Bills
Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025
Second reading
Resumed from an earlier stage of the sitting.
Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (5:08 pm): President, prior to the interruption for the taking of questions without notice, we were considering the so-called post and boast bill, specifically the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025. In particular, we were looking at the defences enshrined in the bill before us. I mentioned to members earlier that, really, the defences and the safeguards contained specifically at proposed section 221J are the most important parts of the bill before us because the bill would be completely unsupportable without those provisions.
I have taken the opportunity to work through some of those defences—in particular, the defence found at proposed section 221J(1)(d), which provides:
the material was disseminated to warn of, complain about or denounce the conduct;
That, of course, refers to the unlawful conduct that has been recorded and then disseminated. In addition to that, there is a range of what might be described as broad defences set out at proposed section 221J, including whether the dissemination was for educational, artistic, satirical or entertainment purposes. I asked the parliamentary secretary whether in due course, during his reply, there would be some further elaboration on what exactly the government intends to capture with this entertainment defence. Prior to the taking of questions without notice, we looked at another defence that exists for journalists and news publishers. With the rise of what has been described as "citizen journalists", one might ask at this point whether the government is in a position to confirm whether it intends that such individuals will be covered by this defence.
Proposed section 221H lists specific chapters within the Criminal Code and provisions within the Road Traffic Act that will be deemed relevant offences for the purposes of this novel offence. In particular, I note that the following chapters of the Criminal Code have been captured: chapter IX, "Unlawful assemblies: Breaches of the peace"; chapter XI, "Racist harassment and incitement to racial hatred"; chapter 11A, "Nazi symbols and salute"; chapter XXX, "Assaults"; chapter XXXVI, "Stealing"; chapter XXXVIII, "Robbery: Extortion by threats"; chapter XXXIX, "Offences in or in respect of buildings etc"; chapter XLIV, "Simple offences analogous to stealing"; and chapter XLVI, "Offences", which deals with obstructing railways, interfering with aircraft, intent to injure mine and interfering with marine navigation aid. There are some notable provisions of the Criminal Code that have not been included by the government in this list of chapters. The government is saying that if a person disseminates material in respect of these types of offences, it will be unlawful and subject to the full force of the law, with a potential maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment. One of the chapters curiously not included is chapter XXVIII, "Homicide: Suicide: Concealment of birth". Perhaps the parliamentary secretary will indicate to the house the government's rationale there. Other notable exclusions are: chapter XXIX, "Offences endangering life or health", which includes acts intended to cause grievous bodily harm or prevent arrest; and chapter XXXI, "Sexual offences". These have not been included in the legislation before us, so the opposition seeks an explanation from the government as to its rationale for the exclusion of those chapters of the Criminal Code, and why it is that the government says, by implication, that the posting of and boasting about those types of unlawful behaviours is not something that we want to send a message on—rather, that we want to limit the message that we are sending to the community in respect of this range of other offences captured under these chapters of the Criminal Code.
During the briefing that was provided to the opposition on the bill that is presently before us, it was indicated that the government's selection of offences that will be captured here as relevant offences was based on two things: firstly, what has been included by other jurisdictions; and secondly, advice provided to the government by WA police. It is certainly the intention of the opposition to interrogate the government in respect of the proposition that the two criteria that have been used here are matters from other jurisdictions and advice provided by WA police. It seems to the opposition that the rationale for the exclusions has not been adequately justified at this point in time and suggests—subject to any rebuttal by the government—an inconsistent approach to serious criminal behaviour.
Moving on from that, concerns have been raised by lawyers in other jurisdictions. I note in particular that the Law Institute of Victoria has raised concerns about similar legislation in the Victorian jurisdiction. I will take the opportunity, in the few minutes we have left, to quote from a Law Institute of Victoria media release of 19 June 2025, titled "LIV believes new 'post and boast' laws unnecessary". Halfway through the media release are quotes attributed to Jarrod Behan, co-chair of the LIV criminal law section and an accredited specialist in criminal law. The media release states:
However, the LIV has three significant concerns with the new laws.
First, the LIV continues to caution against the implementation of laws which are not substantiated by empirical evidence. The Victorian 'post and boast' law is similar to laws enacted in New South Wales and Queensland, but there is not yet any proof that they stop youths from committing, filming and posting about crimes.
Secondly, the offending captured by this new offence—including affray, burglary, robbery, car theft, carjacking, home invasions and violent disorder—already carry significant maximum penalties including imprisonment. A judicial officer already has the discretion to take into consideration that the offender filmed and posted their offending as an aggravating and serious factor when sentencing. As such, the LIV believes that this law is superfluous and unnecessary.
Thirdly, the LIV has concerns about the operation of this law and likely delays that it will place on the justice system, including further increasing stress on victims and the courts. For example, for a successful prosecution, a social media company will likely need to share information about the account holder and account use with the Court. Given privacy concerns, this is often a difficult and lengthy process.
Of those three reasons that have been provided by the Law Institute of Victoria, it is really the last one to which, with respect to the Law Institute, I think the government has some obligation to respond. I am not too sure—again, with the greatest respect—that the first two concerns can be given great weight. For example, the suggestion by the Victorians that there is not yet sufficient proof, whatever that sufficient proof might be, to satisfy them that these type of laws will stop youths from committing, filming or posting about crimes is not a substantive reason why Western Australia should not go down that particular path.
The second reason they have provided is that judicial officers already have the discretion to include this type of boasting behaviour at the time of sentencing. Again, with the greatest respect to the institute, I would not suggest to members that that is an adequate reason for us not to be considering this at this time. Whilst that might well be the case with respect to the primary perpetrator, these particular laws are not looking simply at the individual who might have committed the crime and then recorded it and posted and boasted about it, it also includes other individuals who, of course, might not be the subject of that particular original prosecution.
The third objection that has been raised with regard to the likely delays that are going to be placed on the justice system is meritorious, in my view, and warrants a response from the government. Members will be well aware that the justice system in Western Australia already has significant delays. These are matters that I intend to take up during the budget estimates process in regard of the delays that are in the court system at the moment. If there are things that are being done now that might not have any substantive effect in the community other than to simply create greater backlogs and delays in the justice system, then that ought to concern members and certainly warrants a response from the government.
Now, relevantly, the Law Society WA has also raised the issue of delayed criminal trials, and it has done so on many occasions, particularly over the last four years. I note that as far back as 20 April 2021 the Law Society had issued a media release entitled "The Urgent Need for Criminal Courts in Western Australia." I note that later that year, in June, it issued a further release entitled "Justice Delayed is Justice Denied—WA Courts in Crisis." I note that as recent as 6 December last year, it also issued a further report or media release entitled "Urgent action on courts upgrade needed to speed up justice delivery." It has tried to say that trials are becoming more complex and lengthier. There is a shortage of courtrooms in Western Australia at the present time for criminal trials and the last thing that we need is to be doing anything that is going to add to that problem unless it is going to have a material impact in terms of justice as a whole.
These trial delays were also reflected in the most recent state budget. As I indicated, I will be taking this up in budget estimates in two weeks time. On page 417 of the budget papers under the chapter on justice, we see the time to trial for criminal matters in the Supreme Court. In 2023–24 the actual period was 56 weeks and that is again the estimated actual period for 2024–25. Now what happens here is that the government once again slavishly lists 39 weeks as their budget target for the coming year. For the last two financial years in the Supreme Court, the time to trial for a criminal matter has been 56 weeks. It takes more than a year for a matter in the Supreme Court to go to trial. The government then says that its target for the financial year that we are in now—we are in August—is 39 weeks.
How does that happen? What has happened in the course of the last six weeks—the start of this financial year—that would warrant the government having the confidence to say that the time to trial in Western Australia will drop from 56 weeks to 39 weeks? Of course, in the previous year the budget also said 39 weeks. What I suspect happened is that somebody in Justice has simply copied and pasted the 39 weeks that was there for the previous year, slotted that into the budget and said, "Right, our target for this year is 39 weeks again." That is hopeless. There is no point of saying that we are going to get to trials in the Supreme Court for criminal matters in 39 weeks when the evidence for two consecutive years is that it has taken 56 weeks.
This is not an isolated episode. That is in respect of the Supreme Court. If we turn to the District Court, which has the majority of the criminal cases in our state, the actual time to trial in the 2023–24 period was 64 weeks. In the last financial year, the estimated actual was worse at 65 weeks. It is in the state budget papers, again, at page 417. What is the government saying that the expected outcome is going to be in this financial year? Remember, we are six weeks into this financial year. It says that, miraculously, it is now going to drop to 32 weeks. For two years, it has nearly been double that. For two consecutive years it has taken more than 60 weeks for a District Court criminal matter to get to trial and now suddenly the government would have us believe in its budget that there is going to be such efficiency in the District Court that things are going to go to trial in half that period of time, in 32 weeks. Interestingly, again, I believe somebody has slavishly copied and pasted the period from the previous budget, which was also 32 weeks. Someone has lazily just gone, "Well, it was 32 weeks the year before, so that sounds like a good figure. Let's use that again this year." It is absolutely ridiculous. I telegraph, if you like, to the parliamentary secretary that these are some of the questions that are going to be posed when we get to budget estimates in two weeks time.
For the purposes of this bill before us, the concern that has been raised by the Victorians and the Law Society here for a long period of time is: Is the Parliament doing things to aid the quick facilitation of justice or is it only going to make things worse? The question that we need to ask is: Is the bill before us going to aid that process or frustrate that process? It has certainly not helped when we have had fake budget figures suggesting that suddenly, in this particular year, it is only going to take 32 weeks for a District Court criminal matter to get to trial and 39 weeks for a Supreme Court matter to get to trial.
