Page 5569 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Minister for Transport, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Land and Property Services, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and Minister for the Arts and Heritage) (3.54): I just make the obvious point that the government has proposed an amendment in relation to the same subclause which is the same except that I had proposed an additional part proposing that territory-owned corporations not be included. I will not be moving my amendment. I support Mr Seselja’s amendment and will not be moving mine.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (3.55): As Mr Seselja flagged, this is tied to the issue of including territory-owned corporations within the scope of the legislation. In debating that topic, the issue was about who was the appropriate person within each type of government agency to be signing off on ad campaigns. The minister was saying that we explored it at some length in the committee. It was important to address the concept of who the responsible person was and make sure that was clear in the legislation. To do so has the benefit of specifying who is the relevant person within each type of organisation.
This was needed because it will not necessarily be the minister in each circumstance. With this amendment, the legislation will clearly set out that for territory-owned corporations it will be the chief executive who has responsibility under this legislation. Equally importantly, for statutory authorities or statutory offices it will be the statutory office holder. That came up particularly in the context of units, such as the Electoral Commission, which operate with a considerable degree of independence but ultimately sit under the minister. That was an issue that came through quite clearly in the committee, so it has been important to make this clarification. On that basis, the Greens will be supporting the amendment.
Proposed new clause 7A agreed to.
Clause 8.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (3:56): I move amendment No 3 circulated in my name [see schedule 3 at page 5626].
For the sake of being a little more concise, I will speak to amendments 3, 4 and 5 together now—even though we will move them separately, obviously—because they are doing similar things. These are all in response to recommendation 11, to clarify what is and what is not considered a government campaign for the purposes of the act.
Amendment 3 is defined to exclude health and safety announcements, including road safety programs. Amendment 4 is a revision that excludes routine campaigns carried out by an agency in relation to its operational activities, public notices and the like. Amendment 5 proposes new examples of what is not covered, including campaigns about drink driving, speeding, wearing seatbelts, smoking, obesity or losing weight. The bill has covered most of the comments raised about clarifying the scope of this bill. I commend them all to the Assembly.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video