Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) repeal the following resolutions:

(a) Broadcasting and re-broadcasting of excerpts of proceedings, adopted 30 November 1988;

(b) Televising of proceedings, adopted 16 October 1991;

(c) Extension of House monitoring service, adopted 28 September 1993;

(d) Radio broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings-general principles, adopted 20 September 1994; and

(e) Broadcasting of proceedings-conditions for broadcasters, adopted 1 May 1996; and

(2) in their place, adopt the following resolution:

1. Provision of broadcast

a. The House authorises the broadcast and rebroadcast of the proceedings and excerpts of proceedings of the House, its committees and of the Federation Chamber in accordance with this resolution.

b. The House authorises the provision of sound and vision coverage of proceedings of the House, its committees, and of the Federation Chamber, including records of past proceedings, through the House Monitoring Service and through the Parliament of Australia website.

c. Access to the House Monitoring Service sound and vision coverage of the proceedings of the House, its committees and the Federation Chamber is provided to persons and organisations as determined by the Speaker, on terms and conditions determined by the Speaker which must not be inconsistent with this resolution.

d. The Speaker shall report to the House on persons and organisations in receipt of the service and on any terms and conditions determined under paragraph 1(c).

e. Use of sound and vision coverage of proceedings of the House, its committees and the Federation Chamber, including records of past proceedings, published on the Parliament of Australia website is subject to conditions of use determined by the Speaker.

2. Broadcast of House of Representatives and Federation Chamber proceedings – House monitoring service

Access to proceedings provided through the House Monitoring Service is subject to compliance with the following conditions:

a. Only the following broadcast material shall be used:

  i. switched sound and vision feed of the House of Representatives, its committees and the Federation Chamber provided by the Parliament that is produced for broadcast, re-broadcast and archiving; and

  ii. official broadcast material supplied by authorised parliamentary staff.

b. Broadcast material shall be used only for the purposes of fair and accurate reports of proceedings, and shall not be used for:

  i. political party advertising or election campaigns; or

  ii. commercial sponsorship or commercial advertising.

c. Reports of proceedings shall be such as to provide a balanced presentation of differing views.

d. Excerpts of proceedings which are subsequently withdrawn may be broadcast only if the withdrawal is also reported.

e. The instructions of the Speaker or his or her delegates, which are not inconsistent with these conditions or the rules applying to the broadcasting of committee proceedings, shall be observed.

3. Broadcast of committee proceedings

The following conditions apply to the broadcasting of committee proceedings:

a. Recording and broadcasting of proceedings of a committee is subject to the authorisation of the committee;

b. A committee may authorise the broadcasting of only its public proceedings;

c. Recording and broadcasting of a committee is not permitted during suspensions of proceedings, or following an adjournment of proceedings;

d. A committee may determine conditions, not inconsistent with this resolution, for the recording and broadcasting of its proceedings, may order that any part of its proceedings not be recorded or broadcast, and may give instructions for the observance of conditions so determined and orders so made. A committee shall report to the House any wilful breach of such conditions, orders or instructions;

e. Recording and broadcasting of proceedings of a committee shall not interfere with the conduct of those proceedings, shall not encroach into the committee’s work area, or capture documents (either in hard copy or electronic form) in the possession of committee members, witnesses or committee staff;

f. Broadcasts of proceedings of a committee, including excerpts of committee proceedings, shall be for the purpose only of making fair and accurate reports of those proceedings, and shall not be used for:

  i. political party advertising or election campaigns; or

  ii. commercial sponsorship or commercial advertising;

g. Where a committee intends to permit the broadcasting of its proceedings, a witness who is to appear in those proceedings shall be given reasonable opportunity, before appearing in the proceedings, to object to the broadcasting of the proceedings and to state the ground of the objection. The committee shall consider any such objection, having regard to the proper protection of the witness and the public interest in the proceedings, and if the committee decides to permit broadcasting of the proceedings notwithstanding the witness’ objection, the witness shall be so informed before appearing in the proceedings.

4. Radio broadcast of parliamentary proceedings by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation – general principles

The House adopts the following general principles agreed to by the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings on 19 March 2013:

a. Allocation of the broadcast between the Senate and the House of Representatives

The proceedings of Parliament shall be broadcast live whenever a House is sitting. The allocation of broadcasts between the Senate and the House of Representatives will be in accordance with the standing determinations made by the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings. It is anticipated that over time, the coverage of each House will be approximately equal.

b. Rebroadcast of questions and answers

At the conclusion of the live broadcast of either House, questions without notice and answers thereto from the House not allocated the broadcast shall be rebroadcast.

c. Unusual or exceptional circumstances

Nothing in these general principles shall prevent the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings from departing from them in unusual or exceptional circumstances.