Having said that, I want to turn to some of the comments that have been reportedly made by some magistrates in Western Australia. In particular, I think the parliamentary secretary is well versed in the reported comments of Magistrate Walton. There have been lengthy delays in the District Court, as I have outlined, and the government's own budget papers confirm that is the case. Reportedly, it is the case that these District Court delays have been a major factor when granting bail. I want to take the opportunity to put on the record a couple of articles from The Geraldton Guardian. I know that the parliamentary secretary is particularly well versed in respect of these articles. The first is from The Geraldton Guardian dated 10 April 2025. The headline is "Shaun Henry Ronan: Geraldton man facing nine child abuse material charges after joint investigation." The article is not long, and it is worth reading in full for its proper context lest anybody in the Attorney General's office feel that anyone has been misquoted.
The article reads as follows:
A Geraldton man has faced court after being charged with nine offences in a global sting, accused of soliciting, possessing and transmitting child abuse material, including videos depicting children being sexually abused.
Shaun Henry Ronan, 36, appeared in Geraldton Magistrates Court on Thursday after authorities raided his home on Tuesday following a tip from the United States' child protection organisation.
His case was adjourned until a bail application next week.
Mr Ronan is charged with three counts of transmit child abuse material using a carriage service, three counts of caused child abuse material to be transmitted to himself using a carriage service, two counts of solicit child abuse material using a carriage service and one count of possess child abuse material obtained or accessed using a carriage service.
The charges come after the WA Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team, with support from Australian Border Force and the WA Police Force, executed a search warrant at Mr Ronan's Geraldton home as part of an investigation into a report from the United States National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children about an online user allegedly uploading child abuse material.
During the search at Mr Ronan's address, police seized a computer which they will allege he used to engage in online conversations where he procured, transmitted and possessed child exploitation material.
A representative for the Commonwealth prosecution who appeared via video link told the court on Thursday that further charges may be coming, with another search warrant to be executed in a bid to track down a phone sold through Cash Converters, which would take some time.
Magistrate Matthew Walton said it was common for bail to be granted for alleged offences of this nature, but if he were to give Mr Ronan bail, it would be under strict conditions, including handing in his passport, an order not to leave WA and internet restrictions.
He said a lengthy delay of two to three years in the District Court was possible for these matters, which is why bail was usually granted.
Mr Ronan was remanded in custody and will be back in court for a bail application on Monday, April 14.
In a joint statement from the Australian Federal Police and WA Police Force, AFP Inspector Shona Davis said any involvement in the exploitation or abuse of children was deplorable.
"Children are harmed each time images or videos of their exploitation or abuse are viewed or shared," Insp. Davis said.
"Our message to online offenders is clear — if you procure, transmit or possess child abuse material, you will be found and prosecuted."
That was from 10 April this year. The following month there was another article in The Geraldton Guardian by the same journalist. This is dated 23 May this year. The headline is "Foreshore rape co-accused out on bail, with strict conditions". I will also quote this article. It is brief, so for the benefit of particularly those in the Attorney General's office, I will quote it in full:
A Perth father accused of sexually assaulting a woman at the Geraldton foreshore last month has been granted bail under strict conditions, while the police prosecution say further charges may come.
Chamkaur Singh, 33, appeared in Geraldton Magistrates Court via video link from Greenough Regional Prison on Monday for a bail application after he was charged with one count of aggravated sexual penetration without consent.
It is alleged that Chamkaur Singh and co-accused … Singh, 34, led a woman from the Foreshore Hangout Lounge to the beach and sexually assaulted her between 11.50pm on Friday, April 4, and 12.40am on Saturday, April 5.
The prosecution opposed bail for Chamkaur Singh, citing his flight risk and the possibility of fresh charges.
Defence lawyer Steven Whybrow told the court that Chamkaur Singh was a man with no prior convictions, had a wife of eight years, a five-month-old daughter and was an Australian citizen who had been in the country since 2017 when he arrived to study.
Chamkaur Singh's family were in the back of court, with his father having flown from India to support his son.
The court was told that Chamkaur Singh is a truck driver and was in Geraldton for said work at the time of the alleged incident.
Despite saying that the prosecution case was "undoubtedly a relatively strong to strong case given matters such as this", Magistrate Matthew Walton granted Chamkaur Singh bail with strict conditions, citing District Court delays as a major factor in his decision.
Chamkaur Singh was placed on a $50,000 personal undertaking with a $100,000 surety. He must surrender any passport or travel document in his name to Geraldton Magistrates Court. He is prohibited from consuming alcohol or illicit drugs.
He must not go within 500m of any domestic or international departure point, must not associate with co-accused … and must have no contact with prosecution witnesses.
Pritpal Singh was granted bail last week under similar conditions. Both men are due back in court on August 7 for a committal mention.
We can see that, reportedly, magistrates have concerns about how long these matters are taking to get to trial, and that these concerns are then becoming a significant factor in the granting of bail. In other words, the longer it takes for a matter to get to trial, the more likely it would seem that some magistrates are allowing some of these offenders out into the community on bail, simply because of how long the matter will take to get to trial. That ought to be a concern and is again a matter that ought to be taken up during budget estimates in a couple of weeks time.
I move to another aspect of the bill that is presently before us. As it presently stands, this legislation will allow for additional relevant offences to be prescribed by regulation rather than being amended by the primary legislation. I draw members' attention to proposed section 221H(1)(c), under which an offence can be prescribed by the regulations. I note that Hon Dr Brian Walker is out of the chamber on urgent parliamentary business. At an earlier stage, he had proposed an amendment on the supplementary notice paper that would have had the effect of removing this particular provision. I note that we now have a new supplementary notice paper—I think we are at least up to a minimum of iteration number 4—that lists an amendment by the parliamentary secretary that seeks to do the same thing. I think that is a very good sign. We are yet to hear from the government, but I am reading into that an indication that the government very much agrees with the point made by Hon Dr Brian Walker, despite the fact he has not had a chance to make a contribution yet. Certainly, I think that amendment is welcomed. Ordinarily, it would be undesirable for executive government to have the opportunity to prescribe offences of this nature with these type of penalties, and if the intention is to remove that, there will be no argument from the opposition.
It has been said many times before that these types of regulation-making powers provide flexibility and are a safeguard for government. We have had that debate many times over the years. I am not too sure that there would have been a change in the last Parliament, but if there is a change of attitude to these things so early in this new Parliament, that is to be welcomed.
I move to the issue of the resourcing of police in these matters. I think that in her contribution to the budget debate earlier today Hon Michelle Hofmann made reference to the increasing and record number of offences. I recall earlier today Hon Michelle Boylan giving notice to the house of a motion also talking about the record number of offences. Given the record number of all these violent crimes, particularly the domestic violence rates, one must ask, in respect of this matter that is presently before us: How will police be adequately resourced to enforce this new novel offence? I know that the number of sexual offences, amongst other things, has also increased. I am sure that we would not want to have police focus taken away from those very serious, heinous matters and instead directed towards this matter that is before us, in circumstances in which the government itself has said that WA police say that this issue is not rife—that is the phrase they used—in our state.
Moving towards a conclusion, I will make an observation. Given that this proposed offence is novel and the issues that I have already outlined, it is the view of the opposition that this new offence ought to be reviewed by force of law as a statutory review. Members will see that there is already an amendment standing in my name on the supplementary notice paper that seeks to do exactly that—that is, to have this legislation and this offence reviewed in two years. We note that that would be consistent with the approach taken in New South Wales. We encourage all members of the house, including the government, to support that amendment. One element that has been expressly included in the proposed statutory review clause is that the scope of the offences be considered. As I outlined earlier, the government has gone out of its way to list several chapters of the Criminal Code and other matters in the Road Traffic Act to be captured by this bill, but it will be only a select number of matters and not all. Those matters ought to be considered by the government in a statutory review in two years, if not sooner. There may be an opportunity for a parliamentary committee to do something to that effect in a shorter space of time. The statutory review should, at a bare minimum, assess the operation and effectiveness of proposed chapter 26B and the appropriateness of the list of relevant offences, and whether it should be expanded. In our view, such a review is crucial to assess whether this law is working as intended. If it is not working as intended, it will need to be amended or, alternatively, scrapped.
In conclusion, the opposition supports the objective of this bill. The idea that individuals who perform criminal acts might boast about or glorify that behaviour is not something to be defended, so we support the objective of the bill. We note that the bill contains a number of very important defences; however, we remain concerned about a number of things, such as the decision to carve out some serious offences from this regime; the over-reliance on executive powers of regulation, although we are encouraged by the indications on the supplementary notice paper; and the lack of a review clause. We say that there is no point, at this time in Western Australia, in adding complexity to criminal cases when the complexity of criminal trials is already causing huge delays in our criminal justice system.
The final point I will make before sitting down is that it would be remiss of the opposition to allow this bill to pass without making an observation about the priorities of the government and the Attorney General. This bill, which contains a novel posting and boasting offence, is what the government decided to bring on as the number one priority today, the first day after the winter recess. Members may have a view that a post-and-boast offence is a good thing or they may have a view that it is an undesirable thing. However, I think we can all agree on two things. The first is that this type of regime has been rolled out in other jurisdictions around Australia. We can agree on that; that is a statement of fact. The other thing that we can agree on is that, by the government's own admission, the particular conduct that it is looking to rule out is not rife in Western Australia, yet it is the number one priority of the Cook Labor government for the Legislative Council today. It could have brought on any legislation that it wanted to today as it is up to the government to decide what legislation it wants us to debate, but it chose this bill to be the number one priority. I make that point because I have been asking the Labor government for eight years to do something about the elder abuse laws, which also fall under the Attorney General's portfolio. I have asked the government to do something about that for eight years, but we have not seen anything on that legislation. For that same period of time, I have been asking the government for legislation to create a judicial commission in Western Australia. There is no sign of it.
