Page 1206 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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tabled in August 1989. The report dealt with the issues of the potential threat to the integrity of the political and electoral systems by the increasing need to raise substantial funds to finance election campaigns.
Mr Jensen: It was $8,000, wasn't it?
MS FOLLETT: Mr Deputy Speaker, will you protect me from Mr Jensen?
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Jensen, keep it down.
MS FOLLETT: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The issue has also been raised in two major anti-corruption reports - the Fitzgerald report and the ICAC report on its investigation into north coast development. Both reports supported effective disclosure of political donations and criticised existing practices in their respective States. The committee was also of the view that the rising cost of television and radio advertising and the consequent increased reliance of the political parties on corporate sponsorship posed a similar threat of corruption through potential influence buying.
The joint standing committee argued that the solution to these problems lay in full disclosure of political donations and expenditure by political and third parties, and through the banning of party political advertising in the electronic media. It is my contention that that latter point is a great leap forward in the interests of social justice, in the interests of equality between all parties and all interests in our community, and in the interests of providing a level playing field in the political arena.
I would like to refer also to the question of the third parties and the ban on electronic advertising by them, because that has also been painted by other speakers as a denial of the freedom of speech. I ask: Just how free is that speech and how much of a level playing field has been provided? In the 1990 election $5,708,536 was expended on campaigns by third parties. Some 35 of those third parties spent $1,735,585 on broadcasting - just what we are debating here. Of that $1,700,000-odd, $1,083,000 was spent by the logging industry. A further $267,000 was spent by road funding groups. Those two major interests spent the vast majority of the money. Less than $400,000 was expended by all the other groups combined. That means that the community groups, the environment groups, the Australian Conservation Foundation and so on between them spent under $400,000 in that campaign. What sort of level playing field is that? What sort of social justice is that? The arguments put by Mr Stevenson and Mr Kaine are absolute rubbish.
It is a fact that the joint standing committee concluded that the very rapidly rising costs of political advertising in the electronic media did pose a threat to the integrity of our political system. Media advertising rates have risen markedly over the past decade, and consequently the
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