Senator ELLISON (Minister for Justice and Customs) (4:01 PM) —Madam Chair, at the outset, could I take care of some resulting business from the successful amendment by the opposition which resulted in the removal of the contempt regime? As a result of that, the government would move to omit items 111 to 121 of schedule 1. That relates to the reference to hearing officers in the contempt regime which, of course, is now redundant. I have an amendment which deals with that particular proposal, and I ask that that now be circulated to senators.

The other variation is in relation to government amendment (33). That requires the omission of part 1 of that amendment. We will come to that in due course, but I foreshadow that the government will be seeking to modify its amendment (33) by omitting part 1. That dealt with telecommunications intercept information being used in contempt proceedings, which is now redundant. In part 2 of amendment (33), reference to the chair should be inserted, so that alteration should be made as well. Those are the two amendments that result from that previous contempt provision.

In relation to government amendments (29) and (30), the government seeks to withdraw its amendment to the Ombudsman access provision as it will support the opposition's new amendment, which represents a compromise to restrict access in cases involving a risk of death or serious injury. I understand that is the situation with the opposition now. There has been a change in relation to the opposition's position on that, and the government agrees with that. On that basis, the government would seek to withdraw its amendments (29) and (30) and also to make those other variations to the amendments before the Senate.

The CHAIRMAN —We will deal with the further amendments to your amendment No. 33 when we get there. The question before the chamber is that items 111 to 121 stand as printed.

Question resolved in the negative.

The CHAIRMAN —The government has withdrawn amendments (29) and (30) on sheet DY289. That now leaves us with opposition amendment (7) on sheet 2212.