Page 2439 - Week 06 - Thursday, 10 May 2012
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ballot paper. And that is as it should be: they have a right to participate, they have a right to spend money, they have a right to put forward their views, but they do not have the same rights as people who are out there seeking election. They have a right to raise issues in the election campaign.
There has never been any justification from the Greens for this departure. A fourfold increase in the allowance to third-party campaigners is unjustifiable and the Canberra Liberals will not support this amendment.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (9.31): The government will not be agreeing to this amendment either. The government’s original bill proposed that the limit on electoral expenditure for non-party MLAs and an associated entity of the MLA, for non-party candidate groupings and for third-party campaigners should be set at $60,000 each. We believe that is a reasonable threshold for those participants in the political process. Ms Hunter’s proposal lifts that to $90,000 for the case of non-party MLAs or associated entities of the MLA and for non-party candidate groupings and to $120,000 for a third-party campaigner.
The government believes on balance—and it is an on-balance decision—that those thresholds are too high and therefore we will not be supporting them.
I should foreshadow that the government will need to move an amendment, if Ms Hunter’s amendment is defeated, to still replace the existing criminal penalty in the government’s bill with the preferred civil penalty, which is twice the amount by which the electoral expenditure exceeds the amount allowed under the relevant subsection, on the basis that that is what has been agreed between other respective parties.
Amendment negatived.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (9.33), by leave: I move amendment No 3 circulated in my name on the grey paper [see schedule 6 at page 2475].
My amendment No 3 omits the existing criminal penalty proposed in the government bill and replaces it with a civil penalty, the penalty being a penalty to the territory equal to twice the amount by which the electoral expenditure exceeds the amount under the relevant subsection, and that the commissioner may recover the amount payable under that subsection.
This reflects the discussions across the parties that there is a preference, by majority, for a civil penalty rather than a criminal penalty. The government accepts that that is the view of the majority of members in this place and I am moving that amendment accordingly.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (9.35): The Canberra Liberals will be supporting the government’s amendment No 3. It is a compromise all round. I have been a little
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