Page 1216 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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There is a middle way, and this is where I hope Mrs Grassby will agree with me. We can curb the extravagances of some political parties, whether Labor or Liberal, by naming an amount or amounts beyond which individuals or parties cannot go. I would wish that amount to cover the whole spectrum of advertising, that is, everything that comes under the name of advertising. Whatever amount X was, it would be up to a party to use that amount in whatever way it saw fit.
In the ACT, for example, we could say that no party should be permitted to spend more than $60,000 in any one election, or perhaps we could have a formula such as no more than 50c per registered voter per election. What is more, we could even agree to finance that expenditure from the public purse. I am not arguing that here, but that is another way to perceive it. In other words, you do not say no to all those kinds of advertising and yes to all these kinds of advertising. You say that there is a right to advertise publicly, but that it badly needs control. It must not be allowed to get out of hand.
But I want to go much further now. My objection to electronic media advertising is not to the advertising but to the expense of it. So, here is my main suggestion: We can also support the view that the public airwaves, radio and TV, should be open to the public at no cost. Radio and television stations get their financial benefits from the fact that they are allowed to use a chunk of the air space. Governments allow them to do that. The very least that should be asked of television and radio stations is that during election times, at no cost to those campaigning, there should be time set aside for public debate, public discussion, public advertising.
There would have to be limits on that. Perhaps we could have a formula for television and radio that each station should be required to provide, for the sake of argument, one hour per day during formal election campaigns to be available for public access broadcasting by candidates, whether individuals or parties. This would be fairly and properly allotted across the whole spectrum. I do recognise the difficulties of that.
What I am suggesting is that you should not create an area where you ban freedom of speech. You extend freedom of speech by not insisting that freedom of speech depend on having vast amounts of money. A careful formula should be worked out so that parties and individuals should be allotted a minimum amount of time at periods during which no candidate would be disadvantaged. I realise that there would be problems. Obviously there would have to be careful consideration of people who are doing it only as some kind of stunt, but even then freedom of speech must have its place.
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