Ross Jami-LeeJAMI-LEE ROSS (National—Botany): It is a pleasure to speak on this particular bill. The way in which the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee went about its duties in considering this bill has already been canvassed many times in the speeches. I have to say that in the 6 years that I have been here I have found the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee to be the committee that seems to work the best—both sides of the committee. It is the most collegial of the committees that I have been on to date and I think this bill demonstrates how well the committee has been working.We received about 150 submissions on the bill. It is fair to say also that the vast bulk of what we received submissions on and what we worked on and the product of that work can be found on pages 6 and 7 of the bill. Many of those who submitted were concerned about the use of the word terrorism" in the bill and they were concerned about the possibility in their view of potentially being found guilty of an offence against the Maritime Crimes Act if they were protesting legitimately. I did chuckle a little bit about the fact that many of the submitters that we had before us on this bill who were concerned about protest action had also submitted only a few months previously on the Trans-Pacific Partnership legislation—also in opposition—but they legitimately had some points to raise.As other members have pointed out we did make some changes to the Maritime Crimes Amendment Bill particularly the avoidance-of-doubt clause which goes in there in clause 3B so that when an individual is protesting for legitimate reasons is not causing any damage and is not leading to any situations where they are causing an offence under this bill—we wanted to specifically outline that that protest action is something that would not be an offence under this bill. We also modified some of the wording around offences relating to ships. There was a concern that if somebody were to get themselves into a situation where they caused damage to a ship that damage without the word "serious" before it could lead them to a situation where they would be found guilty of an offence that carries a maximum imprisonment term of 14 years. That 14-year imprisonment term certainly indicates that we should be ensuring that it is serious damage and serious injury which are the crimes that we want to have prosecuted if people are to engage in them. So we inserted the word "serious" before the word "damage" to clarify that it is serious damage that is being targeted here.That is essentially what the committee did most of its work on. The bill implements some changes to the Maritime Crimes Act to bring us in line with conventions and protocols that we signed up to approximately a decade ago. Possibly we have could have done this earlier but we are doing it now. The bill makes some sensible changes. The select committee considered it well. I think we reached a point with those concerned that we may be unfairly targeting them through some wording in a bill that may not have been completely right. We have found a halfway house that satisfies them and also ensures that we comply with the protocols and the conventions. I think we have reached a good point."