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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 03 Hansard (Thursday, 11 March 2004) . . Page.. 1062 ..

think one week away from the election—interesting timing. This really is quite an astonishing rort, and were it not for advice received from the Electoral Commissioner, I would doubt its legality. But no, it is legal. Legal it may be, but it is still inappropriate. It is also quite dishonest to go down this path: so much for open, accountable government.

It is contrary to Mr Stanhope’s promise of no hoopla and no circuses. By the way, that was a wonderful three-ring circus we saw out there in Civic Square earlier today. Seriously, if we do not disallow this law today, we leave a very bad legacy—a legacy that basically says it is okay to tamper with the symbols of the territory and to make even the abstract concept of government partisan.

These symbols—the crest, the words “ACT government” and the agency—have been there for decades; people are used to them. They are entirely appropriate, and they represent the government of the day. As I said earlier, it does not matter what political persuasion that government is. But this is something very different. This means that you can take out some of those things; you could take out the crest. It is going down a very dangerous path. It is very dangerous for our democracy. It is an abuse of the executive power. There is no real need for it.

If the government wants to use these words “Building our city, building our community” why not have, “Authorised by J Stanhope, 191 London Circuit, Civic, ACT”? What is wrong with that? Surely that is no great impost. This is quite serious. It is quite dangerous. It is something that should be disallowed. The government should be somewhat ashamed to try this sort of swiftie on the Assembly. It is unnecessary and I ask the Assembly to disallow this particular regulation

MR STANHOPE (Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for Environment and Minister for Community Affairs) (12.17): These amending regulations provide that publications of ACT government agencies that contain the ACT government’s “Building our city, building our community” logo will not be required to include an electoral authorisation statement, if the publications include electoral matter. The intent of these regulations simply is to extend the standard exemption of government agency publications from the need to include an authorisation statement where they use the new government logo. It is simply an extension of the status quo.

The definition of electoral matter included in the Electoral Act is very broad. It includes any reference to the performance of the ACT government for example. Therefore it encompasses many ACT government publications, which are not, of course, intended to be, nor are they, political.

The purpose of the Electoral Act authorisation provisions is to make sure that voters know who is responsible for publishing material that may impact on voters’ minds when they come to cast their votes. This enables voters to make judgements about the accuracy, balance and fairness of published material. In particular, the authorisation laws are intended to prevent irresponsibility through anonymity; that is, making it unlawful to publish electoral material that does not identify the author, so that voters are unable to judge whether the material is coming from a source with a particular interest in the election.

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