and administrative proceedings is also the subject of comment from the committee. The committee found in its 2016 report:

1.287 The committee previously expressed in principle support for the recommendations of the PJCIS that the bill be amended to expressly provide that a young person has the right to legal representation in control order regimes and that the bill be amended to remove the role of the court-appointed advocate.

We acknowledge that improvements have been made in that context.

So, clearly, this bill engages and limits a number of fundamental human rights. It is the view of the Greens that the government has not made the case around the necessity of those limitations or, in fact, whether those limitations are proportionate.

I want to talk about the radicalisation of young people in this country. It is a matter of extreme concern, I am sure, to all of us in this place. But one of the reasons that some young people are becoming radicalised is that they have a feeling of being ostracised. I have to say that comments that have been made by coalition members in the past few years, along with comments by Senator Hanson, have contributed to that feeling of being ostracised, which in fact opens up more young people than would otherwise be the case to being radicalised.

I want to quote Keysar Trad, the President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, who said in August this year that 'Pauline Hanson's outbursts are damaging to community relations'. He further stated:

The way she demonises Islam is very dangerous. I certainly believe that her comments radicalise people …

Those who actively recruit young people say, 'look what they're saying about you'.

In that context, I also wish to quote Mr Duncan Lewis, the head of ASIO, when I asked him in Senate estimates recently whether he would say that the threat to national security from radical anti-Islamic groups in Australia is growing. He said, 'Yes, off a very low base.'

I then asked him what public commentary around Islam being not welcome in Australia means for ASIO's job in fighting violent extremism. Mr Lewis said this:

I have made this point publicly in the past: we are, as an organisation, very dependent on engagement with the Islamic community. And, to the extent that there is commentary in the community about members of the Islamic faith being unwelcome here, the politics of that is one thing, but the practical implication for us is that it can make engagement with the Islamic community more difficult and, ipso facto, that makes our job more difficult.

I want to reflect on that very briefly. ASIO's job of keeping Australia safe is made more difficult by the public comments of high profile anti-Islamic figures in this country. They are playing into the hands of the very people they purport to oppose. When you place that in the context of an ongoing attack on multiculturalism in this country that is encapsulated by those who wish to destroy or water down the integrity of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, you have a situation where things that happen in this place are making ASIO's life more difficult and ultimately, at least potentially, making Australia a less safe place.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This Counter-Terrorism Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2016 is the latest in a long line of counterterrorism national security bills to be introduced into this parliament in the 15 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Australia did not start with a blank slate of counterterrorism laws in 2001. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Federal Police already had significant investigative powers. But in the subsequent decade and a half, successive governments and the parliament have repeatedly added to and elaborated on national security and counterterrorism laws. As I noted recently in speaking about another piece of legislation, since 2001 the parliament has passed more than 70 different bills dealing with terrorism and, more broadly, with national security issues. The exact number depends a bit on questions of definition; but the overall volume of new law is clear.

Much of that legislation was debated and enacted during the life of the Howard government. However, since I came into the Senate in July 2008, eight years ago, some 16 counterterrorism related bills have been introduced into the parliament, including those presently before the Senate. We now have a very extensive and complex set of counterterrorism laws. These laws are of great significance to national security and community safety as well as to the rights, liberties and privacy of all Australians.

I echo the remarks of former Senator John Faulkner, former Special Minister of State, Minister for Defence and Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. He said that 'with increased powers come increased responsibility to scrutinise those powers'. I could not agree with him more. Although at times there have been negotiations and compromises for specific provisions, the vast bulk of this legislation has enjoyed strong bipartisan support from the coalition and Labor, whether either is government or in opposition. Dissenting voices have been heard mainly on the Senate crossbenches and among some of the Independent MPs in the other place.

But today we have another counterterrorism bill. It is not entirely new. This bill is comprised largely of measures that were included in the 2015 bill that was referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, the PJCIS, but lapsed in the prorogation of the 44th Parliament. The proposed legislation has now been amended by the government to reflect recommendations of the PJCIS. The legislation also includes new measures recommended by the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor, an office the Attorney-General was keen to abolish in the last parliament, but which was fortunately reprieved. In introducing the original bill in 2015, the Attorney-General said that the proposed legislative changes:

… reflect lessons learned from recent counterterrorism investigations and operational activity.

