Thank you very much, Chair.
I'll pick up on that last point. I think the previous laws—I talked about the policy side with the minister—did make a distinction between movable property and real property or dwelling houses, specifically that you couldn't cause bodily harm in the defence of movable property. Then there was a different rule for preventing the invasion of your house; under section 40, you could use as much force as is necessary to prevent someone from invading your property.
You said you wouldn't think it would be reasonable to use deadly force in defence of property, and you used the word “generally”, and I agree. In fact, Australia, we've been told, has a rule that says you cannot use lethal force in defence of property, and we did have a rule that said you can't use bodily harm in defending against movable property. If someone is trying to steal your purse or whatever, you can't stab them.
Those have been left out of this. It's one thing to say, well, we all know what reasonable is, but we don't all know what reasonable is and we may have very different attitudes. There may be different attitudes in some parts of the country than in others, and there may be different attitudes among some people than among others. At the end of the day, it's going to be a judge or a jury deciding what's reasonable in the circumstances.
I'm a little concerned about the lack of guidance this provision actually gives. Can you tell us why you left that out and why you made no distinction between someone having their home invaded, for example, and someone having their purse snatched?