Mike Elliott: Government Advertising Bill

Extract from Hansard

Legislative Council
4 July 2001

Mike Elliott
Leader Australian Democrats
Member of the Legislative Council

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The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: I support the second reading of the bill but indicate that I am not supportive of the content in its current form and will wait to see how it evolves during committee. Members' views have ranged far and wide, but I think that the underlying principle is that, in relation to advertising undertaken by the government, it should be for a demonstrable public benefit and not for the benefit of the government of the day in a political sense. The sorts of matters that are covered in the schedule, without going into the fine detail of that, are the sorts of matters that need to be addressed when deciding whether or not something is or is not for public benefit or, as I said, essentially for political benefit, and that is ultimately the test that an advertising campaign must stand up to.

The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: Arguably so, but I think that, at this stage, one failure of the bill is that, really, it is an after-the-event test. In other words, the advertising campaign has been run. Unless it is a long-running campaign, the chance to challenge in the courts has gone-the campaign has been completed, the money has been spent, etc. I would rather have gone done the path-

The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: Yes, but, as I said, in many cases if you put an insert into the Advertiser , it is done, it is gone. It may be a single insert campaign, and this and previous governments have done plenty of those. I am suggesting that, in the first instance, it is after the event. It has taken some time but I have given notice of a private member's bill. I have been trying to tackle the issue the other way around. Essentially, I want a series of tests and, before a campaign starts, an independent person or body to say, `Here is the advertising campaign we are intending to run. Does it comply with these tests?'

On the basis that it complies with the tests it can then run. So, the suggestion that there should be any court involvement, fines, or anything else, becomes unnecessary other than if one attempts to run an advertising campaign that has gone against the requirement that it first be an approved campaign. I think that that is a much better way to go. It does not involve the courts. We have seen that the court system can be very slow. How long has this `liar, liar' case been running, how much money has it cost and how determined does one have to be when one is, in fact, taking on the public purse in trying to have the argument?

Using the courts is not a satisfactory way of resolving this issue. It is not satisfactory, first, because, as I said, it is after the event; and, secondly, one needs very deep pockets before one goes into the courts to try to enforce compliance. We have any number of bodies, such as the Ombudsman's office, and others, where-

The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: I really think that the government is being a bit disingenuous when virtually its only defence is not whether or not it is running a political campaign but when it says, `We are not doing anything that the previous government did not do.' That is not a defence. The argument is what is or is not acceptable to the public, and there is no question that the public do not find the use of public moneys for unauthorised political campaigns acceptable; and to say simply that the previous government did it does not address the issue.

At least, I suppose, whilst the present government might say, `Look, it is hypocrisy if this legislation gets up in whatever form', in the future it will be constrained by it. So, at least it can be acknowledged that the Labor Party has recognised the error of its previous ways and, when it seems to be facing going into government, it has been prepared to address it. As for the existing government that is about to spend some time in opposition, it seems to be wanting to guarantee that the next government can continue to spend public money for a political purpose. That seems quite bizarre.

The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: The Hon. Trevor Crothers suggested that the opposition was telling terrible lies and therefore that justified the government's spending government money to counteract it. Whether or not governments or oppositions are telling lies is not the issue here. Many would say that a number of government ads have been, at the very least, highly misleading, but that is not the issue. The issue that is being addressed here is not whether or not governments or oppositions are being honest: the core issue is simply whether or not a government, just because it has control of the purse, should be able to spend public money for its own benefit, and that is the issue that must be addressed. The government has skirted right around that, other than to suggest that the previous government did it. Unless the government does address that issue, it stands condemned.