Page 1739 - Week 05 - Thursday, 8 May 2008
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practice of disseminating misleading electoral material went a bit too far and backfired badly. Where these practices are not uncovered prior to an election, they can have an enormous impact on voters in campaigns and, as such, they need to be tightly regulated. Preventing abuses of electoral advertising requires solid authorisation legislation. These laws have been flouted in the past, but knowing they are flouted and knowing that not a lot can be rectified once the damage is done is no reason to ease these requirements.
With this in mind, I have proposed amendments to exclude bumper stickers and other campaign material with 10 words or less from the electoral material that does not require authorisation. I thank Mr Mulcahy for reminding us that 10 words or less could be as large as filling up the side of a truck as well. We thought small; we should have thought big.
Bumper stickers are a popular and prolific campaign tool and should be authorised in order to minimise confusion amongst the voting public. Imagine if we had one of those flashing digital boards along the side of the road, such as Actew’s one about our water. There could be six words flashing “vote for Father Christmas” without an authorisation. So we have to think ahead, we have to think of the new technologies and we have to authorise everything. The same can be said for campaign material that is 10 words or less. A lot can be said in 10 words—in fact, most of us have to get our media grabs down to 10 words now, and we actually know that not enough can be said in 10 words—as was shown this year by the truck which had a short, derogatory, anti-Liberal sentiment and which many falsely attributed to the Greens. Even the shortest phrase can cause confusion amongst voters about which group is expressing the opinion. So let us authorise it, and let us authorise it legibly.
Amendment agreed to.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (12.34 am): I move amendment No 40 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 1779].
This amendment is intended to remove items of 10 words or less from the list of items that are exempt from authorisation. Again, this is a matter that has been criticised by a number of members, and the government is prepared to make this amendment to retain the existing requirement for these items to carry an authorisation statement.
This is particularly important—and the government accepts the critique made by some members of this place—in that, whilst you could potentially have very small items carrying 10 words or less, you could also have very large items such as billboards or the sides of buses or trucks painted with 10 words or less, and not required to be authorised under the previous provisions. For this reason, the government is removing this provision and retaining the existing provision that requires these items to carry an authorisation statement.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 100, as amended, agreed to.
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