Page 2426 - Week 06 - Thursday, 10 May 2012
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thousand dollars in to campaign on a particular issue in the run-up to the election and they should not be excluded from doing so because they do not have a managing director.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (8.10): The government will be supporting this amendment. The expression proposed in the amendment is intended to be broader, capturing whichever person can be identified as the person responsible for the management of a third-party campaign.
MS HUNTER (Ginninderra—Parliamentary Leader, ACT Greens) (8.10): We will be supporting Mrs Dunne’s amendment. It is a sensible amendment that defines who is responsible for a particular entity.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause 10, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (8.11), by leave: I move amendments Nos 2 to 4 circulated in my name together [see schedule 4 at page 2468].
This is a series of amendments to clarify the operation of certain provisions in relation to definitions. Amendment 2 changes paragraph (b) of each of the definitions of “non-party candidate grouping” and “non-party prospective candidate grouping”. As proposed in the bill, it would capture electoral expenditure by any person to support a candidate or prospective candidate without the knowledge of the candidate or prospective candidate. This is not the intention of the amendment, as it is unreasonable that a candidate or prospective candidate should be held responsible for expenditure that has been incurred without their knowledge or authority.
Accordingly, this amendment proposes that these provisions be further amended to provide that they only apply in cases where the person incurring the electoral expenditure has done so on the authority of the candidate or prospective candidate. It is conceivable that a person or organisation could deliberately undertake such expenditure to embarrass a candidate or prospective candidate, leading to prosecution of the relevant financial representative. This amendment will address those concerns.
Turning to amendment 3, this amendment amends paragraph (b) of the definition of “non-party prospective candidate grouping” in clause 12 of the bill. This amendment, like amendment 2, narrows the definition to ensure that it only applies in cases where the person incurring the electoral expenditure has done so on the authority of the candidate.
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