We have just had a massive winter recess and one wonders what the government has been doing during that time. There are certainly some issues in the portfolio that the long-suffering Hon Samantha Rowe is looking after in this place, given the litany of questions on notice that could not be answered today but apparently will be answered tomorrow. At least one portfolio had some problems over the winter recess. As for the Attorney General's portfolio, I do not know what the Attorney General has been doing over the winter recess, but it is apparent that two things have not been done—legislation on elder abuse or the judicial commission. There is no sign of it—no media release today and no statement in this place or the other place to say that the government is proud to indicate that it has been working hard over the winter recess and is now in a position, eight years later, after having said that it would expedite law reform on elder abuse, to do something about it. There has been nothing. The government's top priority is the post-and-boast laws, which, by the government's own admission, will deal with a problem that is not rife in Western Australia. That is what the government said in the second reading speech after having consulted with the WA Police Force.
It is worth members noting that on the Daily Notice Paper is a motion standing in my name. It is the second motion standing in my name on elder abuse. It is my intention for it to sit there until such time as the government does something about it. It is purposely sitting there, members of the government. I am not moving it. We could move any motion that we wanted tomorrow. I am leaving it there so that every time government members pick up the Daily Notice Paper, they have to witness their disgraceful performance on elder abuse. Eight years ago, your team said that you would expedite these laws, but you have done nothing for eight years. It suits me that this motion continues to sit there day after day. Every time members opposite get their Daily Notice Paper, they keep seeing that they have done nothing on elder abuse. It is done on purpose; make no mistake about it. I am not hiding that fact. Time after time it is raised, but nothing is done. I raise it one week, then after another month and then after another year and nothing happens, but the post-and-boast laws to tackle a problem that the government says is not really an issue in Western Australia, and it would like to keep it that way, is its top priority for the Legislative Council on 12 August 2025. Try and rationalise that with regard to the priorities of government!
It is no wonder that, across multiple portfolios, the opposition is hearing that the Cook Labor government has its priorities wrong. I suspect members of the crossbench are hearing the same thing. It would be remiss of me to allow the second reading of this bill to pass without making that observation, whether it is with respect to elder abuse or the creation of a body that would be able to take complaints against the judiciary. That does not exist at the moment. We have been told for eight years that it is a priority of this government, but the behaviour of the government and its lack of action would suggest otherwise.
With those words, I again indicate that the opposition is supportive of the objective of the bill, but we have serious concerns about the operation and effectiveness of it. It is for that reason that we have indicated that, at the bare minimum, a statutory review needs to be conducted in two years' time.
Hon Rod Caddies (5:49 pm): I rise to speak out against the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 and voice my opposition to it. No number of amendments can redeem this bill. These proposed laws do not make sense. They are unnecessary and, ultimately, they will be dangerous.
At the core of this bill is the regulation of speech. The bill is designed to regulate what people can and cannot discuss. It will deny people the freedom of sharing certain content. Of course, in other areas we as a society have decided that speech must be limited in what people can share, such as child abuse material, instructions on how to perform acts of terrorism and things like that. It is true that we already have such laws, and rightly so. But the balance between free speech and the regulation of such is important, and the weighting should always be on the side of free speech. It is important in a democracy that citizens can express themselves and share information. These post-and-boast laws deal with the regulation of speech and, as such, we should be very careful.
Another consideration is the likely effectiveness of these laws and the operational impact they will have on our police and justice system. At a time when there are not enough police on the roads, do we have the resources to investigate and charge someone for a Facebook post of another person doing a burnout? This will clog up our courts and take up the time of our police when, as was mentioned already, the issue is not rife in this state; it is not really a problem. I spent plenty of time on social media leading up to the election. I did not see this type of behaviour happen once in the past year, and I am on social media a lot. Maybe it is happening, but I have not seen a lot of it, so it is obviously not too much of a problem.
At a time when our courts are already strained and people have to wait months or even years for their cases to be heard, do judges really need to deal with a case that involves a video of someone putting up their hand and debate over whether what they were doing was the Nazi salute? When our prisons are already dangerously overcrowded, do we really have room to send people to jail for posting a video of unlawful assembly, such as we saw in the protests against the government during COVID? The seeming intent of the proposed laws may be benign. However, the way they are written will enable them to be abused for repression by a future government if it is inclined to do so. For instance, people who posted videos of the protests by climate activists at the Woodside building could be prosecuted under these laws because the protest involved unlawful assembly and disorderly behaviour. Maybe even some members in this chamber could be prosecuted. The justifications provided for these laws simply do not hold up under scrutiny. They lack the substance and clarity needed to warrant such measures and fall short of addressing the real issues at hand. The claim that social media posts glorify crime and are the primary cause of further crime is dubious and lacks robust evidence. The way to address crime is to have enough police on the streets and the capacity in our courts and prisons to effectively deal with offenders. It strikes me as odd to a certain extent that the police do not welcome the posting of crimes on social media; I imagine it would be more efficient if they had video evidence of offending so that they could arrest and prosecute these people.
There are more problems with the way this bill is written. I will go through them in more detail to explain why I do not think the bill can be supported in any form. The inclusion of unlawful assembly and disorderly conduct in these laws raises serious concerns as it dangerously encroaches on the fundamental right of free speech. This type of law, which brands protests and civil disobedience against government policy as unlawful, mirrors the tactics used by authoritarian regimes to suppress dissent, as was seen during the COVID era. A future government could weaponise these laws to crush citizen journalism, criminalising dissent and silencing voices that dare to challenge the status quo. A future government could exploit the law's vague provisions, allowing it to arbitrarily regulate any speech by adding new offences through regulation, threatening free expression. Any legislation that allows sweeping changes to its intent through regulations, bypassing parliamentary scrutiny, is fundamentally unacceptable and undermines democratic accountability. Put simply, regulators must not have the power to add new offences that alter the legislation's original purpose.
The next serious problem with the way this bill is written is that it provides only defences to people, not exemptions. This means that this law could be used to intimidate and repress certain lawful speech by charging people with offences under the legislation and placing the burden on the accused to defend themselves in court. Although for some reason there are exemptions for intelligence agents, there are no exemptions for everyday Western Australians. They will have to defend themselves in court at a significant cost. The fact that citizen journalism will have to rely on a defence rather than an exemption will act as a deterrent to posting some content that may be in the public interest, such as proof of wrongdoing by government representatives. The truth is that this law will let authorities charge people and bully them into deleting content they do not like, thereby stifling free speech.
The bill contains the specific inclusion of road traffic offences and Nazi salutes but omits a range of other crimes. In relation to road traffic offences, the danger to society is not from the videos of criminal behaviour; rather, the danger is caused by the lack of police on our roads to act as a real deterrent to such behaviour.
This legislation specifically includes the promotion of Nazi ideas as being a relevant offence. The lessons we should be learning from Nazi Germany is the danger of authoritarianism and how society can descend into hell when we do not respect individual rights and core democratic principles, such as freedom of speech. This is the sort of law that could easily be abused by future governments to implement authoritarianism. Maybe we should be more concerned about that than about frustrated and poorly informed young blokes who perform stupid Nazi salutes. Indeed, these are the sorts of laws that the Nazis passed to consolidate their power—seemingly reasonable, but able to be used for repression at a later stage. I agree with others in this chamber that the omission of animal cruelty offences is odd. Basically, this government thinks an idiot performing the Nazi salute is worse than animal abuse.
For some reason, this bill will allow for the regulation of what people can share between themselves on a USB drive or private communication channels. If the intent of this bill is to stop the sharing of content to a wide audience to discourage copycat behaviour, why is this needed? Will this provision give the police the power to invade people's privacy on the suspicion that they have a video depicting a crime? Surely this will open the door to serious misconduct. It will definitely disregard core democratic values in the form of the right to privacy. Again, this law could be used by an authoritarian regime to crush free speech and dissent in the future.
I want to talk about what is happening in the United Kingdom at the moment. Some members may not be aware of what is happening there in terms of free speech and government repression. In the UK, it is illegal to post hate speech. This includes criticism of the government's immigration policy. There are instances in the UK of elderly people being arrested and imprisoned for posting their disgust with the effects of illegal immigration on their local communities.
Sitting suspended from 5:59:50 pm to 7:00:00 pm
Hon Rod Caddies: Before the bell rang, I was talking about the UK. I gave an example of elderly people getting arrested and imprisoned for posting their disgust with the effects of illegal immigration in their country and what affect it was having on their local communities. It is pretty dreadful that with that sort of legislation, people cannot even oppose or give their opinions on these things that they think are affecting their local community. There were many reports that multiple police officers attended private residences to arrest everyday Britons for Facebook posts, while real crimes such as stabbings, theft and sexual assaults were not attended to. The Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 is very similar to the UK legislation, which enables such thought policing in terms of its guiding ideology and practical realities.
This bill may seem like a good idea. At best, it is well meaning and naive, but at worst, it is a cynical Trojan Horse to be used in the future to crush dissent and free speech. If we want to address the issue of crime in our community, we need more police and capacity in our justice system. We could also get into other things that reduce crime, such as social cohesion, education and societal values, but I will leave that for another time.
Basically, in summary, I will not be supporting this bill in any form because it is unworkable, unnecessary and possibly a danger to free speech and democracy in the future. Instead of distracting from the crisis in police and justice with headline-grabbing legislation, the government should concentrate on addressing its shortcomings in those areas. I understand that well-meaning amendments will be proposed to the bill. We can try to change it and members will probably speak shortly about moving it to a committee and stuff, but I do not think this bill can be fixed. I encourage members to vote against this bill for the reasons I have outlined, unless they want to be complicit in enabling poor legislation to pass just for short-term media optics.
