Portfolio — 13 May 2026

Assistant Minister Anthony Chisholm carried a substantial Senate workload on 13 May 2026, combining procedural business, budget tabling and substantive legislation. The most consequential action was the second reading of the Customs Legislation Amendment (False Trade Marks Infringement Notices) Bill 2026, which creates a new strict-liability offence for importing goods bearing false trade marks and brings those imports within the Customs Act 1901 Infringement Notice Scheme [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s111].

The Bill amends the 2015 Customs Regulation to authorise Australian Border Force officers to issue infringement notices as an alternative to prosecution, modelled on the existing strict-liability provision in the Copyright Act 1968 [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s111]. Chisholm framed the measure around consumer safety, nominating phone chargers, beauty products, pharmaceuticals and vehicle parts as priority targets, and argued it would reduce civil-litigation costs for legitimate Australian businesses while disrupting criminal enterprises that profit from counterfeit trade [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s111].

The Bill's cross-domain footprint — touching Home Affairs (Australian Border Force powers), Attorney-General (intellectual property and strict-liability architecture) and Trade — is notable given Chisholm introduced it under his resources and agriculture portfolio responsibilities rather than a dedicated trade brief.

On the same sitting day, Chisholm tabled the 2026–27 regional budget statement on behalf of the Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories, setting out funding priorities across regional development, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and resources [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s106]. This tabling is a direct continuation of the portfolio's regional funding focus flagged in Budget-day infrastructure announcements.

In procedural business, Chisholm presented the government's response to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security's report on the listing and relisting of eight terrorist organisations, accepting recommendations to engage with the Palestinian-Australian community and to brief the committee within 12 months on the impact of the Hamas listing [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s102].

He also moved the appointment of Senators Babet, Lambie and Pocock as participating members of the Select Committee on Productivity in Australia, which the Senate agreed to [TA-260513-senate-d4ffca432415:s109].

Across the day's activity, Chisholm operated in his capacity as Deputy Manager of Government Business in the Senate, managing a diverse legislative and procedural docket. The counterfeit goods bill is the substantive policy signal: it uses a targeted customs-enforcement mechanism to address supply-chain integrity and consumer safety, with the infringement-notice approach calibrated to avoid regulatory burden on compliant importers.