Page 4309 - Week 12 - Thursday, 24 October 2019
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Standing Committee on Administration and Procedure which would then review expenditure and table a report in the Assembly to be made available to the public and the media. Again, the purpose of this bill is to increase transparency in the use of communications budgets.
The bill also contains several explicit exclusions for how the budget can be used. It cannot be used for: one, soliciting a vote for a person; two, soliciting subscriptions or other financial or non-financial support, other than volunteering, for a member, political party or candidate; three, soliciting applications for or renewals of membership in a political party; four, providing instruction on how to complete a ballot paper; five, producing or distributing any material that includes an advertisement pursuing a commercial purpose of the member or another person; or six, producing or distributing material that refers to the performance of a member, former member, political party, candidate or group of candidates, the government or opposition or a previous government or opposition except if the member is referring to their own performance as a member of the Assembly, their own position on a particular policy issue, their own political party’s performance including the performance of other members within their own political party or the performance as a member of the executive including any work with other members of the executive.
These provisions have been included in the bill to ensure that public expectation about what constitutes routine communication between an MLA and their constituents is maintained. However, given the broad definition of electoral matter for the purposes of the Electoral Act, this bill also recognises that some routine communication may still fall within this definition. As such, the bill does not exempt materials produced with the new budget from the Electoral Act’s campaigning offence provisions where material produced falls within the electoral matter definition. In practice, this means that some materials may still require authorisations under sections 292 and 306 of the act.
As I mentioned earlier, further limitations or acceptable use guidelines will be contained in the continuing resolution determined through cross-party negotiations. The content of the continuing resolution must and will be available on the public record. As I also mentioned earlier, this new communications budget will be revenue neutral. It is the government’s view that it cannot come at the expense of taxpayers. As such I have sent a letter to the Remuneration Tribunal outlining the government’s position that a reduction in MLA salaries equal to the amount of the communications budget as determined by the continuing resolution of the Assembly is appropriate. This is of course subject to the negotiations with MLAs on the continuing resolution.
I have indicated to the Remuneration Tribunal that I intend to formally request that they reduce MLA salaries from 1 January 2020 following the passage of the continuing resolution and these legislative amendments. This is the right and proper course.
In relation to the technical elements of the bill, section 4 amends the Legislative Assembly (Office of the Legislative Assembly) Act 2012 by inserting a new section 19B to establish the legal framework for payment of the new budget and the explicit examples of electioneering expenditure for which the budget cannot be used.
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