Page 1638 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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bill of “responsible chief executive” arguably does not include statutory officeholders. It refers to the Auditor-General Act, which, in turn, refers to the Financial Management Act, which, in turn, does not recognise statutory office holders as chief executives. The definition could be taken as making the Chief Executive of the Department of Justice and Community Safety the responsible chief executive under clause 11 for Electoral Commission advertising. This would violate the Electoral Commission’s statutory responsibility and the Electoral Commissioner’s statutory independence. We can add another adjective to the list of descriptions of this bill. It is redundant, absurd and illegal.
Let us dig deeper. Clause 5 of the bill aims to prevent government advertising for party political purposes, yet the term “party political” is not defined. There is further uncertainty in clause 13(3)(e), given the very wide interpretation that could be given to the expression “promoting the government or party political interests in any way”.
The bill reveals the opposition leader’s ignorance about the relationship between the executive and statutory authorities. That is a worrying ignorance by someone who just a few months ago, before he delivered the second worst ever electoral result for the Liberal Party, was presenting himself to people as an alternative Chief Minister. They responded to that possibility, of course, by according him the second lowest vote that any leader has ever received.
I must say that, in some of the less than kind things I say about Mr Smyth, at least it has to be acknowledged that, as Leader of the Opposition, he delivered a bigger vote than his current leader did. So I think that in the context of unkind things I have from time to time said about Mr Smyth—rarely, admittedly—it does need to be acknowledged that he produced a higher vote as a failed Leader of the Opposition than his current leader did. I think we do need to bear on that.
Clauses 10 to 12 of Mr Seselja’s bill would have very serious implications for statutory authorities, as they indicate that the minister is responsible for agency advertising. The bill goes so far as to state in clause 11 that the minister actually conducts the advertising. In the case of a statutory authority, the relevant minister, of course, plays no part in approving advertising campaigns.
In other words, the suggestion included in the bill is that if Actew or ActewAGL wanted to advertise in City News, they would actually have to go through this particular process. They would actually have to go through this rigmarole. The advertising would have to be assessed for its party political nature. It would then have to be adjudicated on by the Auditor-General. City News will go broke if this legislation passes. City News depends on us. We pay their two right-wing commentators, plus, of course, the other excellent journalists. I think there would be wholesale sackings in some of our media if this bill were to be passed.
These clauses in the bill reveal an incredibly sad ignorance—amounting almost to contempt—of the independence and apolitical status of statutory office holders. As constructed, it would violate the independence and responsibility of statutory authorities.
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