Senator HARRIS (12:38 PM) —by leave—I move Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party amendments Nos 3 and 4 on sheet 1910:

The purpose of moving these two amendments is, firstly, to protect a person who finds themself within a search area where a search is being carried out by the Australian defence forces and, secondly, to afford a measure of protection for the personnel who are actually carrying out the search. On my reading of the bill, I believe that there is nothing within the search instructions that would preclude a person being held in one section of the search area while personnel were searching another area of the search area.

I want to clearly and emphatically state that I am not casting aspersions on the Australian Defence Force or anybody else carrying out the search. What I am trying to do is bring a measure of the same standard that is required of both the Australian Federal Police and our state police in the exercising of their search powers. The amendments are clearly directed as much to protecting the rights of an individual who finds themself within a search area, and that could even mean an innocent bystander who finds themself within a building. Those people have rights, and we need to protect the rights of those people. As I said before, we need to ensure that there is a minimum of two operational personnel actually carrying out the search. This is what the amendment does. Item (4) says:

That protects the rights of a person to be in the area, whether or not they are involved in the incident; it protects their right to be where the search is being carried out. Item (3) says:

If the amendment is agreed to, it would give both those personnel the ability to corroborate the evidence that they acquire. It is purely a `technical'—if you wanted to use another word—amendment that would protect the rights of any person within the search area. It would also protect the rights of the personnel carrying out the search. I commend the amendments to the committee.