Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill

I will take only a very brief call on this clause. By way of introductory comment, I will say that it is a mistake to view as anything other than something procedurally useful to the Committee the sensible suggestion to deal with the three bills as a single question, because the bills raise the same issues. It does not mean that we do not get to vote separately on each bill; it means that we just have a single debate to cover the three of them. Anyway, that was not to be. For the life of me, I do not understand why that was not accepted by the ACT Party. It is beyond my comprehension, but there we go. It was suggested simply as a way of being helpful.

The only thing I want to say about this bill, which is why I did not want to take calls on separate bills, is to say how pleased I am that we have managed to get the definitional provisions aligned so that we are absolutely clear-cut that taxpayers’ money is not spent on election advertising, that there is no crossover point now, and that during the regulated period the rules are absolutely clear-cut. That will enable us to be absolutely sure that when we look our masters in the eye, our taxpayers, we are able to give them a cast-iron guarantee that the rules have been written so that there can be no crossover. There will be no taxpayer money spent on electoral advertising, and that is the way it should be.

I will make a brief comment. I first acknowledge that the Parliamentary Service Amendment Bill deals with some issues that have been difficulties for Parliament for quite some time. I think it is fair to say there has been no attempt to rort systems, but there has been a series of rules in place that were somewhat unclear. So the clarity that will come from this legislation is very, very welcome.

I acknowledge the Electoral Legislation Committee, which worked on this bill. Its membership was pretty much equally split between members who have recently come to Parliament and those who have been here for a longer period of time. There were people on the committee who had not gone through an election where they were personally elected, and, therefore a situation of having had their use of funding questioned. There were others who had some 34 election experiences between them. So there were fresh sets of eyes coming in, plus those who had gone through this experience over a period of years. I think for that reason we can have quite a bit of confidence that this bill gets to the heart of the matter.

My only concern, if I had one, was that there is a provision in the back of the bill for the recovery of amounts that were validly paid by Parliamentary Service to members through their entitlement, but which can be recovered subsequently upon another body, the Electoral Commission, determining that those payments, for advertising or whatever it was, did not comply. I think what we have put there is a fair check and a fair balance in terms of the provisions. As the Hon Lianne Dalziel said in the speech that preceded mine, we do now have the basis for much, much clearer rules. So I congratulate the committee on that work, and particularly Amy Adams on her leadership of the committee. She is a new member herself, who was looking at legislation that, hopefully, she will have many, many occasions to resort to. Thank you.

Clause 1 agreed to.

Clause 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 3A agreed to.

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 agreed to.

Clause 7 agreed to.

Bill to be reported without amendment presently.