Senator ELLISON (Special Minister of State) (8:39 PM) —As I said previously, serious damage to property cannot be taken in isolation for the reasons Senator Faulkner has outlined. It varies from person to person. I mentioned previously the example of a motor vehicle that someone might have as their only possession, and damage to that would be very serious indeed. We have here a situation where serious damage to property constitutes damage on such a scale as for a government, such as a state or territory government, not to be able to handle the damage involved. Again I go back to the bill and say that it is where a government is unable to protect itself against such domestic violence. Let us carry that through to serious damage to property. It is where the government concerned, being a state or territory government, is unable to protect itself from serious damage to property. We have here damage on such a scale that it meets the requirements of the call-out. It has to be damage which is public in nature. When I say `public', it has to be across the board—that is, it has to be something which affects the community and damage of such a nature that it poses a threat to government good order in the place where it is occurring.

So it is serious damage to property on a public scale. It is not something which happens in isolation or privately or which affects one person's particular goods; it is something which occurs in the community and which affects the community. That is the sort of serious damage to property we are talking about. It is not just affecting one person's item of property; it is affecting the community at large. That is the sort of scale you have to look at in this regard. It is in the context of the bill that it has to be of that nature because, if it was occurring only as an isolated case or affecting only one person, it would hardly be likely to be beyond the control of the state or territory government.