I will no doubt be accused of being irresponsible and not tough on crime for not supporting this bill. I might even be called a conspiracy theorist for daring to imagine that a future government could use this legislation for repression of the WA people's right to free speech. But I am not worried about that. I am more worried about what this bill could enable in the future. On a superficial level, this bill looks like it is just about cracking down on hoons and antisocial behaviour, but there is a lot more to it. This bill is a tool for tyranny. It will open the door to repressing any speech a future government deems to be unacceptable, and that is why One Nation opposes it. One Nation does not support creating tools that can undermine our core freedoms and rights as citizens in a democracy. I encourage my colleagues on the crossbench and in the opposition alliance to oppose this bill with me for the reasons I have outlined. If members think my concerns are unreasonable, just look at what is happening in the UK, where the UK Labour government is using similar laws to repress free speech and harass everyday Britons.
We do not need this bill. The best-case scenario is that it will result in everyday Western Australians being caught up in the justice system over trivial matters, causing significant disruption to their lives, and maybe an unmeasurable reduction of copycat behaviour for some offences. The worst-case scenario is that this law will be used by a future government to become increasingly authoritarian. The government will also argue this bill will protect victims of crime. However, this is also not a reason to restrict free speech. Core democratic principles are more important than an individual's feelings.
I will leave it there. We heard from Hon Nick Goiran. We can see that he has real issues with the bill, so I am not alone in thinking that this bill is not good for this state. There are so many other things that probably need to be brought before this Parliament before this bill. Another problem I have is that we are bringing forward a piece of legislation for something that is not really a problem in this state when there are many other things that need attention in Western Australia.
Hon Dr Brad Pettitt (7:07 pm): After careful consideration and consultation, the Greens WA will not be supporting the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 in its current form. From the outset, we really did try, in good faith, to raise our concerns with the Labor government, and it would be fair to say that the last month been pretty frustrating in trying to get some responses to that. Therefore, I want to flag up-front that it is my intention at the end of my contribution to the second reading debate to move a motion to refer the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 to the Standing Committee on Legislation for greater consideration and analysis.
This bill really requires scrutiny before we proceed any further in this debate. Today I will outline in my contribution my concerns about the proposed legislation and some of the reasons that I think it needs to be sent to committee. I start with the breadth of the bill. When the government first announced the bill, it claimed the bill was to target what it called "crimfluences". The Attorney General, Dr Tony Buti, said:
Glorifying criminal behaviour on social media is simply not good enough, and these new laws will crack down on it …
The Minister for Police stated something similar, and I quote:
People trying to glamorise criminal or anti-social exploits on social media pose an unacceptable risk to community safety by encouraging imitators.
On the surface of it, the bill does not sound too problematic, but, as we have just heard from Hon Rod Caddies, the deeper we look into this bill, we realise that the way it has been put together is deeply problematic. One of the key bits of that is because it is so broad and the penalties are so high. I will start with the penalties, as Hon Nick Goiran talked about before. The government was literally bragging. I will quote from the police minister again:
Western Australia will impose the highest maximum penalty among all the States that have introduced similar legislation.
Therefore, we will have the highest penalty of three years imprisonment, when all other jurisdictions have two years. It certainly goes beyond what was promised during the election campaign for some reason that is not clear to me. We will certainly have this strange situation in which posting about an offence will incur a bigger penalty in many cases than actually carrying out the offence, which is a pretty bizarre and absurd situation.
I will come back to this in a minute, but the idea that a whole bunch of people will end up in jail for longer, when we all know that our jails are overflowing, seems to be a pretty perverse outcome. Of even more concern is the breadth of the offences. The Labor government decided to go above and beyond other jurisdictions with not only the toughest penalties, but also the widest scope for offences that will be captured under this legislation.
The bill defines a relevant offence as an offence against specified provisions of the Criminal Code and the Road Traffic Act 1974. These include a wide range of offences such as disorderly conduct, trespass, common assault, stealing, burglary, criminal damage, unlawful assembly and careless driving. The bill will criminalise the dissemination of material relating to an extraordinarily broad range of offences. The WA Justice Association pointed out that no other state or territory has adopted such a sweeping approach.
I am going to table a key document that I will be referring to tonight on a regular basis. Dr Murray Wesson from the University of Western Australia has written a document titled A Constitutional Law Comment on the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025. I seek leave to table that document.
Leave granted.
(See paper 427.)
Hon Dr Brad Pettitt: This document is really worth reading. It is a document that is problematic in many ways. Dr Murray Wesson states:
Post and boast laws in other Australian jurisdictions also define relevant offence more narrowly under the Bill, limiting the potential for these laws to burden free political communication. Notably, no other Australian post and boast law covers unlawful assemblies and breaches of the peace.
It goes on to list those laws. I will not read them all because the list is long and thorough and there is a really good and useful bit of analysis, but I will give a couple of examples. The New South Wales act covers only motor theft offences and breaking and entering offences. The Northern Territory act covers offences against the person and property offences. The Queensland legislation covers a range of serious offences, including offences involving a weapon, violence and the threat of violence. This is actually where this law makes sense. It is certainly of concern when it starts to bleed out and have this very wide scope. Of even more concern is that the way the legislation is currently written, it could be added to by way of regulation. I note that Hon Nick Goiran talked about this and Hon Dr Brian Walker earlier flagged an amendment around the idea that the legislation could be added to by way of regulation, which would be deeply problematic. It sounds like the government might have at least heard that that could be a problematic part, but we are already starting with a very wide scope, and one that is deeply problematic.
This brings me to the next issue in the bill regarding the dissemination of material. The term "disseminate" is broadly defined within the proposed legislation to include an accused sharing material with, or making material accessible to, another person by any means. Again, I want to go back to that really useful analysis by Dr Murray Wesson. He compared the way it is defined in the legislation before us to that of other jurisdictions. He stated:
… the purposes of the offence are to prevent posting and boasting on social media that … re-traumatises victims of crime or encourages others to copy illegal or dangerous conduct. It is arguable that the broad definition of dissemination under the Bill — extending to offline communication of material to one … person in the form of photos, film or written words — is not rationally connected to these objectives.
A survey of Australian post and boast laws and draft bills reveals that the dissemination element is more restrictively defined in these jurisdictions than under the Bill.
Again, he went through and gave a range of examples. For example, in the Northern Territory, the material must have been published on social media. In Queensland, the offender must have published the material on a social media platform or an online social network. It is much more narrowly and carefully defined. In fact, Victoria goes so far as to stipulate that a person does not publish material by making the material available to only one other person. This bill actually says that if a person has material on a USB and they make that available to another person, they will be captured by this law. Other jurisdictions have gone out of their way to narrow this down. We have to ask why the government has not done this in a much more careful way. We have concerns with the breadth of the bill and how dissemination is defined.
I will give some very quick examples of four other things that we are concerned about. We are concerned that the bill will allow for people to be charged for posting or sharing material even if the person shown in the material has not been charged or found guilty of an offence themselves. A person could be found guilty for sharing material even though no-one has been found guilty of the offence that they have shared. Also worrying is that an individual could be found guilty for sharing posts from outside Australia as long as the act depicted is illegal in WA, even when the person depicted has not been charged. I was having a conversation with my colleague Hon Sophie McNeill about what would happen if we shared a post from Greta Thunberg about getting arrested for a protest on climate or something. Technically, we would be captured by this. Another concern is that the bill will remove the statute of limitations and allow a prosecution to commence at any time, including in relation to old posts that remain visible. This is just so much overreach in so many different directions. Another one is that it will allow courts to order the removal or destruction of material before conviction, and that it expressly precludes appeals from such orders. The Western Australia Justice Association has highlighted this, saying this bill raises concerns regarding procedural fairness and that it ought to be the subject of appropriate consultation.
Of course, that brings me to consultation. During our briefing on this bill, we asked who WA Labor had consulted on the bill and we were told that it was the police. We asked for a full list, thinking that that surely could not be it on a bill like this. Nearly one month later, we finally got a list. Let me read this list, because two-thirds of it is police. This list is so short, I am going to read the whole lot out. It was the Office of the Commissioner for Victims of Crime, Court and Tribunal Services, the WA Police Force, the Queensland Police Service, the New South Wales Police Force and Victoria Police. That was it. It is a very, very short list. It is so short that it is embarrassing. My colleagues and I have done more consultation over the last month than the WA Labor Party managed to do on this bill over several years. It is absolutely embarrassing that it would consult such a limited number of organisations with such limited scope. It is no wonder that it has ended up with such a problematic bill.
Let us think about who should have been consulted. This is about doing the job properly. Why was Legal Aid Western Australia not consulted? Why was the Aboriginal Legal Service not consulted? Why were key groups that do good work in our community, like Social Reinvestment WA, the Western Australia Justice Association or the Law Society of Western Australia, not consulted? Why were the many other prominent community organisations that work face to face with children and young people, who are explicitly targeted by this legislation, not consulted? Why were the civil society organisations that advocate for a democracy that is fair, accessible and participatory, such as the Australian Democracy Network, the Human Rights Law Centre, Civil Liberties Australia, Amnesty International or the Australian Human Rights Institute, not consulted? That is without even talking about key environmental and climate organisations that I think will also be caught up in this bill, given the way that it is currently constructed. If nothing else, for me this is another key reason why this bill should go to a committee for it to have a very strong look at it.
As the WA Justice Association put it very succinctly, this lack of engagement from the Labor government undermines the legitimacy and quality of the legislative process and contributes to the various issues with this bill as it is currently drafted. I think that is spot-on. It is pretty hard to think about it in any other way.
