Page 1676 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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I think that, as long as all donations are reported and the disclosure requirements are met, there will be a sufficient level of accountability and openness, subject to one further amendment that I will introduce. I do not recognise the need to extend this further and to target specific industries or individuals or to place a significant administrative burden on candidates.
I had serious concerns about the government’s plan to remove the need to authorise messages of less than 10 words and bumper stickers. I am pleased to see from the government’s further amendments that they have now moved away from this plan. Bumper stickers were not concerning me, but certainly there is a concern about messages of 10 words or less. You could put a truck on State Circle—I saw this in the last election—with billboards on the side; who knows what kind of message could be put there? It is hardly a trivial piece of election material.
Authorisations make it clear who is disseminating material. It is a minor requirement and it is not difficult to adhere to what is needed. I believe the addition of messages of less than 10 words to the exemption would have opened up a whole genre of political advertising that does not require authorisation. It would have allowed people to produce billboards, posters and other advertising with no authorisation at all.
This is not in the interests of anyone. It would have potentially allowed misleading advertising. It would also make the life of the electoral office more difficult in addressing issues that may have arisen in the campaign. I believe that authorisation should be required on any advertising. Indeed, I have circulated an amendment that adds to authorisation requirements, in the interests of openness and accountability. As I have said, I am glad that the government has amended its amendment bill to remove the two proposed exemptions. It is important that our elections are kept as open and transparent as possible.
I will conclude my initial remarks at this point. As I said at the outset, I have significant concerns with several aspects of this bill, specifically and most importantly the removal of groupings of independents. Although many of the changes in the bill are technical and minor in nature, I cannot support the bill while it contains these provisions. I will speak in more detail later in the debate and specifically address some of these concerns. But whilst this bill serves to make it harder for independents to compete in the ACT political system I will not be supporting it.
Personally, I would be able to deal with the proposed changes, but a number of candidates may be more significantly challenged. I think that these changes are not in the interests of the democratic process. I also flag that I have introduced my own amendment to the bill which will improve the authorisation process. It relates to the disclosure of printers. It has been distributed to all parties and I will speak on it in more detail soon. I encourage members to support it.
Mr Speaker, you always get worried when governments start trying to tamper with the electoral process. I say “tamper” in relation to making changes that are clearly part of a process, not simply to tidy up administrative arrangements but to significantly attempt to alter the political landscape, especially when the government appears to be
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