Page 5566 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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legislation, but I should imagine that if there is a loss made by the TOC, somehow we end up picking up that loss as well.
So ultimately I do believe that TOCs do use taxpayer funds and therefore use taxpayer funds to run advertising campaigns. That said, the point of principle is that they should not run campaigns that could in any way be seen to boost opinion on or the standing of one party over another. That would be entirely inappropriate. TOCs could see this legislation as an opportunity to prove that they do run purely public information campaigns with no political agenda.
There was concern expressed that the legislation would be an unwarranted interference in the day-to-day operation and planning of territory-owned corporations. The Greens are of the view, however, that the legislation will create a review process; this is entirely appropriate given the overall intent of the legislation, because territory-owned corporations are professional organisations and will be able to cater for the review process in their forward work plan.
The Greens believe that they should be covered by the legislation, because they do use taxpayers’ money to fund their campaigns and therefore it is entirely appropriate to ensure that there is no misuse of those taxpayer funds.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (3.45): It is interesting to hear the Chief Minister speak on this, because so much of this issue is simply because of the spending of Actew in the lead-up to the last election. Much of the concern of members in this place, plus the community, was about the fact that just in the lead-up to the election we had this sudden wave of advertising from Actew, a territory-owned corporation, about how well they were doing to secure our future, our future need for water. There they were in line with the government policy of the day.
It is interesting. We cannot hold them to account through this bill. We actually have ministers responsible for TOCs, but do not include them in this bill. We actually have shareholders—ministers are shareholders of TOCs—but do not include them in this bill. They write annual reports that are delivered to the Assembly, but do not hold them accountable through this bill. They appear at estimates—they appeared for a long time at estimates in some cases—but we do not want them accountable under this bill.
They appear at annual report hearings. Madam Assistant Speaker Le Couteur, you and I were there for an hour or so the other day talking to Actew. We were there with the data centre. Remember the data centre and power station debacle. They appeared and they spoke to us there. But do not include them in this bill because it is not taxpayers’ money. We ask questions in the Assembly about them that ministers answer for, but do not include them in this bill. We put questions on notice, but do not expect that we would include them in this bill. We have committee reports that talk specifically about these organisations, but under the Chief Minister’s logic do not include them in this bill.
What the Chief Minister is saying is: do not scrutinise the way territory-owned assets spend their money. This is a shareholder who seeks constantly to avoid scrutiny.
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