That brings me to one of the key issues that we have been talking about recently around how this proposed legislation has spiralled from its original intent of targeting hooning criminal offences. Its broadening scope of relevant offences means that it is now a very real and significant threat to free speech and democratic rights by criminalising protests. To quote from Dr Murray Wesson again:
The broad definition of relevant offence, encompassing unlawful assemblies and breaches of the peace involving political communication, may also not be rationally connected to the legislative objectives, given that these are not categories of offending typically associated with criminal crimfluencers.
There is a constitutional law element to these concerns that Dr Murray Wesson went on to conclude. I will quote again:
Nevertheless, in light of the extent of the burden on the implied freedom potentially generated by the offence, coupled to the existence of obvious and compelling alternatives that are less restrictive of free political communication, it is arguable that the benefit sought to be achieved by the law is manifestly outweighed by its adverse impact on free political communication …
… The objectives of the Bill — preventing post and boasting on social media that encourages others to copy illegal and dangerous conduct, and so on — are legitimate and of clear public interest. However, the extraordinarily broad nature of the offence has the potential to curtail and chill free political communication in Western Australia, in manner that is incompatible with the constitutionally guaranteed implied freedom of political communication.
If there is no other reason to send the bill to a committee, having a really good, close look at this advice from a Western Australian expert should be. Premier Cook has said that this was not the intent of the law. He was reported in the paper as saying it will not be the focus of the laws either. We were assured in the paper yesterday that he had received advice that said so. I asked a question about that. I asked what advice he had received that informed those comments. It was from the Attorney General—another minister. The advice that I am presenting today is legal advice from a professor at the University of Western Australia. The advice that the Premier is sharing in public is from his mate, the Attorney General. That hardly gives me any confidence that we are getting any proper scrutiny of this legislation. Where is the independent advice on this? Where does the Attorney General's advice come from? When we get a response to this, I would say that the advice that the Attorney General got to back up the Premier's comments should be tabled. That is the very least the government should be able to do.
There are many reasons why this bill should be sent to a committee. Many of the relevant offences include those for which nonviolent protesters are often charged, which are the chapter IX and chapter XXXVI offences. This proposed legislation forms part of a broader trend that I think we are seeing across Australia, unfortunately, that has eroded democratic rights of expression. We are increasingly seeing anti-protest laws across the country. That is certainly very worrying. We cannot help but look back and think of the many things that Australians should be proud of in our history. I refer to the suffragette movement and the right for women to vote, Tasmania's Franklin River, the advancement of workers' rights—those things that are at the heart of the union movement—First Nations rights and apologies to the stolen generations. Again and again this has been all about people standing up and being willing to break the law. We would now make all those people unlawful and the people who share in their beliefs. It is bizarre. I could not help but think of 2017 when the Labor Party proudly ran on the issue of the Beeliar wetlands and Roe 8. The Labor Party backed in the protesters, who were often trespassing to stop the destruction of the Beeliar wetlands.
Do you know what? Labor Party people—many of whom sit in this room—shared the posts of those people and said that they were heroes for standing up to the Barnett government, which was bulldozing its way through Beeliar wetlands to create Roe 8. What we have before us today in the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 will mean that those people who were willing to stand up and do the right thing, and many of us in this room who shared what they did, would have broken the law. Again, the government will say that that is not the intent, but whether or not that is the government's intent, that is what the bill will do. The government needs to narrow the provisions of the bill and sharpen it up before it becomes law.
In the interests of time, I will skip over some notes; excuse me while I do. The current public interest defence will not be sufficient to protect the dissemination of this material in all circumstances. We should not have to rely on that. People should not be required to prove that the dissemination of such material, including in private, was in the public interest to avoid imprisonment. As Matt Roberts, the Executive Director of the Conservation Council WA told The West Australian:
It seems to me overreach for what we’re trying to achieve here, when it comes to protest and people putting themselves on the line because they’re concerned about the future of our country.
I think cooler heads need to prevail at this point and we just need to actually hit pause on this because the unintended consequences seem very significant.
That is very true and it is one of the key reasons why it makes a lot of sense to send this bill to committee. The impacts of this bill are potentially far-reaching. It will create a whole new offence for posting and boasting. It will include relevant offences with such breadth and depth and will have further unintended consequences. A significant number of people who have never come in contact with the criminal justice system will do so. It will widen the net significantly at a time when the justice system is at breaking point. It is already in crisis and struggling to meet basic human needs, let alone provide rehabilitation. We are already seeing three, sometimes four, adult prisoners sleeping on mattresses on the floor in a cell that is designed for one prisoner. We are already seeing jail overcrowding. We have already seen the crisis in the youth justice system, which has taken over part of an adult prison. We have already seen more than eight deaths in custody in WA prisons this year. The idea that this new law will potentially funnel hundreds more people into the justice and prison systems is frankly absurd. Those systems are already struggling. We need to put much more effort into fixing the justice and prison systems and keeping people out of prison rather than creating new laws that funnel them into it. As the WA Justice Association said in a letter that it sent to my office:
Research consistently shows that early and repeated contact with the criminal justice system increases the likelihood of lifelong involvement and recidivism.
This bill does not address the root causes of offending; rather, it is likely to further entrench disadvantage. One of the other key concerns is that it will disproportionately impact young people and children. The Justice Reform Initiative's Executive Director, Dr Mindy Sotiri pointed out:
Further punishing people for posting to social media fails to address the drivers of that behaviour and won't work as a deterrent. Introducing penalties for 'posting and boasting' sounds catchy and might work for political point-scoring in the short-term, but is not based in any evidence.
Children and young people—who these penalties are intended to target—are still developing neurologically, and are still learning to weigh up the consequences of their actions before making decisions. Decades of evidence show us that threatening tougher penalties in this way will not work to prevent crime or keep the community safe. It instead achieves the opposite.
We have seen this from other states where these laws have been in place. The Law Society of New South Wales, the Law Institute of Victoria and others all raised concern that such laws disproportionately impact young people, Aboriginal children and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, entrenching cycles of disadvantage and criminal justice involvement. I will give members one example from Queensland. Queensland figures showed that from 2023, 90 youths were charged with boasting about their crimes over an eight-month period through November. Meanwhile, a question on notice to Parliament showed that Queensland Police had charged 195 people over social media posts since 2024, doubling over a similar timeframe. This suggests that laws in Queensland have not led to a reduction of the relevant offence of acting, posting and boasting. I think that has been pretty clear. It is worth quoting again from the WA Aboriginal Legal Service. According to my notes, recent correspondence stated:
There is no evidence to suggest that the proposed legislation will assist efforts to achieve the government's overarching aim in preventing "copycat behaviour" and further protecting victim–survivors of relevant offences from further harm and retraumatisation. Conversely, there is an abundance of evidence to suggest that increasing the likelihood of (overwhelmingly young) people coming into the contact with the formal justice system, be it more frequently or for the first time, will be detrimental to individuals, families and the community more broadly.
As I have highlighted previously, in the Labor government's most recent budget, only 3% of that goes towards justice funding focused on community diversion. Frankly, that is where we should be putting our efforts rather than expanding punitive measures that will capture more people into the justice system. I am concerned about that and certainly around disproportionate impacts on young kids and First Nation kids. There seems to be some big concerns.
The final point I want to make—I want to leave time for us to deal with this tonight—is the lack of a review clause. I think this has been raised by Hon Nick Goiran as well. It is kind of odd that there is no review clause in this proposed legislation. One would certainly think it is a very low-hanging fruit that the Standing Committee on Legislation will come back—assuming a referral to committee is successful—and actually do this. Hopefully, the committee will look at this and propose a range of amendments, but we have been discussing amongst ourselves a range of measures that we would want to see included for this bill to be supportable. I will give members some examples of those. I will not list them all, but it is around the removal of all the offences that could interfere with the right to peaceful protests, particularly chapters 9 and 46; the removal of adding relevant offences by regulation, which I think we can see is now going to happen and is good news; removing the expansion of relevant offences to acts or emissions that will constitute an offence under WA law even if it occurred outside of WA; reducing the penalty from three years to two years in line with other Australian jurisdictions; the removal of provisions that enable prosecution for post and boast even if no-one has been prosecuted or convicted; and the specific inclusion of protests and nonviolent direct action as a public interest consideration or defence. Of course, as we just talked about, we would also like the inclusion of a review clause. I think the fundamental consideration as well is around whether this bill needs to explicitly either exclude children and young people or, at the very minimum, exclude imprisonment and detention as a sentence for children and young people. I think these are all things that need to be discussed and looked at in detail.
In conclusion, the Greens are committed to an evidence-based justice system that focuses on reducing crimes, improving public safety, and prevention, education and rehabilitation. It needs to tackle some of the root causes, be it poverty, trauma, unstable housing and the lack of education et cetera. Criminalising young people or protesters posting their actions online does nothing to address these root causes and is why we are unable to support this bill in its current form. I think that this tough-on-crime theatre is not what we need. We need things that really work. I think this is an opportunity to pause and make sure that we see some significant changes hopefully recommended to us when it comes back from the committee. For these reasons that I have outlined, I will now refer this bill to the Standing Committee on Legislation.
Referral to committee
Hon Dr Brad Pettitt (7:34 pm) without notice: I move:
That the order of the day for the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 be discharged and the bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Legislation for consideration and report not later than 12 November 2025.
