Senator ELLISON (Minister for Justice and Customs) (5:36 PM) —Senator Murray has ploughed through it quite well. The situation here is that we have offences in existence which we equate to strict liability, and they are what we call translation offences. They are offences which will be translated, if you like, into this proposed legislation. I think that we have support for the continued existence of these offences from the opposition, the Democrats and, of course, the government, and that strict liability will continue with that.

But I must say, before I go any further, that we have to be careful, because there is an overlapping in relation to these amendments by the opposition and the Democrats, and we really cannot vote on all of them combined with the second lot of opposition amendments that Senator Bolkus has mentioned. The government says that we should vote on opposition amendments Nos. 5, 6, 8, 9, 17 and 31 in the first instance, and we will support that—that overlaps with the Democrat amendments that Senator Murray has mentioned—and then we should go on to opposition amendments Nos. 4, 7, 10 to 12, 18 to 30 and 32, which the government does not support. There are different categories.

We are talking about the translation of offences currently in existence that have strict liability. The other category relates to those offences that the government considers are critical to community and revenue protection objectives. These offences relate to the failure to meet regulatory obligations considered necessary for Customs to identify potential risks to the Australian community as soon as possible. Early and accurate information is critical in that regard, and that objective should not be dependent on the intent of the provider of information. Remember that if there is no strict liability, intention is to be proved. That is very important. I acknowledge the cooperation of Senator Murray on this important point.

With the Democrat amendments we have the inclusion of these further offences that have strict liability. But, at the end of the day, if we supported this group of opposition amendments and the Democrats' proposed amendments, with the exclusion of the second grouping of opposition amendments, we would have a reduced number of offences with strict liability that was other than that which was originally proposed by the government. I want to make that clear. Some of these offences which have strict liability are translation offences. They are in existence at present. There are some new ones which relate to community and revenue protection objectives, and if the first group of opposition amendments is supported and Senator Murray's amendments are supported, that will be accommodated. But the government do not see their way clear to support the second group of opposition amendments because they believe that that would then exclude those community and revenue protection objectives which are so essential to the community and which we would seek to include. We can take the opposition amendments first, vote on them and then move on from there.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Watson)—The chair agrees with that course of action. The question is that opposition amendments Nos. 5, 6, 8, 9, 17 and 31 be agreed to.

Question resolved in the affirmative.