Senator BOLKUS(2.02 p.m.) —I do not know that there is all that much need for more debate, but I would like to put two things on the record from this morning's debate. First of all, in introducing this amendment I indicated that we were making this clause apply to the whole act as amended rather than the bill. I think much of Senator Harradine's argument and Senator Cooney's argument this morning flowed from that as one of the basic points.

At one stage Senator Harradine was asking who did not believe that this was a special measure. I do not know what message got down here or what message came from up there, but a number of us might have been identified in the Hansard as indicating that it was not. The point I was making this morning before that part of the debate was that, by applying this particular clause to the whole act, then you would be triggering the special measure provisions that could prevail and were recognised in the High Court in WA and the Commonwealth as doing what Senator Harradine has just said they would do.

With this provision, you have a mechanism in place where the bill as a whole would be assessed, not individual clauses. When assessing the bill as a whole, the fact that it has already been recognised by the court as having a capacity, I suppose, to constitute a special measure is something that we should take into account. The beneficial nature of the package the first time around, as I said this morning, would also be taken into account. So in the interests of both justice and certainty, I think Senator Harradine's position as he has just spelt it out is spot on.

I say to Senator Harradine and others who might be listening to this debate, we have been going for over 41 hours. I think we have probably made a fairly good job of what we have done. We are dealing with both technical legal points and arguments—highly contestable arguments, political arguments and social arguments. The fact that all of these arguments come together in the legal points that we were discussing before lunch and now should be recognised.

In that being recognised, I think people should go to the substantive point that we are going to here: certainty and justice do demand this sort of provision. We got it wrong the first time round and it was not strong enough. This time we are looking at revising that position of 1993 but also doing it in a manner which, under this amendment, gives the government a bit more capacity for its legisla tion to be upheld than would otherwise prevail.