Hon Sophie McNeill (7:35 pm): I rise to give a quick contribution to support the motion of my colleague Hon Dr Brad Pettitt to refer this bill to the committee. This bill as it stands is deeply flawed and simply cannot be passed in its current form. This government has chosen to make this bill so broad that it will endanger our right to peaceful assembly and peaceful protest. Let me be clear. We are talking about breaching our obligations under international law. As a former worker for Human Rights Watch, I have a deep passion for international law. It makes me really frustrated to see that our Premier and our Attorney General, a lawyer himself, do not seem to get our obligations when a country like Australia signs up to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are obliged to uphold the right to freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly. These fundamental democratic rights will be under threat if this bill passes without amendment.
This bill, as it has been introduced, will criminalise those of us who share videos and content applauding peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience. This bill is broader than any other similar bill passed in Australia. It will give police excessive powers that will be applied entirely at their discretion. This government has chosen to include offences that many nonviolent, peaceful protesters are regularly charged with—unlawful assembly, breaching the peace, trespass and disorderly behaviour. Members heard the details from my colleague. My role is to give members a few examples of what will be criminalised if this bill passes in its current form.
Some of the best people I know and some of the best people in our movement have been charged with these offences. They have risked their own personal liberty to highlight urgent human rights and environmental issues. One of those is former WA Greens senator Jo Vallentine. Brave, courageous Jo is 79 years old and will appear in the WA Magistrates Court tomorrow at 8:30 am charged with trespass due to her brave, courageous, nonviolent climate activism. Seventy-nine-year-old Jo Vallentine is not much of a threat. She is an incredible woman. Tomorrow, when I go to support Jo Vallentine outside court and I share a social media post depicting her alleged trespass with a video saying that we should all be taking part in brave, direct, peaceful action like Jo, that kind of post will be criminalised if this bill passes in its current form, carrying a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment. I cannot count the number of posts currently on my Instagram account that could see me facing three years in jail. Although that might make some in the government and the opposition happy, was that really the intent of this legislation? Perhaps.
Several members interjected.
Hon Sophie McNeill: I am pretty active on Instagram and I am amazed that WA Labor has not yet blocked me. Here are just a few examples of posts. The posts that I share are shared by so many members of our community who are passionate about the world and about human rights. We want to talk about it and encourage people to do something about it. There are photos of me and my good friends in Unionists for Palestine, Friends of Palestine Western Australia and Jews for Palestine WA potentially trespassing outside the front of the US consulate, encouraging others to join us. Under this bill in its current form, that will be a criminal act
There are posts of the group Palestine Action Group trespassing on top of buildings in weapons' manufacturing facilities in Canberra. I praised their actions on my Instagram because truly they are the heroes of our time, standing against this genocide. That post is criminalised under this act. There are photos I have shared of my incredible friends Petrina and Emma from Disrupt Burrup Hub who temporarily shut down the road outside Woodside's North West Shelf gas processing plant. As I said in my inaugural speech, I truly believe that groups like Disrupt Burrup Hub will be viewed as heroes in time. So I am guilty as charged with glorifying these groups. There is an action I was very proud to help organise in 2023 when I worked at Greenpeace. My brave former colleagues climbed a massive crane next to the Woodside headquarters. We unfurled a 30-metre banner that said "Stop Woodside", calling attention to the fossil fuel giant's obscene plans to open new gas projects during a climate emergency. To post and boast about that trespass was literally my job at Greenpeace. I did it standing next to the CEO of Greenpeace, David Ritter, a lawyer himself, standing in the middle of Perth praising that action, posting and boasting all about it.
I would like to remind this chamber that if this bill passes unamended, it is not just us Greens who would be impacted. The Keep the Sheep protesters blocked roads. They engaged in what police could allege was unlawful assembly or breaching the peace. Once people start to find out the full consequences of this bill, and they are finding out about it because the Greens are posting and boasting about it, there is going to be real outrage in the community from across the political spectrum.
As we heard from my colleague, the Premier and the Attorney General claim that all these issues are unintended consequences of the bill. So what is this then? Is it just really lazy, poor drafting? Is that what is going on here? Is Labor so removed from the community that it just does not understand that there are really reasonable people out there, quite a large number of them, who do support unlawful peaceful protest? Is that how out of touch they are after this many years in power? I think it is time members of this government spent a bit more time listening to the good people in the WA union movement because they certainly understand the need to protect the right to protest. But the government and the Premier are saying, "Trust us; this is not what was intended and the legislation will not be used in this way". That should make it really easy for the government to support amendments to fix this terrible bill because, as it stands, it is not fit for purpose and it must go to committee for further scrutiny.
Hon Dr Brian Walker (7:42 pm): This may only be my second term in Parliament, but this bill is, I think, exemplary for everything that we as parliamentarians must be cautious about. It is all very well to have high intentions, well meaning, to have the greater good of the population at heart. That is all very well, but members ought to have seen the faces of the advisory group when we were briefed, when the explanation was given, at least from the crossbench, when what the unintended consequences of this bill might be were explained to them. You could see the horror dawning and then clamping down because we do not dare say anything. We now realise this is actually a poorly written bill that will have consequences far beyond the intent off the drafters. It is, however, perhaps perfectly capable to examine this bill and see it is yet another example of an attempt by governments of all flavours to curtail the liberties of the people that they are ruling and to demand coercive control of the people. It is gentle at first, is it not? But with each successive cut into our liberties, the control becomes more and more intense. I think back to the time of the COVID-19 mandates that required people to subject themselves to potential harm or face losing their house, losing their job, or losing all relation to society because they decided for themselves they did not wish their bodies to actually be assaulted by something that could harm them. No, they were coerced. Indeed, I was coerced.
It is all very well saying that it is for your own good, but this is also my choice. The thing about this is that if the government is able to enforce harmful behaviours on the people, would it not be reasonable for the people to stand up and say, "Not with me"? Why are we taking this right away from the people? The government then says, "Okay, these are unintended consequences. We'll never do that." I will draw members' attention to legislation from, I think, 2016—the Public Health Act. In times of a pandemic that legislation will allow the Commissioner of Police to direct a police officer to detain people and demand that they be injected with something against their will—for example, maybe a vaccine against Japanese encephalitis. If they refuse, the commissioner can then have them detained, stripped naked and forcibly injected with a substance that may be noxious. The doctor is required to administer this, on pain of prosecution. The result of prosecution would mean losing their licence to work, because of a demand that they do what the government tells them. The word I get back from people who were actually there at the time this bill was written was, "Oh, no, this would never happen. This was never the intent." My response is, "Well, in that case, why have you got this in the act in the first place? Explain that to me." I am yet to hear an explanation, and that was not from a Liberal government at the time.
I fail to see why we should accept this going forward. It would require only one government to say that anyone who decides that its decisions are wrong would be breaking the law, because the government knows what is best for them, and that all it would need to do would be to instruct the police that anyone who stands up to protest the lawful changes it is making to the statute book is now potentially a criminal. It would be very easy to take that next step, and the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 that the government will potentially enact has all the hallmarks of allowing, stepwise, the degradation and removal of the individual human rights of every single person in this state. I am absolutely sure that that is not the intent of the government or of those who drafted this bill. I am absolutely sure of that, but that is actually what is potentially in front of us. I would expect that all sides—opposition, crossbench and government—would agree that if there is a major, serial flaw in this legislation, it would not require a motion to refer it to the Standing Committee on Legislation; it would require insight from all sides to say, "This is an inappropriate bill. Let's send it back to the drafters and make it do what we want it to do."
I am going to support this referral motion, absolutely, but I am also going to say that I do not want to see this bill come back into this chamber with a few minor modifications that will make it less obscene than it is in its current iteration. I would far prefer calm minds on all sides to say, "Let's withdraw this bill right now, rather than actually going through all the processes of the committee stages, having it brought back to us and once again having a bill put before us that does not serve the people." Surely the laws we put out need to serve the people. This bill does not do that. I strongly suggest that we refer the bill to the committee, but I would also like the cooler heads in government to say, behind the chair, "This is just wrong. We will have to redraft this, rather than face the embarrassment of having it come through again, and the public anger that will surely arise." The reaction of the people I have spoken to about this bill when I have discussed with them what is actually proposed in it has been universal opposition and disgust that such a thing is being contemplated. How could any sensible mind suggest that this legislation go forward in any shape or form? The entire bill must be rewritten.
Hon Maryka Groenewald (7:48 pm): I thank my fellow colleagues for their contributions. I rise to support the motion to refer this Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 to the Standing Committee on Legislation. I think it makes absolute sense. Like my colleague Hon Rod Caddies, I would have loved not to refer this bill to a committee and clog up committees, but this is where we are. I have concerns about this bill. There are issues with ambiguity of wording. There is an issue around the appeals process. There is an issue around the youth justice element, which will, of course, add further strain on our courts. As it stands, the bill will have unintended consequences, especially for children under the age of 18, witnesses to crime or bystanders who simply post content without any criminal intent. We just cannot ignore that. I appreciate that we cannot do nothing. I have spoken to many communities who are grappling with youth crime, so I am not oblivious to some of those issues, but punitive measures will just not address these underlying issues, especially the issues fuelling youth crime in a lot of these areas at the moment. It is a bit like using a flamethrower to remove pests from a greenhouse: you will probably get the pests, but you will scorch more in the process. The reality is that the bill captures a wider range of people and far more circumstances than we realise, which is just another reason to refer it to the committee. The bill risks punishing the innocent. There is an element that silences legitimate public comment and there could even be destruction of evidence that could be critical in holding the state accountable.
At its core, the post and boast element in proposed section 221I makes it a crime to share any material that depicts a relevant offence if a reasonable person might think it humiliates a victim, offends a group or glorifies or encourages an act. On paper the bill might sound like it is targeting violent crimes, but, as I mentioned earlier, the term "relevant offence" is very ambiguous.
