Criminal Code Amendment (Hate Crimes) Bill 2024

Mr BANDT (Melbourne—Leader of the Australian Greens) (20:02): I do think this is quite extraordinary. I note that, according to the footer of this document, this amendment was prepared at 11.31 this morning and involves a massive change to the Labor Party platform and to the laws of this country because it introduces, in its own words, 'mandatory minimum sentences'.

Despite it obviously being prepared this morning, it's been given to this chamber with a couple of minutes notice, and we're being asked to vote on something when, as I sat here and listened to a lot of the debate in this chamber, I heard government member after government member stand up and say they oppose mandatory minimum sentencing. Anyone observing this debate could not have anticipated that an amendment like this would be lobbed on us with next to no time to consider it, and yet here we are with a very significant change to the criminal laws in this country that deviates from the Labor Party platform, and we're being asked to vote on it now.

That is not the way that this parliament should operate. We have very real concerns with mandatory minimum sentencing. This was not something that was subject to the Senate inquiry; this is something that is a clear deviation from principles that this government had said it espoused.

And what's more is it's utterly unnecessary. This bill could go through unamended. It strikes the right balance.

The government brought this bill to this parliament and considered that they got the balance right, and we agreed with them. Now we're seeing substantial amendments being put forward at the last minute just because the opposition has asked for them, when the bill could've got through anyway. Given the significance of this, the lateness of the hour and the fact we haven't had have notice, I also ask that this question be recorded as unresolved.

Question unresolved. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms Claydon ): You can now regard this as a question that is now unresolved. In accordance with standing order 188, the question will now be included in the Federation Chamber's report to the House on the bill.