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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1952 ..

Clause 30 agreed to.

Clause 31.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (11.01): Mr Speaker, I move amendment No 4 circulated in my name [see schedule 4, part 1, at page 1981]. Clause 31 is being amended to remove the change made by the bill to section 243 of the act, delaying by four weeks the due date for the publication of annual returns during an election year. That is being done to maintain consistency with the Commonwealth due dates.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 31, as amended, agreed to.

Clauses 32 to 34, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 35.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (11.02): Mr Speaker, I move amendment No 5 circulated in my name [see schedule 4, part 1, at page 1981]. Clause 35 is being amended simply to correct a drafting error.

Amendment agreed to.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Attorney-General) (11.03): Mr Speaker, I move amendment No 6 circulated in my name [see schedule 4, part 1, at page 1981]. Clause 35 is also being amended to delay until 1 January 2002 the commencement of the new provision requiring material published by or on behalf of candidates, parties and ballot groups to include in authorisation statements the name of the candidate, party or group. This is a simple amendment because a lot of the material has been available already. I understand that the amendment has the support of most people.

MS TUCKER (11.04): On the contrary, it is not a simple amendment. It is about this government looking after itself, once again, and not taking into account the public interest. This amendment is delaying the introduction of the new requirements for the authorisation of election material until 1 January 2002.

This amendment requires material published on behalf of parties or candidates to state the name of the party or candidate in the authorisation. I understand that this amendment has arisen because the major parties are concerned that campaign material they have already printed does not comply with this new rule. This change does not seem to be a major imposition on candidates or parties, so I do not know why this requirement needs to be totally delayed until after the election. It is also the case that this bill has been in the public domain since it was tabled on 29 March, so the parties have had plenty of time to take note of this change to the authorisation rule.

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