Proposed section 221H includes not just the most serious crimes but also lesser ones. This would include unlawful assembly, resisting arrest and even certain traffic offences like burnouts or just noisy driving. The effect is that even a short clip of a spontaneous protest or a schoolyard scuffle could technically fall under this law.
Let us say someone uploads a video of a man who is arrested. He believes he was wrongfully arrested and wants to call attention to this case. Would a reasonable person consider this a glorification of resisting arrest or perhaps an attempt to humiliate a group? I would consider the situation just a form of civic expression, not because I am in favour of resisting arrest but simply because there is a freedom of speech element to this as well. Let us consider that freedom of speech element for a minute. There is a lot of room for error in this bill regarding this. In proposed section 221L this bill gives courts the power to order the removal, deletion, destruction or forfeiture of material even if there has been no charge or conviction. These rectification orders can be made after an oral request from a prosecutor or they can be made entirely unilaterally.
These are some really key things that we have to be mindful of. This is the house of review and we have to scrutinise legislation. I just do not think we are there yet with this piece of legislation. Again, that is a further reason to move this bill to a committee. I do not know, but, honestly, this bill seems to flip the presumption of innocence on its head.
Following on from that, is how "relevant offences" is defined. The bill does not just target offenders, it also catches bystanders, so a child who films an incident on their phone and posts it is captured by the scope of this law, as my colleagues have pointed out. The law states that denouncing the conduct is actually a legitimate defence; however, what does it mean to meaningfully denounce something to the court's satisfaction? Again, it comes back to the ambiguity and the language and the need for this bill to have this further scrutiny. If a minor uploads a video of someone hooning in their car with the caption, "What an idiot" with a laughing emoji, is that denouncing the behaviour? That is not clear. The courts would have to determine whether this child is liable for $12,000 in fines or 12 months in prison. Again, it comes back to that punitive measure. It just will not solve the underlying issue we have with youth crime in our communities. It is just another form of the vague definitions that are actually already putting a lot of our young people and youth at risk.
There are also risks with the appeal process, which is another reason. That in itself should nullify this bill so we do not even need to go through the process. Proposed section 221O says there is no right of appeal against a decision to make or revoke a rectification order. This means that a single court decision to remove or destroy the material cannot be considered by a higher court. This may be the most reckless and dangerous aspect of this bill. Judges and courts are not infallible.
I believe that this bill will establish a bit of a two-tier system. Proposed section 221 will exempt police, agencies—as Hon Dr Brad Pettitt pointed out—and those acting in the administration of justice from being charged with this offence if they were acting in good faith. However, ordinary citizens, including children, have no such protection. That means the state can post, broadcast or store exactly the same footage without risk, but private citizens could be persecuted for it. That is not to mention the fact that the government will be in charge of determining whether it is acting in good faith or giving itself free rein. That in itself is super problematic. "Yes, the government is acting in good faith", says I, the government. Meanwhile, the presumption is that the rest of us are acting with nefarious intent, and, of course, we face a lengthy court process.
Lastly, I point to the justice commission's suggested amendments. The justice commission has proposed nine amendments, and I think it is a fantastic document to consider. Those amendments include limiting the scope to serious offences only, exempting private communications, exempting legitimate protests and, of course, appeals against these rectification orders. Of course, I am not here to endorse all those suggestions, but they are reasonable and I think we need to take them into account.
There is much more to add, but these are just a few reasons why I definitely support this bill being referred to the Standing Committee on Legislation. I feel that this legislation goes beyond its stated purpose and will create a power of censorship to seize and destroy without conviction. It will expose children, clog up an already at-risk justice system and expose bystanders, and it also includes some serious penalties. I really feel, for those reasons and the fact that it would remove a right to appeal, that it is very prudent and necessary to give this legislation further scrutiny. I support the motion.
Hon Amanda Dorn (7:56 pm): I support the motion of Hon Dr Brad Pettitt to refer the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 to the Standing Committee on Legislation for greater evidence-based scrutiny on its broad issues.
This bill is unacceptable in its current form. Legislation on posting and boasting needs to extend to acts of cruelty towards animals and acts of self-aggrandisement. Content creation for self-titled influencers—getting famous at the expense of anyone, including animals—appears to be the main objective for many. It is no longer enough to condemn cruelty; we must legislate against it. The rise of social media influencers who treat living beings as props or punchlines in pursuit of going viral has exposed the dangerous gap between online fame and real-world accountability. The influencer economy thrives on attention, and, increasingly, attention is won through shock value. For many, cruelty has become currency. Whether it is provoking wild animals, endangering ecosystems or exploiting vulnerable beings, the goal seems consistent: post the clip, bask in the outrage and boost the follower count.
This digital adrenaline rush has real-life victims. Earlier this year, an American hunting influencer showcased exactly what is broken. Her video, in which she grabbed a screeching baby wombat from its mother and sprinted across a street laughing, was not just disturbing; it was a blatant act of disrespect. There were distressing images of the baby wombat crying and the mother frantically chasing while the camera rolled. Despite their denials, the footage was clearly intended for likes and entertainment. The disgusting lack of remorse paired with global visibility reveals how determined for fame many creators have become. One disturbing trend with travelling influencers is that they often post these controversial videos weeks or months after leaving the country, avoiding direct legal consequences while reaping digital praise. This obviously needs to be considered within this bill, amongst a myriad of other things that we have heard tonight. In another recent incident in Western Australia in the Goldfields, three men brutally bludgeoned a pigeon with a golf club. The disturbing incident was filmed and shared on social media and went viral with public outrage.
The post and boast bill aimed at reckless drivers needs urgent expansion. The same reckless mentality that drives hooning also drives cruelty for clicks. The parallels are undeniable. It is dangerous behaviour that is filmed, shared for validation and rewarded by algorithms.
The Animal Welfare Act 2002 remains wildly outdated. Although a 2020 review was initiated, it has been largely ignored by this government. Including animal protection provisions within the post and boast framework would send a loud message that animal lives are not entertainment. We need retrospective enforcement for content posted after the creator has fled the jurisdiction, higher penalties for acts of cruelty committed for digital gain, algorithm accountability ensuring platforms do not promote or reward this behaviour, and mandatory take-down laws for offending content regardless of the creator's location.
Cruelty is not culture; it is a crime. Boasting at the expense of animals is exploitation, not expression. By integrating animal welfare into posting and boasting laws, we can protect the voiceless from opportunists who treat trauma like a ticket to internet fame. We cannot be a society that tolerates cruelty for entertainment. Compassion is the content worth sharing.
Once again, I support this bill to be referred to a select committee for the greater scrutiny it requires. Thank you.
Hon Jess Beckerling (8:01 pm): I also rise to support the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast) Bill 2025 being referred to the Legislation Committee. If we are to accept the stated intention of the bill as it was read in by Hon Dan Caddy, this legislation is designed to reduce the incidence of people committing dangerous and violent crimes that are then posted online and glorified. Sure, that sounds like a fair and reasonable proposition. But I strongly agree with what other members have said regarding the legislation as it has been drafted simultaneously too broad, building the ground for multiple perverse outcomes that are not in WA's interests, and also too narrow, missing obvious crimes that should be included and with penalties that are excessive and that will do nothing to educate or rehabilitate offenders while disproportionately impacting young and First Nations people and throwing more people into prisons that are already bursting at the seams and being described as in breach of national and international human rights standards.
Before being elected to this place, as many members know, I spent nearly 30 years in the WA community environment movement, often engaged in rallies, protests and peaceful nonviolent direct action, including being arrested three times myself. I was actually given the state government's Youth Leadership Award in 1999 for my role in the maintenance of nonviolence in the old-growth forest blockade camps, and I have been recognised by many members of this Labor government for my work over the years leading up to the decision to finally end native forest logging. Over the years, in order to do this work, I have regularly been engaged in activity that could have had me imprisoned under this bill. In fact, if anyone scrolled through my social media, like Hon Sophie McNeill has mentioned herself, there would be thousands of posts that could see me imprisoned for three years if this legislation passes in its current form. None of these posts showed anything dangerous or violent, and all of them were in the community's interests, like women's suffrage, the eight-hour working day, Aboriginal land rights, the protection of Beeliar Wetlands, stopping the uranium mine at Jabiluka and ending native forest logging. These all required protest activity. It is extraordinarily draconian and not at all in keeping with the commitment and loyalty to the union movement or freedom of expression rights to protest for this bill to cast the net this wide.
I am going to give the Cook government the benefit of the doubt and trust that locking people up who share and glorify protest images was not the intention and that it will support changes to the bill to avoid these perverse outcomes. When I was listening to Hon Dan Caddy reading in the bill, I assumed, like Hon Nick Goiran has mentioned, that it would cover sexual harassment and assault. There seems to have been a deliberate decision made during the drafting to leave out this chapter from the Criminal Code, which is an extraordinary chapter to have omitted. The bill also does not cover the Equal Opportunity Act, which is the inadequate tool that we have for dealing with sexual harassment in this state. It is clear that during the drafting, there was more effort put into shutting down protest activity, the glorification of protest, than into shutting down the glorification of sexual assault and harassment. Anyone with children in school knows how rife sexual harassment is, and if you do not, I really encourage you to have a good conversation with your kids because I guarantee that you will have stories that will make your skin crawl. The recent episode on ABC's Compass called "Hijacking Adolescence" makes a good starting point for those conversations. It describes how widespread and normalised sexual harassment now is among children and teenagers.
Locking kids up for three years is not going to help anyone, and the penalties in this legislation are ill-conceived, but redrafted, it could serve as an intervention point for meaningful education and redirection for people sharing content depicting sexual harassment and assault. This would be a far better use of our resources than locking up people who support peaceful protest. Why does this legislation cover peaceful protests but not sexual harassment or assault?
