Page 2412 - Week 06 - Thursday, 10 May 2012
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Many of the approaches that the government takes in their bill we fundamentally disagree with and we think that the penalties in these provisions should not include a criminal sanction. In summary, the overall approach that the Canberra Liberals have taken is that if there is over-expenditure on the cap or over-donation on the limits on donation caps, the penalty for those overspends or over-receives should be twice the amount that is overspent or over-received and that should be a civil penalty.
The inclusion of a range of matters in the Criminal Code is contrary to the spirit of the issues that we have taken forward in our approach to this legislation and therefore we propose to remove all of the penalties from 205A, 205B, 205C and 205F of the Criminal Code. I note that the government is proposing by its amendments to include another provision in the Criminal Code and we would be opposing that as well. This is basically a difference of opinion between the attorney and me and, I suspect, Ms Hunter on the approach that needs to be taken on these matters and it will be resolved by vote.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (7.04): The government will be opposing this amendment. This amendment is consequential to the Liberals’ proposed amendments 10 and 13 which remove the scheme for establishing an ACT electoral account and amend the proposed new section 205F in relation to electoral expenditure by party groupings.
The amendment removes references to the government’s proposed new sections 205A, 205B, 205C and 205F in the bill which establish the requirements of an ACT election account. As the government will not be supporting Liberal amendments Nos 10 and 13 we are also opposing this amendment.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (7.05): We will not be supporting Mrs Dunne’s amendment. This is a technical amendment. I will also have an amendment that fills this space. We do not agree with this amendment at this stage because of the substantive policy changes that flow from this amendment.
Amendment negatived.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (7.06), by leave: I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 9 at page 2478].
My amendment is about changing the expenditure cap and I will be speaking more about this later in the debate.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (7.06): We will be supporting this amendment because it deals with the same principle but in a narrower frame than the amendment that I just moved and was not successful in having passed. But this removal of 205F from offences under the Criminal Code is the central element of the approach that I wanted to take. Our approach was more widespread. But we will be supporting this.
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