5. This resolution shall continue in force unless and until amended or rescinded by the House in this or a subsequent Parliament. (Notice given 20 November 2013.)

Today I introduce a resolution to replace the existing resolutions of the House for the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings. The terms of this resolution were developed and endorsed in the previous parliament by the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings. This resolution authorises the broadcast and re-broadcast of proceedings and excerpts of proceedings of the House, its committees and the Federation Chamber. The resolution allows the sound and vision coverage to be broadcast to the House monitoring service and through the Parliament of Australia website.

There are already resolutions adopted by the House to authorise the broadcast of proceedings. However, these old resolutions need to be updated to take into account new broadcast technologies and platforms, including broadcast via the Parliament House website and through social media. This resolution will do this while still retaining the clear control of the House over access to proceedings broadcast via the House monitoring service. The existing powers of committees to control the broadcast of their public proceedings remain, too.

The new resolution will also remove inconsistencies with the rules for media related activity in parliament house and its precincts. These media rules were revised by the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings, following a public inquiry, and were designed as part of a package to go with the revised resolution. This resolution will strengthen the nexus between the conditions of broadcasting and the responsibilities of accredited media personnel in Parliament House. An equivalent motion will be moved in the other place. I commend the resolution to the House.

In closing, this was a resolution of the House that the member for Grayndler, then Leader of the House, and I discussed in the dying days of the last parliament. We unfortunately ran out of time to move this resolution in the House. The resolution that I move today was largely agreed with the former Leader of the House before the election. The most significant aspect to it is the removal of the provisions of the House that do not allow the use of the broadcast to satirise and ridicule of members of parliament, which was a rule that was more honoured in the breach than kept by various media outlets, particularly the Daily Telegraph. Who can forget the various occasions on which members in this place have been satirised or ridiculed by the Daily Telegraph? Members of parliament need to have thick skins or develop them if they have not got them already. This resolution of the House brings into place the agreements that have been made between the opposition and the government and that were worked on by the joint parliamentary committee over many months. It updates the House to fit the modern understanding of how the media should broadcast the parliament.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and welcome the adoption of the resolution, which reflect the rules for media related activity in Parliament House and its precincts that were adopted by the committee and endorsed and tabled by the presiding officers in late 2012. These will now be in force. I want to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the members of the Joint Standing Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings. I want to begin by thanking the honourable member for Chisholm, who chaired the committee in her capacity as Speaker of the House of Representatives. The member for Chisholm is attending parliamentary commitments overseas in the Cook Islands and is unable to speak here today. But I wish to convey to the House her sentiments. I also want to commend her stewardship of the committee and in particular I want to thank her for her dedication and for the focus she showed as chair during the inquiry that the committee conducted into media related activity at Parliament House.

Given the nature of the inquiry, sensitivity and diplomacy were required, especially when dealing with members of the press gallery and representatives of other media outlets, in particular because we were discussing the parameters of media related activity and the usage of footage taken in Parliament House. As such, I would also like to thank other members of the committee, including no less than Senator the Hon. John Hogg, the President of the Senate. I also want to thank the member for Parkes; the member for Fowler; the Hon. John Murphy, the former member for Reid, who is very well known for his keen interest in media related activity in Parliament House; the member for Longman; Senator Stephen Parry; and Senator Lin Thorp.

The inquiry gave the committee the opportunity to look at issues, take evidence and form recommendations to bring the broadcasting of parliamentary proceedings in line with the changing nature of modern broadcasting requirements and community expectations. We worked in a collegiate and bipartisan manner with a clear view that all the stakeholders, parliament and media, needed to work together to devise the best possible and most workable rules that effectively work in the public interest.

Many thanks need to also go to the following people who served in the secretariat: Mr James Catchpole, who was secretary from 2 October 2012; Siwan Davies, who was secretary until 2 October 2012; and Sonia Palmieri, who served as secretary until 17 December 2012.

In conclusion, the committee has put together a series of rules that reflect the expectations of the stakeholders and that will provide a workable and fair framework in which we can conduct our procedures and interactions. It is a fair balance between preserving the requirements of dignity and privacy while at the same time giving the appropriate access necessary to the press in their cause of reporting and accountability. I commend the rules to the House.

Question agreed to.