Finally, the penalty is excessive. Locking people up for three years for sharing and celebrating images will not do anyone any good. Our prisons are not a place that provide rehabilitation and education. According to the latest reports, they are places in which people spend days without fresh air, sleep on the floor next to toilets, block their ears to stop cockroaches crawling in and are in breach of human rights standards. If anything valuable is to be gained from this bill, it needs further thought and development before it is passed into law. I strongly support it being referred to the Standing Committee on Legislation.
Hon Dan Caddy (Parliamentary Secretary) (8:05 pm): It will not surprise anyone here to know that I rise to speak against the motion to refer the Criminal Code Amendment (Post and Boast Offence) Bill 2025 to the Standing Committee on Legislation.
One of the speakers briefly mentioned the briefings that were had. A few things have come up tonight. Given that I have been in every briefing, I thought those issues were fairly adequately answered. However, either they were not adequately answered, or the answers were simply not taken on board. While I am on my feet, I want to thank all the staff who helped in the briefings. The way that some members commented on either departmental or ministerial staff and the way they were in the briefings was somewhat inappropriate and ill-informed. I wanted to make that point. I will not speak for more than a few minutes, but I want to make a point about delaying these laws.
I draw members' attention to an incident that happened in Port Kennedy almost a year ago that was reported widely, including on News.com.au and Channel Seven news. Very confronting footage was posted to social media of a 17-year-old girl who was dragged into a car and attacked. The teenager was bashed, dragged by her hair and thrown into a car. The footage shows the girl with a bloodied face, begging for help. The girl can also be heard begging for help and screaming, "No, please don't take my stuff." She also asked the people who subjected her to this ordeal to "leave me alone". This was all posted online. A referral to the committee will delay the progress of this bill and makes scenarios like this in which images and footage can be shared without consequences to the sharer a real possibility. This is not the type of behaviour we want to see online.
The bill in its current form is designed to deal with exactly this type of behaviour. Despite having some concerns, the alliance—we heard at length from Hon Nick Goiran, who outlined those concerns—is generally supportive of this bill. On the other hand, some members of the crossbench, especially the Greens, think this bill goes too far, claiming that it will stifle freedom of speech. Nothing in this bill will stifle freedom of speech.
Hon Sophie McNeill interjected.
Hon Dan Caddy: I listened in silence to you, member.
I will talk for a couple of minutes then sit down. This approach is emblematic of the Greens in all jurisdictions across the country when it comes to law-and-order bills, for want of a better term. The rule of thumb is that if a law-and-order bill is introduced into any Parliament in the country, the Greens will oppose it. We have seen this—I will not go into the history now—with the federal Greens over the last two federal Parliaments. Yes, the bill is broad, but as a responsible government we have made the bill broad to account for emerging technology and how people share material. Why have we done that? It is because we do not want to pass legislation that is undermined by new ways of sharing material. The scare tactics employed by the Greens is a disguise for allowing people to commit offences. The Greens members do not hide from that; I give them credit for that. During her contribution to send this bill to the committee, Hon Sophie McNeill brought this up. In The West Australian, she was quoted as saying that if this legislation passed as is:
… you "could go to my Instagram right now and charge me for three years, because I regularly share actions that are illegal".
She said they should not be, but they are.
That is the critical bit: she said they should not be, but they are. Hon Sophie McNeill admitted to breaking the law, but she was also conflating the issue of these laws with the substantive offence. I think that is one of the Achilles heels of the arguments that are being put forward by others. It gets better, because my good friend Hon Dr Brad Pettitt, the Leader of the Greens, said that he would not be surprised because, as a party, the Greens are quite proud that they support nonviolent direct action, and sometimes that is unlawful. Once again, I understand the point the member was making, but there is a conflation of issues. This lies at the core of the issue and the core reason that the Greens especially want this bill referred to the committee. Essentially, it is because they want to pick and choose which laws apply to them and which laws they can break. That is not the way that a civilised society works. This government cannot allow unlawful conduct to be disseminated. We took this policy to the electorate at the state election. Protests, rallies and causes can continue to be promoted, reported on and supported; all the government is asking is that the relevant offences, as defined in this bill, are not depicted in any material that is disseminated. The Greens want people to believe that they will not be able to post anything about a protest, rally or cause online because they will end up in jail. The rationale for that, which is part of the reason the Greens want it referred, is simply wrong. They need to look at the high bar—the threshold—that needs to be crossed. No doubt that will be looked at in committee as well, should this bill get to committee.
Let us look at the other consequences of referring this bill to the very hardworking Standing Committee on Legislation. Firstly, as was outlined by my friend Hon Nick Goiran, there is a review clause on the supplementary notice paper to ensure that this bill is reviewed in its entirety in two years' time. This is a useful and sensible addition from the Leader of the Opposition. It would also provide a short-term opportunity for a review of what would then be an act once it has been put into effect. There would be evidence of application, evidence of outcomes and evidence of consequences. I think it was Hon Maryka Groenewald who touched on the workload of the Standing Committee on Legislation. We are looking to send this bill to a committee when that committee is reviewing an act that contains over 400 sections. The consequences of this is often not considered by those who, to be honest, are not from a major party that will or could be in government one day or is currently in government. The workload of staff and committees is important, especially when there is a mechanism on the supplementary notice paper that would see this bill reviewed in its entirety in two years' time, with evidence of how it has been applied and what has been happening as a result.
This bill was a government election commitment. The people of Western Australia gave a clear mandate to WA Labor to implement its policy platform, and that is what we will seek to do. We do not support this bill going to the Standing Committee on Legislation.
Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (8:13 pm): I rise on behalf of the opposition. It had not been my intention to engage in this debate, but I must say that the response provided by the government has provoked me. The idea that the government has a mandate because it won the election and that that would somehow abrogate our responsibility as a chamber to scrutinise the legislation is something that needs to be resisted at all costs. On behalf of the opposition, we absolutely accept that WA Labor won the election on 8 March. It won fair and square, it won comprehensively and it has a duty to perform on behalf of the people of Western Australia over this four-year period, as do the rest of us to scrutinise the legislation. I encourage members opposite to resist simply rolling out the line that the government has a mandate when it comes to these kinds of debates. It certainly has a mandate to introduce this bill, and it may well pass at some point in time, but we have a duty to scrutinise this legislation.
The other thing that provoked me in that response was the suggestion that there is going to be some kind of delay in these laws as a result of the bill being referred to the standing committee, should that happen in a few moments time. I go back to the comments I made in the second reading debate. I do not want to hear from members opposite when it comes to delay when this is the government that for eight years said it would expedite laws on elder abuse and has done nothing about it. When it comes to delay, you guys are the kings and queens of delay. This is just a mere three-month request from the Greens that this piece of legislation, albeit a small four clauses, receives some form of extra specialist parliamentary scrutiny. The delay is not manifest. The delay is minor and microscopic compared to each and every Western Australian who is elderly and abused because the government fails to bring in those particular laws.
I note that the hardworking parliamentary secretary indicated that he was really critical of the Greens WA—I am paraphrasing here—for picking and choosing which laws should be included. I make the observation that that is exactly what this bill does. As I said in the second reading debate, there are provisions in the Criminal Code—specific chapters—that have been included and other chapters that have been excluded, and they have been excluded without an explanation. We still do not know necessarily why the sexual offences chapter has been excluded. I have a funny feeling I know why that is, but we have not heard that explanation. Why have the provisions for homicide been excluded? I think it is less obvious why that has been excluded. I would think all members of this place would agree that the last thing we want is people posting and boasting about homicide. If we are looking at serious offences, is there anything more serious than homicide? We have not had an explanation for that. It is these kinds of things that persuade the opposition to support this motion.
Let me make it clear: This is, as I recall, the first motion to refer a bill, as distinct from a piece of legislation, to the Standing Committee on Legislation in this 42nd Parliament. The general approach of the opposition in this 42nd Parliament is to facilitate referrals to the parliamentary committee when a case for it has been made. We have no intention—the government can take an assurance from this—of agreeing to every single referral motion just because someone says it needs to be referred, not the least of which is because the Standing Committee on Legislation simply would not be able to cope with every single bill being referred to it. A case needs to be made and we need to respect the resources that the committee has and the individuals on it, including the clerks and the like.
However, at the moment it has one matter before it, and I do not think it is asking it too much to give it a second bill. It is not uncommon for that to be the case. Just ask the members on the Standing Committee on Uniform Legislation and Statutes Review what it is like to have multiple referrals sent to it, for a 45-day inquiry, I might add. That said, even though I might be critical of the parliamentary secretary for criticising the Greens because of his argument that the Greens members are picking and choosing, he is also right. The Greens are very much doing that, with all due respect to the members of the crossbench. It seems to me that the Greens want to be able to boast about breaking some laws in Western Australia while preventing other people from boasting about breaking other laws. This goes to my earlier point in the second reading debate. If the policy is that the boasting of criminal behaviour is something to be outlawed, why is there a distinction between one law and the next? That is something perhaps that the Standing Committee on Legislation could consider.
It was interesting during the debate this evening to listen to the different points of view. The Greens are saying that the scope of the bill is too large. I listened carefully to the contribution of Hon Jess Beckerling who made some important observations about the inclusion and exclusion of things, but, on the whole, members indicated that the scope was too great, yet Hon Amanda Dorn said it was not great enough and that another species needed to be included and considered in respect of these things.
We can see the divergence of views in the chamber. I think the case has been made that a referral is appropriate in these circumstances. The opposition sees no harm in that being done. We support the motion moved by Hon Dr Brad Pettitt for a short three-month inquiry.
Question put and passed.
