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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (29 August) . . Page.. 2594 ..

I think it is important to know why I oppose paragraphs (a) and (b) and part of paragraph (c). Paragraph (a) provides that a person must not, in an Olympic venue, behave in a way reasonably likely to cause serious alarm, affront or embarrassment. Let me use embarrassment as an example. If I was there with three or four of my mates, I could turn around and point at Mr Rugendyke and begin laughing, although Mr Rugendyke is probably difficult to embarrass. All we would have to do is point and laugh at somebody, and we would have contravened this amendment. I am sure that is not the intention of Mr Rugendyke's amendment, but it shows that this is not an appropriate provision to have in the legislation.

Paragraph (b) is about the use of indecent, offensive, insulting or threatening language. Let us take out the word "threatening", which Mr Rugendyke spoke about. To support this paragraph, I think I would have to be a hypocrite. I recall my mother always saying to me and to her other children, "Don't you dare say 'bloody'. You can say it is a 'bleeding' thing." The word "bloody" was totally unacceptable to her. She would consider it offensive and indecent if we used the word "bloody". I do not know whether she has finally got used to it or not. I must ask her. Language is offensive to some people and not offensive to others.

Mr Rugendyke, you might find the word "fartcate" offensive. In fact, it is not. It means to fill something and not have anything left over. But I can understand that somebody might find that offensive or misunderstand it. Language is interesting. When I saw this amendment this morning, I read a little bit of The Miller's Tale by Chaucer. Some people would have found some of the language in that quite offensive. I do not. What we find offensive changes from time to time. Paragraph (b) is an inappropriate paragraph.

My amendment to paragraph (c) deletes the words "offensive, insulting", leaving the words "behave in an intimidating or harassing manner". That covers threatening, intimidating and harassing. You do not need a reference to threatening language in paragraph (b), because paragraph (c) covers behaving in an intimidating and harassing manner, and using threatening language is behaving in an intimidating or harassing manner. My amendment leaves that in.

My amendments improve what Mr Rugendyke is trying to do. It takes out the words that perhaps you and I would have a difference of opinion on. As you know, I am the wild left wing anarchist; you are the hard Right wowser. By meeting halfway we might get what is reasonable.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (6.07): The Liberal Party view is that it is helpful to have enumerated, as Mr Rugendyke has done, the things which constitute disruptive behaviour. Members have complained already in the debate today about things being ambiguous and not specific. Mr Rugendyke has made them specific. It is quite clear that any of the things that are referred to in paragraphs (a) to (f) could constitute an act which disrupts, interferes with, delays or obstructs the conduct of an Olympic event. It is important to be able to spell out clearly for people's benefit what it is that constitutes that kind of behaviour.

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