16.2 When conduct taken to occur partly in Australia

This provision is directed to the situation where a thing is sent to or from Australia. If a person, while outside Australia, sends a thing to Australia (for example by mailing a parcel) or causes it to be sent (for example by arranging for another person to mail a parcel), that action of the person might be conduct constituting an offence, and by virtue of subsection 16.2(1) it is conduct that is taken to have occurred partly in Australia. On that basis, an alleged offence could be within the jurisdiction provided by sections 14.1(1), 15.1(1), or 15.2(1). (It would not matter if the sending of a thing from Australia would otherwise be conduct wholly within Australia, because those subsections do not distinguish between conduct occuring wholly or partly   in Australia.)

Moreover, such conduct would not be conduct ‘wholly outside Australia’ or ‘wholly in a foreign country’ within the meaning of those expressions in   Part 2.7, for example for the purposes of the defences in ss 14.1(3), 15.1(2), 15.2(2) or 15.3(2).

Ss16.2(3) has a corresponding effect to ss16.2(2) where what is sent or caused to be sent is an electronic communication. An ‘electronic communication’ is defined in the Dictionary. However, an electronic communication is only within the subsection if it is sent or caused to be   sent ‘from a point outside Australia to a point in Australia’ or ‘from a point  in Australia to a point outside Australia’.  That limitation could exclude  some broadcast transmissions, although an email to multiple recipients, for example, would be a number of communications sent to a number of points. Ss16.2(3) gives an inclusive definition of ‘point’.