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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4458 ..

Mr Wood: That is wrong.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is not wrong. They have to put an authorisation on their - - -

Mr Corbell: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: I draw your attention to the regulations that the Minister has tabled. They specifically mention letters and press releases and require an authorisation. They at no stage indicate photos. The Minister is deliberately misleading this house, and he should apologise for that.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I do not uphold that point of order.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, that is not a point of order and it is not the case. I do not have the publication.

Mr Wood: I think you had better check.

MR HUMPHRIES: I do not have the regulation in front of me. If someone could obtain it for me, I will read it for you. If you like to pass it over to me, I will read you what it says.

Mr Wood: Yes, I will.

MR HUMPHRIES: Thank you. The effect of the regulation - - -

Mr Whitecross: You have a note there saying you have it wrong, Gary. Maybe you should read the note.

MR SPEAKER: Be careful. We can do without the gratuitous advice from my left.

MR HUMPHRIES: I have not seen the published version of this; so, I am trying to work out what the requirement is. What I have in front of me here is the regulation I tabled yesterday. It does not do what I said it was going to do. I concede that. I apologise to members opposite if I misrepresented the situation. But I have made a regulation - I do not think this is the one that affects that - to the effect which I have described. If the regulation has not been tabled yet, it will be tabled very shortly; and it has that effect. What it does mean, of course, is that the provisions in that supplement which were referred to earlier as having been illegal are not illegal.

The other point, of course, is that the Government clearly is indicating the intention to put on the table that regulation under the Electoral Act. As I understand it, the Government has already indicated very clearly that it does intend to ban those publications in the future. That is what we promised to do. I am sorry; we have not done it with what has supposedly been produced here. If that is the case, then obviously I want to correct what I said to the house. But we have indicated our intention to do that; and we will do that as soon as the regulation is made.

Mrs Carnell: I ask that further questions be placed on the notice paper.

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