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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4456 ..

Mr Moore: Have you got a legal opinion?

MR HUMPHRIES: Well, it is asking for a legal opinion; but let me offer one anyway. I think there probably has been a breach of the regulation. Of course, there have been breaches of regulations made by all of us in this place because the electoral regulations, prior to the amendment which I referred to earlier today, required that any document which was published and which bore the name of an MLA on it, with certain very limited exceptions, was to be authorised, with a name and address of an authoriser and a name and address of the body or person printing that particular publication. That regulation was so widely drafted that, in fact, we caught things such as the telephone book. Telecom or whoever publishes the telephone book has been in breach of the Electoral Act for quite some time. I do not propose, however, to organise for prosecutions to be launched against Telecom, in the circumstances.

The fact of the matter is that the regulations are too broadly drafted at the present time. I indicated, as Mr Wood referred to before, the need to ensure that there was some restriction on the capacity of MLAs, particularly Ministers in government, with access to the publication of documents, to make sure that they were not publishing their photographs and using Government publications to, in effect, promote candidates before an ACT election. I indicated that in the period preceding an election - let us say six months before an election - we consider that there should not be promotion of the ministry particularly, but of MLAs generally, using Government funding.

As a result, I promulgated the regulation which you have referred to, which was enacted on 1 December. In future, that will cover all pre-election periods for six months before an election date. We imparted to the ACT Public Service the intention that any publications that might have been planned that were to carry pictures of MLAs, be they Ministers or other MLAs, at least should have those pictures removed. Generally speaking, as I understand it, a number of publications were addressed in that way. Unfortunately, the Canberra Hospital did publish that document. It took out what I think might have been planned to be a photograph of the Minister for Health in it, pursuant to the instruction, but omitted to take out the picture of another MLA in another part of the document. They have technically committed a breach of the electoral regulations. Whether anything happens is a matter for, I suppose, either the Electoral Commissioner or the Director of Public Prosecutions. But, given that they were told this was to happen, we made it very clear what we were doing and we imparted a very clear direction, through regulation, I do not really think the Government could be held to account for that particular omission.

MR WOOD: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. I suggest to Mr Humphries that he is drawing a red herring across the path here. He has the regulation in front of him. It refers to authorisation. He might like to tell me where in this regulation it makes any reference to the promise to which I was referring. You are simply drawing a red herring across this path. This regulation permits letters, media statements and other material, clearly identified with a member, to go out without an authorisation. That is what it is about; it is nothing to do with your promise. Your statement now is to cover the embarrassment because you have done nothing. Is it not the case that you have misled the house?

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