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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4143 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

One of the things the criminal code does is remove graduated penalties, leaving the assessment of an appropriate penalty more to the courts. For this reason, this amendment clearly excises peaceful protests and industrial action from the offence of sabotage.

While the federal parliament has debated bills creating specific terrorist offences that carefully define terrorism to exclude protest and advocacy, we are picking up this terrorist-strength penalty for the same offences we used to have, but without the limitations. New Zealand and Canada have similar exemptions in their legislation, and the amendment that I have moved today is based on a New Zealand model. I would like to thank Ms Dundas' office, which was in particular very helpful, and Mr Stanhope's office for working with me to find an amendment that was acceptable.

My colleague in the federal Senate has argued that there was no need for the terrorism-specific legislation as the existing offences of murder, conspiracy and so on were really sufficient to enable prosecution.

In this case, the model criminal code process has picked up on what could be seen as a gap in our laws in that sabotage-type offences were specific to particular public facilities, and these proposed offences have generalised the essence of those offences. But along with addressing this gap, the penalties are more than doubled and the committee has explained this with the spectre of terrorism. I think it is very important that we exclude, as has the terrorism definition, protest activities. My amendment gives effect to this concern.

The government may still argue that protests will not be caught up because that is not the intention of this bill, because there is a required "intent"in a property or computer offence, and because it refers to "major"disruption. Further, New South Wales has passed a similar bill.

Despite the intention of the government, which I do not have particular reason to doubt-although the news that the AFP's new special forces will be used for demonstrations, bomb threats and terrorism, all in one group, is a worry-I believe that the legal context for this bill is different from that which surrounded the introduction of the New South Wales bill two years ago. This part is clearly directed at terrorism. The MCCOC, as I have said, stated this; and the New South Wales Attorney-General stated it even more clearly when introducing it before the Olympics.

What might "major"disruption mean when it comes to a case? Is it major to have your office sat in for a day while the words "Fair pay for a fair day's work"are spray-painted on the furniture? Two days? A week? If people threaten to lock themselves to parts of the workplace, thus causing "loss of a use or function of the property by interfering with the property"(see proposed 100 (c)), and to stay there, thus causing disruption to the use or operation of a facility-say it is the wharves, and the wharf owner fears it will be carried out-do we want to charge those people with sabotage? What if their complaint was about terrible working conditions or about a nuclear waste dump?

While there are no precedents yet for the use of this law, definitions of "major disruption"to workplaces have been part of industrial relations cases. For instance, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal on 4 January 1985 made a ruling on the effects of

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