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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (25 June) . . Page.. 2058 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

This is consistent with the standing committee's report. The committee pointed out that parliaments with the power to fine or imprison do not tend to use these penalties - surprise, surprise! - for broadcasting breaches; rather, access to broadcasting is withdrawn for a period. As members will be aware, the Legislative Assembly does not have the power to impose penalties on an unauthorised broadcaster or broadcasters. However, the approach pointed out by Mr Moore appears to be very appropriate. The Government's view is that broader legislation covering both broadcasting and publication issues should be developed. Mr Humphries has already indicated that would be the Government's view for next year.

Mr Speaker, this is an important piece of legislation and it does put very definite responsibilities on all members of the Assembly, I suppose, to conduct themselves in an appropriate fashion. When you look at, particularly, the Federal Parliament and what has happened to the general standing of the Federal Parliament since televising of question time has occurred, you would have to say that it probably has not actually improved the general public perception of parliaments and parliamentary procedure. I think it is incumbent on us to ensure that that does not happen to this Assembly. I believe, as this Bill obviously will be enacted and over time we will move to both radio and, in the end, television broadcasting of important events in the first instance and then possibly question time, it will be important not to fall into the same traps, shall we say, as other parliaments have when broadcasting has become part of their procedures as well. It is important that we use this opportunity to improve the standing of the Assembly, not the opposite, Mr Speaker.

MR MOORE (11.54), in reply: Mr Speaker, I appreciate the support of all members of the Assembly who have spoken. It is very interesting, considering the level of support, how long some things take. I remember going to the first Clerk of the Assembly, Mr Piper, and saying, "Why do we not let the television cameras and radio come in?". His response was, "No; we cannot do that because there is a series of problems". To me, they seemed at the time to be somewhat exaggerated. As it turned out, we were able to provide a situation where the media were able to come into the Assembly for the debate on euthanasia and the debate on the budget. At the same time, having been through the process, we all recognised that there were problems associated with that and that there were people along the line who were, perhaps, open to some kind of legal action. None of us would like to make that commonplace. Indeed, Mr Speaker, that is the reason for the legislation.

I was particularly interested in the comments by Mr Whitecross about access by the media to the Assembly proceedings, particularly for television. I think we should make it an important issue for the Government early in the next Assembly to consider funding the cameras for this Assembly so that we do not have the intrusive nature of the television camera as we have seen before; rather, we should constantly record the proceedings of the Assembly, controlled in the same way as it is controlled in the Federal Parliament and other parliaments in Australia. It is appropriate that we are in a building that is already fitted out for this sort of process. In fact, the expense to most parliaments is actually

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