He made a similar statement in introducing the new bill last month.

Learning from experience is important. The record of our intelligence and security agencies in countering terrorism over the past 15 years is one of considerable success. They have exercised the considerable investigative powers available to them. Although the terrorist threat in Australia has not been at the levels it has in some other countries, it is significant; serious threats and plots have been detected and thwarted, and many innocent lives saved. Our intelligence and security agencies have demonstrated considerable professionalism, but, like all government agencies, they are far from infallible.

There have also been some very significant missteps: the case of Dr Mohammed Haneef, involving the provision of incorrect and misleading information from British police counterterrorism investigators to the Australian Federal Police, which, in turn, failed to assess that information properly. A review by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security in the case of Mamdouh Habib found that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation repeatedly failed to properly document key decisions, including dealings with foreign security and intelligence agencies. Senior officers subsequently claimed to have little or no recollection of key events.

There have been instances where agencies have failed to provide appropriate information to the IGIS, and at least one case where an agency—the Australian Secret Intelligence Service—intentionally sought to mislead the IGIS. We are presently awaiting the findings of the New South Wales coronial inquiry into matters relating to Man Haron Monis and the Martin Place siege of December 2014, and the subsequent tragic deaths of two innocent people. Some of the evidence presented to the inquiry clearly raises serious concerns about the investigative and analytical capabilities of ASIO and the AFP, as well as the operational response of the New South Wales police. Our intelligence and security agencies already have very extensive powers and resources but are not infallible, and for that reason there needs to be very careful scrutiny, not only of their operational performance but of all proposals to modify, increase or otherwise change their powers and responsibilities.

The legislation before the Senate contains many provisions of considerable complexity. Many proposed changes relate to control orders, including—notably—lowering the minimum age at which a control order may be imposed from 16 to 14 years of age. Regrettably, this appears both necessary and appropriate, with the accompanying safeguards, given the trend towards radicalisation of small numbers of young people and their consequent potential involvement in terrorist activity.

I want to focus on two parts of the bill that are of continuing concern and worthy of particular scrutiny. The first of these concerns is the handling of national security information in control order proceedings. As senators are aware, the existing legislation concerning control orders allows the police to seek control orders that impose significant restrictions on the movement and activities of persons who are judged to pose a significant risk of involvement in terrorist activities but who have not necessarily been charged with any actual crime. In effect, the imposition of a control order can amount to a form of house arrest.

The bill will allow courts to consider information that is not disclosed to a person subject to a control order or to their legal representative for security grounds in control order proceedings, and will introduce a system of special advocates to represent the interests of those people in proceedings from which they and their legal representatives have been excluded. The special advocates scheme is a new measure that has been introduced in response to concerns about the procedural fairness of the original scheme proposed in the previous 2015 bill.

The Attorney-General set out the government's explanation for these proposed arrangements in his second reading speech, in which he said:

With the increased tempo of counter-terrorism operations, it is sometimes necessary for our law enforcement agencies to take action earlier to protect community safety. To prevent death or serious harm, agencies may need to act before a full brief of evidence can be developed.

Let me emphasise: that is action 'before a full brief of evidence can be developed'. The Attorney-General went on to say:

… agencies will need to place a greater reliance on information from intelligence partners and sensitive sources.

The changes introduced in this Bill will provide greater protection to national security information that is considered in control order proceedings. This is vital in order to maintain critical intelligence partnerships and to protect sensitive capabilities.

The Senate should carefully consider what is involved here. Our courts have long handled national security information, but this is a regime that envisages court decisions to impose control orders—in effect a form of house arrest—will be taken entirely in secret, with the person affected, and their legal representatives, completely excluded from the proceedings.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Xenophon. You will be in continuation when debate resumes. It being 2 pm, we move to questions without notice.